Administration strikes back at Joseph Wilson

[Rspaight]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld ... 6857.story

Columnist Names CIA Iraq Operative

By Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce
Washington Bureau

July 21, 2003, 9:48 PM EDT

Washington -- The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."

Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.

Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife's employment, said the release to the press of her relationship to him and even her maiden name was an attempt to intimidate others like him from talking about Bush administration intelligence failures.

"It's a shot across the bow to these people, that if you talk we'll take your family and drag them through the mud as well," he said in an interview.

It was Wilson who started the controversy that has engulfed the Bush administration by writing in the New York Times two weeks ago that he had traveled to Niger last year at the request of the CIA to investigate reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium there. Though he told the CIA and the State Department there was no basis to the report, the allegation was used anyway by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union speech in January.

Wilson and a retired CIA official said Monday that the "senior administration officials" who named Plame had, if their description of her employment was accurate, violated the law and may have endangered her career and possibly the lives of her contacts in foreign countries. Plame could not be reached for comment.

"When it gets to the point of an administration official acting to do career damage, and possibly actually endanger someone, that's mean, that's petty, it's irresponsible, and it ought to be sanctioned," said Frank Anderson, former CIA Near East Division chief.

A current intelligence official said that blowing the cover of an undercover officer could affect the officer's future assignments and put them and everyone they dealt with overseas in the past at risk.

"If what the two senior administration officials said is true," Wilson said carefully, "they will have compromised an entire career of networks, relationships and operations." What's more, it would mean that "this White House has taken an asset out of the" weapons of mass destruction fight, "not to mention putting at risk any contacts she might have had where the services are hostile."

Deputy White House Press Secretary Claire Buchan referred questions to a National Security Council spokesman who did not return phone calls last night.

"This might be seen as a smear on me and my reputation," Wilson said, "but what it really is is an attempt to keep anybody else from coming forward" to reveal similar intelligence lapses.

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

Wilson and others said such a disclosure would be a violation of the law by the officials, not the columnist.

Novak reported that his "two senior administration officials" told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger.

A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.

But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can't figure out what it could be."

"We paid his air fare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there," the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses.

[mikenycLI]

Bush is, obviously, using EVERYTHING he can, to survive.

It's interesting, because their Moron Information Policy on this, and the entire Iraqi Thing, has been Embarassingly Stupid and Inept. That they don't stop jabbering with conflicting reasons and information, is NO accident.

The are employing the "Baffle Them With B.S." strategy...release a different explanation of things, several times everyday, from different sources in and out of Govt. and the USA, overwelming the Public and the Media with conflicting ideas, theories, and conflicting stories, pummeling the public consciousness with this, 24/7, until apathy sets in.

Look at what went on about the WMD debate, prior to the war, and see where it's headed to date.

[Rspaight]

Bush interviewed in CIA leak probe
President joined by Jim Sharp, his personal attorney
From Dana Bash
CNN Washington Bureau
Thursday, June 24, 2004 Posted: 9:18 PM EDT (0118 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush was interviewed Thursday morning by a special prosecutor investigating whether anyone in the administration disclosed the classified identity of a CIA officer, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters.

This is the first time Bush has been questioned in a criminal investigation involving his administration.

Bush was not under oath for the interview, which took place in the Oval Office for about an hour and 10 minutes and was conducted by Patrick Fitzgerald and "members of his team," according to the White House.

The president was joined by Jim Sharp, a personal attorney whom he retained for this case.

The White House would not say when the president hired Sharp, saying only that it was "recently."

Prosecutors are investigating whether federal law was violated in leaking the name of an undercover CIA operative to syndicated columnist and CNN contributor Robert Novak, who published her name in a 2003 column.

Novak attributed the information to administration sources, but he has refused to identify who told him the name, insisting his sources must remain confidential.

The operative is the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who accused Bush of making unfounded claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs in the 2003 State of the Union address in the run-up to war in Iraq.

Wilson visited Niger in early 2002 on behalf of the CIA to investigate a British report alleging that Iraq attempted to buy yellowcake -- uranium ore -- from Niger to develop nuclear weapons.

Wilson reported finding no evidence to support the allegation months before Bush made the speech.

Wilson has said he believes the White House leaked his wife's name in retaliation for his criticism of the administration.

"The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation," McClellan said.

"He was pleased to do his part to help the investigation move forward. No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the president of the United States and he has said on more than one occasion that if anyone inside or outside the government has information to help get to the bottom of this, they should help."

McClellan deferred to the investigators all questions about the substance of the questioning or whether Bush was explicitly told he was not the target of the probe.

He said that after the interview, the the president told him he was "glad to do it."

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee took a dimmer view of the administration's cooperation with the probe.

"White House claims that they are fully cooperating with this investigation seem at odds with the president feeling the need to hire a private lawyer," said spokesman Jano Cabrera.

"Whether his private lawyer was by his side or not, we hope that Bush remembered today how his father felt about those who would expose the names of our intelligence agents -- namely that those would do so were the most insidious of traitors."

Cabrera was referring a comment made once by the first President Bush who criticized people who identify intelligence agents.

Vice President Dick Cheney was interviewed by investigators earlier this month.

Several members of the president's staff have appeared before the grand jury on this matter.

