KARL ROVE/VALERIE PLAME GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION
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Although this may be considered a relatively insignificant criminal conspiracy within the Bush
administration relative to all of the impeachable offenses committed by Bush and his administration,
this may be the beginning of the end of all of the lies, deception and killing that Bush and his
crime family have perpetrated on the world. Together with the Downing Street memo, impeachment
may even be considered by the Republicans to be a plausible avenue to take.
I will keep you updated on this unfolding investigation with the hope that the mainstream media will
be forced to report this story.
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Bob Novak's Plame Source Identified
By David Corn, TheNation.com
Posted on August 28, 2006, Printed on August 28, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/40929/One mystery solved.
It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who
first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador
Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee.
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Plame Files Suit against Cheney, Rove, Libby
07/13/2006 @ 3:55 pm
Filed by RAW STORY
Valerie Plame, the undercover CIA operative whose identity was revealed to reporters, has filed suit
against Vice President Dick Cheney, former top presidential policy adviser Karl Rove, and Cheney's
ex-chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on Thursday, RAW STORY has learned.
Plame is reportedly accusing the men of conspiring against her, targeting her career and reputation.
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Karl Rove Gets Off-I Want My Money Back!
Posted on Wednesday, June 14 @ 09:53:29 EDT
The American people were told three years ago that an investigation was being set up to doone thing, find out the names of the 2 Bush administration officials who were the sources for
a newspaper article by Bob Novak that revealed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative.
We now know that Rove was one of the sources - end of story. He should have been charged.
Does the Bush administration really think that the public will not remember what they were toldwhen this investigation was set up?
How Rove got Fitzgerald to fold and let him off is anybody's guess. Maybe Rove used his usualdirty tricks and dug deep enough to find some intimidating tale in the special prosecutor's lily-white past.
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MSNBC:Fitzgerald Turns toward Cheney
05/25/2006 @ 5:58 pm
Filed by RAW STORY
In Hardball's daily dish on the CIA leak trial Thursday, MSNBC's David Shuster said the latest
filings raise new questions about Vice President Cheney's potential role in the outing of a CIA agent,
and that sources close to Karl Rove confirm that Rove did have a followup conversation about his
calling conservative columnist Robert Novak. A report in the National Journal today suggests Novak
considered 'covering' for Rove in the case.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC ANCHOR: On Monday, Hardball correspondent David Shuster first
reported the likelihood Vice President Cheney himself would be called as a witness stand by prosecutors
in the CIA leak case against Scooter Libby. Last night, prosecutors filed a motion formally notifying Libby
and the Court that Cheney may, in fact, be a prosecution witness. The new pre-trial documents underscore
the central role of Vice President Cheney in his office's focus on an administration critic whose wife worked
at the CIA and saw her cover status compromised. Here now is David Shuster.
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Rove Informs White House He Will Be Indicted
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | ReportFriday 12 May 2006
Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as
a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will
immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges
against him, according to sources.
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Grand Jury Hears Evidence Against Rove
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | ReportThursday 20 April 2006
Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press
secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and
introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.
The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was
the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of
criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count
indictment against Rove.
In an interview Wednesday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove remains a "subject"
of Fitzgerald's two-year-old probe.
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NIGER-GATE: THE SCANDAL BEHIND THE SCANDAL
The exploding Plame-gate scandal is more than just the illegal outing of a CIA agent and her associates.
It is more than just the shutting down of Brewster Jennings & Associates, leaving the US without a
means to track foreign nuclear weapons. It is more than the extent to which the people of the United
States were lied to in order to trick them into a war. Running through every single aspect of this
horrible mess are the clear traces of a foreign spy operation that has infiltrated the government
of the United States to the highest levels and subverted the nation to the purposes of that foreign
government.
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Cheney Authorized Leak Of CIA Report, Libby Says
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, April 14, 2006Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on July 12, 2003
to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine
the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy,
according to Libby's grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report.
The previously unreported grand jury testimony is significant because only hours after Cheney reportedly
instructed Libby to disclose information from the CIA report, Libby divulged to then-New York Times reporter
Judith Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper that Plame was a CIA officer, and that she
been involved in selecting her husband for the Niger mission.
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GANGSTER GOVERNMENT
A LEAKY PRESIDENT RUNS AFOUL OF 'LITTLE RICO'
Buzzflash
by Greg Palast
Sunday, April 9, 2006
It's a crime. No kidding. But the media has it all wrong. As usual.
