(Updated 6/5) Bush/Wilson scandal: Bush gets outside attorney, just in case

[Gaard]

Isn't a Grand Jury used to determine if there is enough of a case to bring charges against someone? So do they have someone in mind? Or is a Grand Jury simply another general investigation tool? Yes, I'm revealing my ignorance, but I don't care. 😉


WMD
Plame
9/11

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Gaard
Isn't a Grand Jury used to determine if there is enough of a case to bring charges against someone? So do they have someone in mind? Or is a Grand Jury simply another general investigation tool? Yes, I'm revealing my ignorance, but I don't care. 😉


WMD
Plame
9/11

From the NYT article:

Using a grand jury offers valuable tools, current and former prosecutors said. It allows investigators to obtain testimony from witnesses and subpoena telephone logs and other records that people may be unwilling to turn over voluntarily, and it gives them some cover by giving the grand jury, at least officially, the final say over whether there is enough evidence to indict anyone. Using a grand jury "is a prelude to the end," a former senior Justice Department official said.

Prosecutors "could never get away with shutting this thing down without putting the principals before a grand jury," the former official said. "This way, you force them to testify or take the Fifth."

 

[Jhhnn]

Prosecutors "could never get away with shutting this thing down without putting the principals before a grand jury," the former official said. "This way, you force them to testify or take the Fifth."

Selective grants of immunity can work wonders, too... As far as I'm concerned, they could give 'em all blanket immunity. Whoever the perps are, they're obviously part of the inner circle- it's a lot more important to get them out of the govt than into jail...

If they were low-level functionaries, they'd already be twisting in the wind...

 

[Bowfinger]

Here is an update. It will be interesting to see if this is accurate:

Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe

Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said.

The case centers on Valerie Plame, a CIA operative then working for the weapons of mass destruction division, and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who served as ambassador to Gabon and as a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad in the early 1990s. Under President Bill Clinton, he was head of African affairs until he retired in 1998, according to press accounts.

Wilson was sent by the Bush administration in March 2002 to check on an allegation made by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address the previous winter that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from the nation of Niger. Wilson returned with a report that said the claim was "highly doubtful."

On June 12, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus revealed that an unnamed diplomat had "given a negative report" on the claim and then, on July 6, as the Bush administration was widely accused of manipulating intelligence to get American public opinion behind a war with Iraq, Wilson published an op-ed piece in the Post in which he accused the Bush administration of "misrepresenting the facts." His piece also asked, "What else are they lying about?"

According to one administration official, "The White House was really pissed, and began to contact six journalists in order to plant stories to discredit Wilson," according to the New York Times and other accounts.

As Pincus said in a Sept. 29 radio broadcast, "The reason for putting out the story about Wilson's wife working for the CIA was to undermine the credibility of [Wilson's] mission for the agency in Niger. Wilson, as the last top diplomat in Iraq at the time of the Gulf War, had credibility beyond his knowledge of Africa, which was his specialty. So his going to Niger to check the allegation that Iraq had sought uranium there and returning to say he had no confirmation was considered very credible."

Eight days later, columnist Robert Novak wrote a column in which he named Wilson's wife and revealed she was "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Since Plame was working undercover, it exposed her and, in the opinion of some, ruined her usefulness and her career. It also violated a 1982 law that prohibits revealing the identity of U.S. intelligence agents.

On Oct. 7, Bush said that unauthorized disclosure of an undercover CIA officer's identity was "a criminal matter" and the Justice Department had begun its investigation into the source of the leak.

Richard Sale is an intelligence correspondent for UPI, a sister wire service of Insight magazine.

 

[Bowfinger]

Another update, this one from The Guardian. Sounds like the noose may be tightening around Dick.

Cheney's future at stake after leaking of CIA agent's name
Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday February 11, 2004
The Guardian

Vice President Dick Cheney's political future was at stake yesterday in Washington, where a grand jury investigation was questioning administration officials about his office's role in leaking the name of a CIA operative for political motives.

The inquiry has already questioned the president's spokesman and one of his media advisers over the identification of Valerie Plame, which is developing into one of the administration's main headaches in an election year.

