So read the note from Dick Cheney,
translated for the jury by Scooter Libby's lawyer Ted Wells, paraphrased by Michael Isikoff:
The vice president was not going to allow Karl Rove to be protected and Libby to be sacrificed. Libby had stuck his neck “in the meat grinder” because he had been authorized by President Bush himself to talk to reporters and rebut what the White House considered unfair criticism by Wilson that the intelligence about Iraq had been “twisted.” And the “incompetence” Cheney was referring to was by the CIA which, he claimed, was responsible for whatever the White House had gotten wrong about Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction.
It looks like the trial is going to be quite a meat grinder.
Per Isikoff:Well’s argument was both brilliant and complex-and perhaps difficult for non-news hounds on the jury to follow. But it raised the prospect that the Libby trial will now turn into a horror show for the White House, forcing current and former top aides to testify against each other and revealing an administration that has been in turmoil over the Iraq war for more than three years.
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The incompetence and treachery occurred when Cheney, Libby, Rove, et. al., decided to out the undercover CIA officer in tracking WMDs in Iraq and Iran.
Could the incompetence have been more perfect? As if Cheney were a Al Qaeda plant.
In Hubris, David Corn and Michael Isikoff talk a bit about what sources told them about Valerie Plame Wilson's role in the CIA's counterproliferation division of the DO. From Hubris, page 285:
She [Valerie Plame Wilson] picked weapons and requested an assignment in the DO's new Counterproliferation Division, a unit Congress had pushed the CIA to create to address concerns about the spread of weapons of mass destruction….
After maternity leave, Valerie Wilson returned to the CIA's Counterproliferation Division in the spring of 2001. She was given a choice: she could work on North Korea or Iraq. She selected Iraq and became one of the two operations officers working for the CPD's rather modest Iraq branch. But within months, it would expand into the Joint Task Force on Iraq and assume one of the agency's most important missions: the search for intelligence on Iraq's WMD's. (She also assisted on operations related to Iran.) (emphasis mine)
Corn further elaborated in a story for The Nation thusly:
Valerie Wilson was no analyst or paper-pusher. She was an operations officer working on a top priority of the Bush Administration. Armitage, Rove and Libby had revealed information about a CIA officer who had searched for proof of the President's case. In doing so, they harmed her career and put at risk operations she had worked on and foreign agents and sources she had handled….
Posted in legal, Iraq, CIA Leak Case, Iran, Plame, Oversight | 188 Comments
Haha! David Corn. Yeah, that guy has no axe to grind whatsoever.
I think reality check needs to stick to knee jerk Bush-hating and stay away from trying to present "evidence".
I hope Scooter Libby's defense is not going down this road. Libby has every right to be angry as it is not even clear that he committed a crime and if he did, it was probably inadvertent. That said, even in the event he is convicted he was almost guaranteed to be pardoned by the President if he stayed loyal. His career would be hurt by a conviction but not ruined (see Elliott Abrams).
However, if his defense is predicated on blaming everything on Karl Rove and claiming he was the White House's fall guy, he may be found not guilty but his political career is probably over and in the event he is convicted he may not get the pardon.
Currently, the Vice President is standing behind him (and I suspect will continue to do so), I am just hoping this doesn't become a huge media story where Joe Wilson is once again seen as this great victim.
I am not quite sure why unreality check thinks that Corn has any sort of credibility there. Nevertheless:
- There is no evidence that Plame was legally covert at the time of the disclosure.
- There has been no evidence as yet that anyone in the Administration violated any laws when she was supposedly "outed".
- Fitzgerald has pretty much admitted that and never indicted anyone for outing Plame, despite millions of dollars and years spent, and multiple grand juries utilized trying to do so.
- First known disclosure was by Armitage, which is strong indicia that the dispute that caused it was between State and CIA. Apparently, bad blood between them from the CIA botching the Iraq WMD question. Even though Wilson was former State Dept., they made clear that this was a CIA operation and they had nothing to do with it, which is one reason that Wilson didn't get to talk to nearly as many people as he might have.