'Scooter' Libby finally outed 'Mr. Big,' the perpetrator of the heinous disclosure of the name of secret agent Valerie Plame.
It was the President of United States himself -- in conspiracy with his Vice-President. Now the pundits are arguing over
whether our war-a-holic President had the legal right to leak this national security information. But, that's a fake debate
meant to distract you.
OK, let's accept the White House alibi that releasing Plame's identity was no crime. But if that's true, they've committed
a BIGGER crime: Bush and Cheney knowingly withheld vital information from a grand jury investigation, a multimillion
dollar inquiry the perps themselves authorized. That's akin to calling in a false fire alarm or calling the cops for a burglary
that never happened -- but far, far worse. Let's not forget that in the hunt for the perpetrator of this non-crime, reporter
Judith Miller went to jail.
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Dems Call for Bush to 'Come Clean,' Cite 8 Denials
04/06/2006 @ 4:07 pm
Filed by RAW STORY
After today's claim by Ex-VP chief of staff "Scooter" Libby that he was lead to believe the President
had approved the leak of classified information to reporters, Democrats have called for the President to
set the record straight about his alleged involvement.
"President Bush must fully disclose his participation in the selective leaking of classified information," said
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid in a brief statement. "It's time for the President to come clean about his
involvement in the leak case."
The statement was accompanied by eight of the numerous instances in which Bush or his spokesman, White
House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, denied the President had knowledge of the leak.
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By Patrick Martin
08 April 2006
World Socialist Web
The revelation that President Bush personally approved the release of highly classified information
to retaliate against a critic of the Iraq war is a major political event. Once again, the modus operandi
of this government is revealed: distortion, falsification, manipulation of the media, secretive methods,
dirty tricks, all to defend its ongoing criminal enterprise, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The source of this exposure is a 39-page document filed late Wednesday night by US Attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the Bush administration campaign to punish former
ambassador Joseph Wilson for publicly challenging the principal pretext for the invasion of Iraq, the
claim that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapons capability that would
allow him to slip an atomic bomb to Al Qaeda.
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Progress Report - April 7, 2006
Yesterday, a court filing disclosed that President Bush specifically authorized Vice President
Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby to disclose classified information in an effort to discredit
Joseph Wilson, a former CIA adviser whose criticisms undermined the administration's case for
war. According to the 39-page document submitted by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald on late
Wednesday night, Libby testified that Cheney "advised him that the President had authorized [Libby]
to disclose relevant portions" of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (N.I.E.), the key CIA
document that the administration used to persuade Congress and the American public into war. The
court filing "for the first time places Bush and Vice President Cheney at the heart of what Libby testified
was an exceptional and deliberate leak of material designed to buttress the administration's claim that Iraq
was trying to obtain nuclear weapons." While the document does not address the issue of whether Bush
was personally involved in specifically leaking Valerie Plame's identity, it is clear from the timing of the
leak authorization by President Bush that he was personally involved in the administration-wide effort to
smear Joseph Wilson by any means necessary.
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Fitzgerald Will Seek New White House Indictments
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Tuesday 28 March 2006
It may seem as though it's been moving along at a snail's pace,
but the second part of the federal investigation into the leak of
covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson is nearly complete, with
attorneys and government officials who have remained close to the
probe saying that a grand jury will likely return an indictment
against one or two senior Bush administration officials.
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NSC, Cheney Aides Conspired to Out CIA Operative
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report
Monday 20 February 2006
The investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson is heating
up. Evidence is mounting that senior officials in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney
and the National Security Council conspired to unmask Plame Wilson's identity to reporters
in an effort to stop her husband from publicly criticizing the administration's pre-war Iraq
intelligence, according to sources close to the two-year-old probe.
In recent weeks, investigators working for Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald have narrowed
their focus to a specific group of officials who played a direct role in pushing the White House to
cite bogus documents claiming that Iraq attempted to purchase 500 tons of uranium from Niger,
which Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had exposed as highly suspect.
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Cheney Spearheaded Effort to Discredit Wilson
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 09 February 2006
Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen
Hadley led a campaign beginning in March 2003 to discredit former Ambassador Joseph
Wilson for publicly criticizing the Bush administration's intelligence on Iraq, according to
current and former administration officials.
The officials work or had worked in the State Department, the CIA and the National
Security Council in a senior capacity and had direct knowledge of the Vice President's
campaign to discredit Wilson.