However, informed sources said last night that three of the five officials who are the real targets of the probe work or worked for Mr Cheney.

Until recently, President Bush has insisted that Mr Cheney would be his vice-presidential candidate in the November elections, despite his history of heart trouble.

But recent polls conducted by the White House have suggested that growing unpopularity of the taciturn ex-businessman and powerful administration hawk threatens to sink the president.

Mr Cheney is already under intense fire from Democrats for his personal role in shaping the case for war against Iraq, frequently visiting the CIA to question assessments that played down Saddam Hussein's arsenal.

His former role as head of a giant oil services corporation, Halliburton, is also under scrutiny, as the company is under investigation for bribery when Mr Cheney was in charge and, more recently for war-profiteering in Iraq.

But the grand jury investigation into the CIA leak is potentially the most explosive threat to his long-term political survival.

The case centres around the leaking to the press in July of the name of Valerie Plame, apparently in response to public questioning of the US case for war against Iraq by her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador.

The leaking of an undercover agent's identity is a serious crime under US law. The hearings are leading justice department investigators towards the vice president's office, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

"Three of the five people who are targets work or worked in Cheney's office," the source said.

He added that members of the defence policy board, a Pentagon advisory group, are also under scrutiny. Sensing the danger to the administration, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman, Terry McCauliffe issued a statement to say: "Now that the FBI is getting closer to finding out who inside the Bush White House put the lives of CIA agents in danger, we hope that President Bush will keep his word and hold accountable those responsible for the White House leak - no matter how high their post."

The chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, outlined the president's position. "The leak of classified information is a very serious matter," he said

A parallel grand jury is looking into the forgery of a document that surfaced in Italy before the war, purporting to show Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Niger. Despite doubts over its authenticity, the document underpinned US and British claims, since proved groundless, that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear weapons programme.


A third grand jury in Washington is looking into allegations that a Halliburton subsidiary paid $180m in bribes to secure lucrative contracts to build a gas plant in Nigeria, at the time Mr Cheney was chief executive, from 1995 to 2000.

More recently the corporation has been caught overcharging millions of dollars for the delivery of petrol to the US military in Iraq.

The vice president claims to have severed his ties with the controversial company but he continues to receive payments of about $150,000 a year in tax-minimising "deferred compensation" from his time as an executive.

I didn't know about the second grand jury investigating the Niger document. Sounds like this administration is finally getting a bit of badly-needed scrutiny.

 

[wirelessenabled]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Another update, this one from The Guardian. Sounds like the noose may be tightening around Dick.

Cheney's future at stake after leaking of CIA agent's name
Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday February 11, 2004
The Guardian

Vice President Dick Cheney's political future was at stake yesterday in Washington, where a grand jury investigation was questioning administration officials about his office's role in leaking the name of a CIA operative for political motives.

The inquiry has already questioned the president's spokesman and one of his media advisers over the identification of Valerie Plame, which is developing into one of the administration's main headaches in an election year.

However, informed sources said last night that three of the five officials who are the real targets of the probe work or worked for Mr Cheney.

Until recently, President Bush has insisted that Mr Cheney would be his vice-presidential candidate in the November elections, despite his history of heart trouble.

But recent polls conducted by the White House have suggested that growing unpopularity of the taciturn ex-businessman and powerful administration hawk threatens to sink the president.

Mr Cheney is already under intense fire from Democrats for his personal role in shaping the case for war against Iraq, frequently visiting the CIA to question assessments that played down Saddam Hussein's arsenal.

His former role as head of a giant oil services corporation, Halliburton, is also under scrutiny, as the company is under investigation for bribery when Mr Cheney was in charge and, more recently for war-profiteering in Iraq.

But the grand jury investigation into the CIA leak is potentially the most explosive threat to his long-term political survival.

The case centres around the leaking to the press in July of the name of Valerie Plame, apparently in response to public questioning of the US case for war against Iraq by her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador.

The leaking of an undercover agent's identity is a serious crime under US law. The hearings are leading justice department investigators towards the vice president's office, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

"Three of the five people who are targets work or worked in Cheney's office," the source said.