- To the extent that the adminstration "outed" Plame, her husband should shoulder most of the blame, going on a CIA junket to Niger at the suggestion and pushing of his wife, and then talking about it in the NY Times. No CIA sponsered junket suggested and pushed by Plame, or no NY Times op-ed by Wilson attacking the Administration, and there would have been no disclosure of her involvement with the CIA.
Partisan Moderate
Most crimes, including all of those even remotely alleged here, require some sort of intent. The two charged, purjury and obstruction of justice, clearly require intent, and that is one of the ways that the defense is going to attack the charges.
Fitzgerald has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Libby intentionally lied. And Libby should get off if he said whatever is claimed to be a lie, was said without the intention of lying or obstructing justice. Merely making a mistake isn't criminal.
the “incompetence” Cheney was referring to was by the CIA which, he claimed, was responsible
This is the ultimate condemnation of the Agency, which has historically been a nest of vipers, doing the business of cutting off America at her knees.
One of the necessary outcomes must be the gutting and rebuilding of the CIA into an agency that actually looks out for American interests, instead of subverting them.
I don't see Libby turning on the Administration at this point. Part of the reason that Fitzgerald went after him was to get him to flip on either Rove or Cheney, and he didn't.
It should be noted that of all the participants here, it was only Libby who was indicted. Not Armitage who was the original leaker, or Ari Fleischer who had access to classified information that Libby didn't and appears to have disclosed Plame's identity a week before Libby did. Instead, the later got immunity. And of course, not Rove or Cheney (though how the VP could have been indicted is highly questionable, given his formal declassification authority).
It is esp. interesting that many of those who had the most relevant information were never brought before the GJ, or if they were, weren't sworn in. It appears that the whole investigation, almost from the start, was aimed at Libby, Rove, and Cheney, regardless of culpability of any others. And Libby didn't roll on Rove or Cheney when he had the chance to avoid prosecution by doing so. So, why do it now?
It appears that the prosecution's leadoff witness (Grossman) told different stories to the FBI and Grand Jury. Apparently, he too is having memory lapses, and he had his notes, whereas Libby had turned his in well before he went before the Grand Jury.
Not a good start for a prosecution trying to prove that Libby's inconsistencies were intentional.
Apparently, the defense also got some of Wilson's NYT op-ed into evidence, and that he was upset about being called "low level" by Cheney.
reality check: next please update us on Watergate or Iran-Contra.
It appears that the prosecution's leadoff witness (Grossman) told different stories to the FBI and Grand Jury. Apparently, he too is having memory lapses, and he had his notes, whereas Libby had turned his in well before he went before the Grand Jury.
Not a good start for a prosecution trying to prove that Libby's inconsistencies were intentional.
Apparently, the defense also got some of Wilson's NYT op-ed into evidence, and that he was upset about being called "low level" by Cheney.
If anyone is found guilty in this or any subsequent trial(s), I expect outgoing President Bush will pardon them.
Libby doesn't have a "political career." He's a D.C. Superlawyer. If he avoids conviction, he'll land on his feet and be advising somebody else, or at a minimum lobbying, pretty quickly after the trial is over. Don't let the nickname "Scooter" fool you into thinking he's some non-serious little frat boy. He ain't, he's in spite of all the sinistrosphere's attempts to belittle him. He's a moderately heavy hitter, more part of the D.C. establishment than Bush and Rove are (as is Cheney), so you need to read some of into what he is doing.
any chance ol' Shooter Dick will stick his neck in the meat grinder?...talk about non-lean meat. ohmygod. candle wax anyone.
If thats the case, what about the Left's argument that the Bush Administration is made up of a bunch of "yes-men."
Every Administration has these issues, which is why it's called an "Administration" rather than just Bush.
Sloanasaurus said...
"Every Administration has these issues, which is why it's called an "Administration" rather than just Bush."
Yet another case when Sloan meant to hit delete or edit and instead hit publish. Oh the humanity.
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