In interviews over the course of two days this week, these officials were urged to
speak on the record for this story. But they resisted, saying they had already testified
before a grand jury investigating the leak of Wilson's wife, covert CIA operative Valerie
Plame Wilson, and added that speaking out against the administration and specifically
Vice President Cheney would cause them to lose their jobs and subject their families to
vitriolic attacks by the White House.
The officials said they decided to speak out now because they have become disillusioned
with the Bush administration's policies regarding Iraq and the flawed intelligence that led to the war.
They said their roles, along with several others at the CIA and State Department, included
digging up or "inventing" embarrassing information on the former Ambassador that could be
used against him, preparing memos and classified material on Wilson for Cheney and the
National Security Council, and attending meetings in Cheney's office to discuss with Cheney,
Hadley, and others the efforts that would be taken to discredit Wilson.
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Leak Probe Not Seen to End with Rove, Lawyers Say
12/21/2005 @ 11:03 am
Filed by Jason Leopold
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is not expected
to shut down his investigation into the leak of covert
CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson when he finishes his
inquiry of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl
Rove's role in the leak, lawyers close to the probe
said.
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Libby hires expert in criminal law on national secrets
By JAMES STERNGOLD
San Francisco Chronicle
22-NOV-05
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who is charged with obstructing justice and lying in the
CIA leak case, has hired a leading expert in using classified information in criminal
trials, giving an early hint of his possible defense strategy.
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Judith Miller-WHIG Operative
Fitzgerald's probe, from the outset, has centered on an obscure but powerful White House
unit, the White House Iraq Group, which was constituted in July-August 2002, to coordinate
all Bush-Cheney Administration efforts to win support for an Iraq invasion. Rove and Libby,
along with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice, her deputy Stephen Hadley, White House Counsellor Karen Hughes, and a half-dozen
other White House and NSC senior staffers were all part of the WHIG.
New York Times reporter Judith Miller functioned as an asset of the WHIG, publishing a
series of stories, based on disinformation provided by alleged Iraqi "defectors" who were
provided to Miller by Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC). Those stories were,
in turn, promoted by Cheney, Rice, et al. as justification for going to war to unseat Saddam Hussein.
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Vice President Lied as White House Sought to Defuse Leak Inquiry
By Jason Leopold
ZNet.com
Monday 07 November 2005
Did Vice President Dick Cheney help cover-up the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie
Plame Wilson in the months after conservative columnist Robert Novak first disclosed her identity?
That's one of the questions Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely trying to figure out.
It's unclear what Cheney said to investigators back in 2004 when he was questioned - not under
oath - about the leak, particularly what he knew and when he knew it.
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A Cheney-Libby conspiracy, or worse? Reading between
the lines of the Libby indictment
Posted on Friday, November 04 @ 10:22:50 EST
John W. Dean, Findlaw
In my last column, I tried to deflate expectations a bit about the likely consequences of the
work of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald; to bring them down to the realistic level at which
he was likely to proceed. I warned, for instance, that there might not be any indictments, and
Fitzgerald might close up shop as the last days of the grand jury's term elapsed. And I was
certain he would only indict if he had a patently clear case.
Now, however, one indictment has been issued -- naming Vice President Cheney's Chief of
Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby as the defendant, and charging false statements, perjury and
obstruction of justice. If the indictment is to be believed, the case against Libby is, indeed,
a clear one.
Having read the indictment against Libby, I am inclined to believe more will be issued. In
fact, I will be stunned if no one else is indicted.
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Rule 21 Hearing forces Intelligence Investigation Forward
Tue Nov 1st, 2005 at 02:33:59 PM EDT :: The Senate
In the wake of Fitzgerald's indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Harry Reid and the
Democrats forced the Senate into an historic closed session. This brings all other Senate
business to a halt, as the Democratic caucus demands answers as to why the Republican
controlled Congress is stonewalling on investigations into pre-war intelligence handling,
and the decision to invade Iraq.
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Italy's intelligence chief met with Deputy National Security
Adviser Stephen Hadley just a month before the Niger forgeries
first surfaced.
By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 10.25.05
With Patrick Fitzgerald widely expected to announce indictments in the CIA leak
investigation, questions are again being raised about the intelligence scandal that led to
the appointment of the special counsel: namely, how the Bush White House obtained
false Italian intelligence reports claiming that Iraq had tried to buy uranium "yellowcake"
from Niger.