He added that members of the defence policy board, a Pentagon advisory group, are also under scrutiny. Sensing the danger to the administration, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman, Terry McCauliffe issued a statement to say: "Now that the FBI is getting closer to finding out who inside the Bush White House put the lives of CIA agents in danger, we hope that President Bush will keep his word and hold accountable those responsible for the White House leak - no matter how high their post."

The chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, outlined the president's position. "The leak of classified information is a very serious matter," he said

A parallel grand jury is looking into the forgery of a document that surfaced in Italy before the war, purporting to show Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Niger. Despite doubts over its authenticity, the document underpinned US and British claims, since proved groundless, that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear weapons programme.


A third grand jury in Washington is looking into allegations that a Halliburton subsidiary paid $180m in bribes to secure lucrative contracts to build a gas plant in Nigeria, at the time Mr Cheney was chief executive, from 1995 to 2000.

More recently the corporation has been caught overcharging millions of dollars for the delivery of petrol to the US military in Iraq.

The vice president claims to have severed his ties with the controversial company but he continues to receive payments of about $150,000 a year in tax-minimising "deferred compensation" from his time as an executive.

I didn't know about the second grand jury investigating the Niger document. Sounds like this administration is finally getting a bit of badly-needed scrutiny.

Who's going to run the Government if Cheney is canned? 😀😀

 

[sMiLeYz]

No one understands how serious this is, leaking the identity of a CIA operative constitutions treason. People all over the intelligence field are furious about this, and whats worse this most likely is going to be brushed under the carpet.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: sMiLeYz
No one understands how serious this is, leaking the identity of a CIA operative constitutions treason. People all over the intelligence field are furious about this, and whats worse this most likely is going to be brushed under the carpet.

<- runs around flailing arms in the air.
There, that helped





...me feel better.

CkG

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY

Originally posted by: sMiLeYz
No one understands how serious this is, leaking the identity of a CIA operative constitutions treason. People all over the intelligence field are furious about this, and whats worse this most likely is going to be brushed under the carpet.

<- runs around flailing arms in the air.
There, that helped





...me feel better.

CkG

Hmmmif Cheney fscked over a CIA Operative maybe the CIA got even by giving him faulty Intel..Nah, that would be too ironic.

 

[Bowfinger]

Lately we seem to be besieged by P&N irregulars popping in with drive-by disinformation-ings. Rather than continually rehashing old ground, I thought it was time to bring some of the more informative threads back to the foreground. If they take a few minutes to educate themselves, we can save a lot of time and aggravation.

(Or not, but it's worth a try.)

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY

Originally posted by: sMiLeYz No one understands how serious this is, leaking the identity of a CIA operative constitutions treason. People all over the intelligence field are furious about this, and whats worse this most likely is going to be brushed under the carpet.

<- runs around flailing arms in the air. There, that helped ...me feel better. CkG

Have you, CAD, no shame? :|

 

[sMiLeYz]

Originally posted by: Perknose

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY

Originally posted by: sMiLeYz No one understands how serious this is, leaking the identity of a CIA operative constitutions treason. People all over the intelligence field are furious about this, and whats worse this most likely is going to be brushed under the carpet.

<- runs around flailing arms in the air. There, that helped ...me feel better. CkG

Have you, <STRONG>CAD</strong>, no shame? :|

No he really doesn't have any shame.

 

[shiner]

Ok...let's assume for a second that somehow Cheney is linked to the leak and he ends up leaving the ticket for this fall's election.

The Democrats better think twice about wanting Cheney off the ticket.....if that were to happen he would almost surely be replaced by Condoleezza Rice....and that would spell the end for the Democratic ticket having hopes of actually winning. Rice is one smart cookie....hell I would rather see her on the top of the ticket.....big big fan of hers.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Lately we seem to be besieged by P&N irregulars popping in with drive-by disinformation-ings. Rather than continually rehashing old ground, I thought it was time to bring some of the more informative threads back to the foreground. If they take a few minutes to educate themselves, we can save a lot of time and aggravation.