[mikenycLI]

ALL OF THIS means NOTHING as this was NOT sworn testimony.

I would be "glad to do it", if it was as meaningless as it turns out to be!

[Rspaight]

It's generally not sworn testimony when they "interview" you as part of a criminal investigation. However, since he had his lawyer there, you'd better believe it was on the record.

Ryan

[lukpac]

Fascinating analysis at Salon, especially regarding the 5th Amendment issues...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/ ... me_wilson/

No moment of truth?
Cheney, Rove and Libby may be subpoenaed in the Plame-Wilson lawsuit. But will they actually have to say anything on the witness stand?

By Alex Koppelman

Jul. 14, 2006 | Thursday night there was already disagreement among Plamegate obsessives over the outlook for Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson's lawsuit against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and their as-yet unidentified codefendants. John Dean was telling Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's "Countdown" that the Wilsons had a strong case, followed by Lawrence O'Donnell insisting the case was weak. O'Donnell told Olbermann he suspected that Vice President Cheney might succeed in getting the suit tossed out of court.

But even if the case does move forward, Plamegate aficionados may be deprived of their long-awaited moment of truth.

For those who want to see Karl Rove "frog-marched" to jail, in Joseph Wilson's famous formulation, a civil suit offers the possibility that Rove will have to answer more questions under oath about his role in the outing of Wilson's wife as an undercover CIA operative. In civil court, unlike criminal court, a defendant cannot refuse to testify, and the scope of questioning permitted to both sides is much wider.

But if the civil suit is permitted to go forward, defendants will try to defer it indefinitely. Libby's lawyers will want to postpone any civil action until after his criminal trial on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements. And should the defendants ever be compelled to testify, they will still be able to take the Fifth Amendment. In that regard, ironically, the fact that the defendants have never been indicted for the alleged crime underlying the suit means they are in a better position than if they'd been charged and acquitted or had their indictments thrown out of court.

The lawsuit alleges that Libby, Cheney, Rove and 10 unidentified defendants violated the Wilsons' First and Fifth Amendment rights by "reach[ing] an agreement to discredit, punish and seek revenge against the [Wilsons] that included, among other things, disclosing to members of the press Plaintiff Valerie Plame Wilson's classified CIA employment."

It also, in passing, accuses the defendants of a crime. Buried near the end of the suit is a single sentence: "Each defendant had knowledge that their common scheme involved the disclosure of Plaintiff Valerie Plame Wilson's classified CIA employment." The Wilsons are bringing the charge that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was never able to bring -- namely, that Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA agent was classified, and that Libby, Cheney and Rove knew that when they disclosed her identity. Lawyers for the Wilsons have declined to comment until after Friday morning's press conference, but in an interview with Salon in which he reaffirmed his belief in the suit's merits, John Dean pointed out that this resemblance to a criminal allegation is purely inadvertent. "The suit is about harm."

Nevertheless, at the heart of proving harm to the Wilsons will be any and all evidence of what remains a criminal act. In depositions or on the stand, the Wilsons' legal team will be asking questions about an alleged crime for which no one has been convicted, which invites some interesting comparisons with a pair of notorious celebrity trials.

When Robert Blake was acquitted of the murder of his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, Bakley's children turned to the only legal option left them and sued Blake for their mother's death. What Bakley's children did was exactly what the family of Ron Goldman did after O.J. Simpson's acquittal on murder charges. Strange as it may sound, these suits are not that different from what the Wilsons are doing in filing suit against Libby, Cheney and Rove. All sought, or are seeking, to take advantage of the differences between a civil suit and a criminal prosecution to try to prove in civil court what prosecutors could not.

Civil suits have a lower standard of proof. "In a civil court, you have to show it's more likely than not the person did it, as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal case," says Eric Dubin, the attorney who represented Bakley's children in their suit against Blake. "Theoretically, in a civil case, you have to prove 51 percent sure, as opposed to reasonable doubt, which is sometimes 99 percent or higher."

The second difference lies in the nature of discovery. Civil defendants cannot refuse to testify, and attorneys have greater latitude in what questions they can ask. These looser rules produced the twin tabloid spectacles of Simpson and Blake squirming on the witness stand as they were grilled about their respective wives' violent deaths.

The Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination, however, still applies to Libby, Cheney Rove and the unidentified defendants in a way it didn't for Blake and Simpson. Both Blake and Simpson had already been acquitted, and because of the Constitution's protection against double jeopardy, they could not be charged for the same crime again. Since they were no longer at risk of self-incrimination, they could no longer invoke the Fifth to avoid answering questions about the murders.

"The first time I tried to depose Blake [before the criminal trial]," Dubin explains, "he wouldn't even answer a question about his date of birth. After the criminal trial was over, he had to answer every single question."

The defendants in the Wilsons' lawsuit, in contrast, can still refuse to answer certain questions. They haven't been prosecuted for the criminal allegation at the heart of the case and thus could still incriminate themselves. Even an indictment and a dismissal, under certain circumstances, would have diminished their Fifth Amendment protections. Despite the fact that they may, at long last, have to answer many questions about their conduct three years ago, Libby, Cheney, and Rove can still keep mum if they desire on those questions for which Plame watchers most want answers.

-- By Alex Koppelman

[krabapple]

Repeatedly taking the Fifth wouldn't look too good for any of them either, though.