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Cheney Promotes Individuals Named In Indictment
The White House announced today that it is elevating two members of Cheney’s
staff who are named in the Scooter Libby indictment.
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60 Minutes Fails to Air Niger Forgery Story
At the Washington Post online yesterday, Jeff Morley raised the possibility that last
year's Dan Rather/National Guard papers scandal may have prevented CBS's 60 Minutes
from airing a story on the origins of the Niger forgeries. Referring to Elisabetta Burba, the
Italian journalist who was offered the forgeries in October 2002, Morley writes ...
By: Josh Marshall
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The Italian Connection, Part I
At various points over the last two years, I've discussed here at Talking Points Memo reporting I've done
on the origins of the Niger forgeries. I've never put all the reporting in one place; and until now
there was still a good bit of information I wasn't at liberty to report. This is the first of a series
of installments I'm going to publish here at TPM in which I will lay out the story as I understand
it based on my own reporting and research.
By: Josh Marshall
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By Robert Parry
As an outsider to Washington, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald appears to have misunderstood
the finer points of how national security classifications work when a secret is as discrete – and sensitive –
as the identity of an undercover CIA officer.
In his five-count indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis Libby, prosecutor
Fitzgerald leaves the false impression that it was all right for White House officials with security clearances
to be discussing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, a counter-proliferation official under deep cover.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Who?s on First?
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
Saturday 29 October 2005
It was bracing to see the son of a New York doorman open the door on the mendacious
Washington lair of the Lord of the Underground.
But this Irish priest of the law, Patrick Fitzgerald, neither Democrat nor Republican, was
very strict, very precise. He wasn't totally gratifying in clearing up the murkiness of the case,
yet strangely comforting in his quaint black-and-white notions of truth and honor (except
when his wacky baseball metaphor seemed to veer toward a "Who's on first?" tangle).
"This indictment's not about the propriety of the war," he told reporters yesterday in his
big Eliot Ness moment at the Justice Department. The indictment was simply about whether
the son of an investment banker perjured himself before a grand jury and the F.B.I.
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Indictment doesn't clear up mystery at heart of CIA leak probe
By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - At the heart of Friday's indictment of a top White House aide remain
two unsolved mysteries.
Who forged the documents that claimed Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium for nuclear
weapons in the African country of Niger?
How did a version of the tale get into President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address,
even though U.S. intelligence agencies never confirmed it and some intelligence analysts doubted it?
Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who found no substance to the alleged deal during a
CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, accused Bush in July 2003 of twisting the intelligence.
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Our 27 Months of Hell
By Joseph C. Wilson IV
The Los Angeles Times
Saturday 29 October 2005
After the two-year smear campaign orchestrated by senior officials in the
Bush White House against my wife and me, it is tempting to feel vindicated
by Friday's indictment of the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
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Libby Hit With 5 Count Indictment
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Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s Opening Statement on Libby’s Indictment
__________________________________________________________________
The most important criminal case in American history
Posted on Thursday, October 20 @ 09:54:57 EDT
James Moore
If special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald delivers indictments of a few functionaries of the vice president's office or the White House, we are likely to have on our hands a constitutional crisis. The evidence of widespread wrongdoing and conspiracy is before every American with a cheap laptop and a cable television subscription. And we do not have the same powers of subpoena granted to Fitzgerald.
We know, however, based upon what we have read and seen and heard that someone created fake documents related to
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White House Defense Crumbling in Leak Case
By Pete Yost / Associated Press
case suggests Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff sought out reporters
in the weeks before an undercover operative's identity was compromised in the
news media, casting doubt on one of the White House's main lines of defense.
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Rove Told Jury Libby May Have Been His Source In Leak Case
Top Aides Talked Before Plame's Name Was Public
By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig / Washington Post
White House adviser Karl Rove told the grand jury in the CIA leak case that I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, may have told him that CIA
operative Valerie Plame worked for the intelligence agency before her identity was revealed,
a source familiar with Rove's account said yesterday.