(Or not, but it's worth a try.)

Bumped for AEB. Please read.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
As with the discussion about the 9/11 commission, this investigation would be another opportunity for a statesman to lead by example, to show his administration that he insists on nothing short of complete and unconditional cooperation.

If that's the case, we certainly have no statesman at the helm. Condoleezza Rice won't even testify in public at the 9/11 commission hearings and that, in the words of two of the commissioners (on CNN) is "disappointing". And there's this article:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4584265/

"The Commission is very disappointed that the administration has not allowed Dr. Rice to testify in public,? said Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat and former Watergate prosecutor. ?She?s appeared everyplace else except the corner grocery,? he said. ?Why she would not appear before the Commission charged with investigating the facts of 9/11 is beyond us.?

 

[chess9]

Bush won't drop Cheney, regardless. Bush is more loyal than a Labrador Retriever. And, even if he were to be removed from the ticket, what makes you think Rice would be his replacement? I don't think so. She is severely damaged goods.

-Robert

 

[bozack]

he should drop cheney for Mitt Romney or something, much stronger ticket IMHO.

 

[Bowfinger]

For you left-coasters, NBC Dateline's lead story tonight is an interview with Wilson about this scandal. Based on Wilson's research, his wife was exposed by Cheney, Scooter Libby, or someone else high up in Cheney's staff.

It's nice to see this getting some prime-time television exposure. I hope the grand jury hands down an indictment or two in the next few months.

 

[Gaard]

From Wilson's book. It's long, but it'll hold your attention.

LATE ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON, July 8, six days before Robert Novak's article about Valerie and me, a friend showed up at my office with a strange and disturbing tale. He had been walking down Pennsylvania Avenue toward my office near the White House when he came upon Novak, who, my friend assumed, was en route to the George Washington University auditorium for the daily taping of CNN's Crossfire. He asked Novak if he could walk a block or two with him, as they were headed in the same direction; Novak acquiesced. Striking up a conversation, my friend, without revealing that he knew me, asked Novak about the uranium controversy. It was a minor problem, Novak replied, and opined that the administration should have dealt with it weeks before. My friend then asked Novak what he thought about me, and Novak answered: "Wilson's an asshole. The CIA sent him. His wife, Valerie, works for the CIA. She's a weapons of mass destruction specialist. She sent him." At that point, my friend and Novak went their separate ways. My friend headed straight for my office a couple of blocks away.
Once he related this unsettling story to me, I asked him to immediately write down the details of the conversation and afterwards ushered him out of my office. Next, I contacted the head of the news division at CNN, Eason Jordan, Novak's titular boss, whom I had known for a number of years. It took several calls, but I finally tracked him down on his cell phone. I related to him the details of my friend's encounter with Novak and pointed out that whatever my wife might or might not be, it was the height of irresponsibility for Novak to share such information with an absolute stranger on a Washington street. I asked him to speak to Novak for me, but he demurred- he said he did not know him very well-and suggested that I speak to Novak myself. I arranged for him to have Novak call me and hung up.

Novak called the next morning, but I was out, and then so was he. We did not connect until the following day,July 10. He listened quietly as I repeated to him my friend's account of their conversation. I told him I couldn't imagine what had possessed him to blurt out to a complete stranger what he had thought he knew about my wife.

Novak apologized, and then asked if I would confirm what he had heard from a CIA source: that my wife worked at the Agency. I told him that I didn't answer questions about my wife. I told him that my story was not about my wife or even about me; it was about sixteen words in
the State of the Union address.

I then read to him three sentences from a 1990 news story about the evacuation of Baghdad: "The chief American diplomat, Joe Wilson, shepherds his flock of some 800 known Americans like a village priest. At 4:30 Sunday morning, he was helping 55 wives and children of U.S. diplomats from Kuwait load themselves and their few remaining possessions on transport for the long haul on the desert to Jordan. He shows the stuff of heroism." The reporters who had written this, I pointed out, were Robert Novak and Rowland Evans. I suggested to
Novak that he might want to check his files before writing about me. I also offered to send him all the articles I had written in the past year on policy toward Iraq so that he could educate himself on the positions I had taken. He would learn, if he took the time, that I was hardly antiwar, just anti-dumb war. Before I hung up, Novak apologized again for having spoken about Valerie to a complete stranger.