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It's Bush-Cheney, Not Rove-Libby
October 16, 2005
By FRANK RICH, Op-Ed Columnist
Very little has been written about the White House Iraq Group,
or WHIG. Its inception in August 2002, seven months before the
invasion of
newspaper article or two mention it in passing, reporting that it had been
set up by Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff. Its eight members
included Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby, Condoleezza Rice and the spinmeisters
Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin. Its mission: to market a war in
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Cheney's Role in Plame Outing
examination, sources close to prosecutor say
10/12/2005 @ 10:10 pm
Filed by Jason Leopold
Cheney’s role under scrutiny
Two officials close to Fitzgerald told RAW STORY they have seen documents obtained from the White House Iraq Group which state that Cheney was present at several of the group's meetings. They say Cheney personally discussed with individuals in attendance at least two interviews in May and June of 2003 Wilson gave to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, in which he claimed the administration “twisted” prewar intelligence and what the response from the administration should be.
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Focus of CIA Leak Probe Appears to Widen
By John D. McKinnon, Joe Hagan and Anne Marie Squeo
The Wall Street Journal
Wednesday 12 October 2005
The New York Times reporter who went to jail to avoid testifying
in the CIA leak case was quizzed by the special prosecutor again
yesterday and has agreed to return to the grand jury today.
Judith Miller's additional testimony comes as the endgame is
intensifying in the legal chess match that threatens to damage the
Bush administration.
There are signs that prosecutors now are looking into contacts
between administration officials and journalists that took place much
earlier than previously thought.
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Rove Scandal: New Mysteries, New Props, New Legal Theories
By David Corn
The Nation
Monday 10 October 2005
The Plame/CIA leak case is getting what all good scandals need:
props.
We now have the "missing notebook" and the "missing email."
The "missing notebook," as several news reports noted at the end of
last week, belongs to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and
reportedly contains notes of a conversation regarding former
Ambassador Joseph Wilson that she had with Scooter Libby, Dick
Cheney's chief of staff, on June 25, 2003. The date is intriguing,
for this is weeks before
Times op-ed piece (in which he revealed that after traveling to
for the CIA he had concluded that the allegation that
uranium shopping there was dubious). And, of course, this was weeks
before Robert Novak wrote a column outing
undercover CIA officer.
_____________________________________________________________
by Norman Dombey |
President Bush's principal adviser Karl Rove is to be questioned again over the improper naming of a CIA official. Mohamed ElBaradei, accused by the American right of being insufficiently aggressive, wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his stalwart work at the helm of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Pentagon official Larry Franklin pleads guilty to passing on classified information to
At the beginning of 2001, a few weeks before George Bush took office, there was a break-in at the
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Wayne Madsen Report-Indictments against Cheney, Rove, Libby and Fleischer
Wayne Madsen, at www.waynemadsenreport.com , reported late yesterday that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is on the brink of issuing indictments against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Ari Fleischer on grounds of perjury and obstruction of justice, at least. Madsen concludes that much of this is yet speculative, since the entire investigation has been closely guarded, wrapped in extreme secrecy, and virtually without leaks. However, he offers that "knowledgeable sources" in
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What Now, Karl?
By Murray Waas
The Village Voice
Saturday 13 August 2005
Rove and Ashcroft face new allegations in the Valerie Plame affair.
Justice Department officials made the crucial decision in late
2003 to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the leak of the
identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame in large part
because investigators had begun to specifically question the veracity
of accounts provided to them by White House deputy chief of staff
Karl Rove, according to senior law enforcement officials.
Several of the federal investigators were also deeply concerned
that then attorney general John Ashcroft was personally briefed
regarding the details of at least one FBI interview with Rove,
despite Ashcroft's own longstanding personal and political ties to
Rove, the Voice has also learned. The same sources said Ashcroft was
also told that investigators firmly believed that Rove had withheld
important information from them during that FBI interview.
Those concerns by senior career law enforcement officials
regarding the propriety of such briefings continuing, as Rove became
more central to the investigation, also was instrumental in the
naming of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
____________________________________________________________
Scooter Libby and Judy Miller met on July 8, 2003, two days after Joe Wilson published his column. And Patrick Fitzgerald is very interested.
By Murray Waas
Web Exclusive: 08.06.05
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby's account.
The meeting between Libby and Miller has been a central focus of the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as to whether any Bush administration official broke the law by unmasking Plame's identity or relied on classified information to discredit former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, according to sources close to the case as well as documents filed in federal court by Fitzgerald.
___________________________________________________________________
C.I.A. Leak Case Recalls
WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 - These hot months here will be remembered as the summer of the leak, a time when the political class obsessed on a central question: did Karl Rove, President Bush's powerful adviser, commit a crime when he spoke about a C.I.A. officer with the columnist Robert D. Novak?