The following Monday, July 14, 2003, I read Novak's syndicated column in the Washington Post. The sixth paragraph of the ten-paragraph story leapt out at me: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report."

When I showed it to Valerie, she was stoic in her manner but I could see she was crestfallen. Twenty years of loyal service down the drain, and for what, she asked after she had read it. What was Novak trying to say? What did blowing her cover have to do with the story? It was nothing but a hatchet job. She immediately began to prepare a checklist of things she needed to do to minimize the fallout to projects she was working on. Ever efficient, she jotted down reminders to mask the emotions swirling through her body. Finally, as the enormity of what Novak had done now settled on her, she sat in the corner and wondered aloud if she would still have any friends left after they found out that the person they knew was not her at all but a lie that she lived very convincingly.

Amid the welter of emotions I felt that morning, I tried to understand a particular element of Novak's story.

He cited not a CIA source, as he had indicated on the phone four days earlier, but rather two senior administration sources; I called him for a clarification. He asked if I was very displeased with the article, and I replied that I did not see what the mention of my wife had added to it but that the reason for my call was to question his sources. When we first spoke, he had cited to me a CIA source, yet his published story cited two senior administration sources. He replied: "I misspoke the first time we talked."

A couple of days before Novak's article was published, but after my friend's strange encounter with him, I had received a call from Post reporter Walter Pincus, who alerted me that "they are coming after you."

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
For you left-coasters, NBC Dateline's lead story tonight is an interview with Wilson about this scandal. Based on Wilson's research, his wife was exposed by Cheney, Scooter Libby, or someone else high up in Cheney's staff.

It's nice to see this getting some prime-time television exposure. I hope the grand jury hands down an indictment or two in the next few months.

Actually no, he doesnt claim Cheney, he claims Cheneys aide Scooter Libby, NS aide John Hannah or Bush Political Advisor Karl Rove in that order.

He feels its likely Libby or Hannah.

 

[Bowfinger]

Update: Bush got an outside attorney for the Wilson/Plame investigation, just in case. From CNN:

Bush consults lawyer in CIA leak case

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush has consulted an outside lawyer in case he needs to retain him in the grand jury investigation of who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year, the White House said Wednesday.

There was no indication that Bush is a target of the leak investigation, but the president has decided that in the event he needs an attorney's advice, "he would retain him," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.

The lawyer is Jim Sharp, Buchan said, confirming a report by CBS News.

"The president has said that everyone should cooperate in this matter and that would include himself," the spokeswoman said.

She deflected questions about whether Bush had been asked to appear before a grand jury in the case.

A federal grand jury in Washington is investigating who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to the news media. Plame's name first surfaced last July in a column written by commentator Robert Novak, who said his information came from administration sources.

Wilson has said he believes his wife's name was leaked because of his criticism of Bush administration claims that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger, which Wilson investigated for the CIA.

 

[Jhhnn]

The Bush Whitehouse version of cooperation- Lawyer Up, Dude...

If Dubya said "Bring me the head of this stupid SOB", he'd have it in rather short order. But he didn't, which indicates that he knows a lot more than he's telling, and that he intends to protect this member of his inner circle... This wasn't somebody's aide, or they'd have been tossed to the wolves long ago...

 

[CaptnKirk]

Well then Bow, that's an interesting development.

We may be seeing the tip of another Whitewater Event here,
where the very top is suspected to be involved - and in over their heads.
Just like Nixon Almighty, even Bush is not above the law.

We'll just have to wait this out and see how much 'distraction' manifests itself.

 

[DealMonkey]

Well, seeing as Clinton was the test-case for the USSC decision that a sitting president can be subject to a lawsuit by a private citizen (i.e. Paul Jones), Wilson should just sue Bush and find out what he knows under oath. 🙂

 

[Bowfinger]

n/m