Whatever a federal grand jury investigating the case decides, a small political subgroup is experiencing the odd sensation that this leak has sprung before. In 1992 in an incident well known in
Since then, Mr. Rove and Mr. Novak have denied that Mr. Rove was the source, even as Mr. Mosbacher, who no longer talks on the record about the incident, has never changed his original assertion that Mr. Rove was the culprit.
"It's history," Mr. Mosbacher said last week in a brief telephone interview. "I commented on it at the time, and I have nothing to add."
______________________________________________________________________
Rove-Plame Scandal Leading to Deeper
White House Horrors?
By Bernard Weiner
Posted July 21, 2005
At long last, Plamegate -- the scandal surrounding the outing of covert CIA
operative Valerie Plame Wilson by two "senior administration officials" --
has exploded out of the D.C. beltway to become a major national news story.
It would appear that this scandal goes way beyond Karl Rove and who said
what to whom when about Ms. Plame. It certainly is true, though, that turning
over that slimy Rove-Plame rock was the way into the larger issues upon which
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and his grand jury apparently are focusing.
_________________________________________________________________
Newsweek
Aug. 1 issue - A deal that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald cut last year for NBC "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert's testimony may shed light on the emerging White House defense in the Valerie Plame leak case. The agreement between Fitzgerald and NBC avoided a court fight over a subpoena for Russert's testimony about his July 2003 talk with Dick Cheney's top aide, Lewis (Scooter) Libby. The deal was not, as many assumed, for Russert's testimony about what Libby told him: it focused on what Russert told Libby. An NBC statement last year said Russert did not know of Plame, wife of ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, or that she worked at the CIA, and "he did not provide that information to Libby."
_____________________________________________________________
Rovegate let's pull the thread!
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Contributing Writer
July 23, 2005 Okay, so America's leading journalists, from Time Magazine, Newsweek, and The New York Times, to the most distinguished writers on the Internet, tell us Rove did it. Outed an undercover CIA operative, Valerie Plame, because her husband, former ambassador and Africa expert Joseph Wilson, the man picked by the CIA to investigate the Italian intelligence's original reports (passed on to England and America) had returned from his African mission and said the reports were "bogus." Thanks for the straight talk, Joe.
_____________________________________________________________
It's Bush Too
By Marc Ash,
Sun Jul 24th, 2005
If Bush read the same reports that Rove read describing Valerie Wilson/Plame's status as top secret and knew that Rove or others had provided false testimony or statements to the grand jury or to Fitzgerald and failed to divulge that . . . then he could be charged with obstruction, conspiracy or worse - depending on what darts from under the rug when it's pulled back.
Quote The New York Times:
"The special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has kept a tight curtain of secrecy around his investigation. But he spent more than an hour in the Oval Office on June 24, 2004, interviewing Mr. Bush about the case. Mr. Bush was not under oath, but he had his personal lawyer for the case, James E. Sharp, with him."
__________________________________________________________________
Richard W.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
____________________________________________________________
Pundits on Plame: Clueless and conscienceless
Loyal GOP mouthpieces insisted Valerie Plame had a desk job. Now that we know she was a covert CIA operative, will they apologize? Of course not.
By Joe Conason
July 23, 2005 | Under intense political pressure, once scarce information about the CIA leak prosecution is suddenly emerging from "persons familiar with the case." Should those whispers prove accurate, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove and vice-presidential Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby may yet be held accountable for whatever roles they actually played in the exposure of Valerie Wilson's CIA identity -- and in the cover-up of that potential crime.
Accountability will never extend, however, to their eager accessories: the pundits who assisted the cover-up by persistently spreading disinformation about Valerie Wilson.
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LA TIMES MOVES PERJURY WITH ROVE TO FRONT PAGE
WASHINGTON -- The special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation has shifted his focus from whether White House officials violated a law against exposing undercover agents to determining whether evidence exists to bring perjury or obstruction of justice charges, according to people briefed in recent days on the inquiry's status, the Los Angeles Times reports Saturday, RAW STORY has learned.
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Wall Street Journal enters Rove fray: State Dept. memo made clear info
'shouldn't be shared'
A classified State Department memo that may be pivotal to
the CIA leak case made clear that information identifying an
agent and her role in her husband's intelligence-gathering mission
was sensitive and shouldn't be shared, according to a person
familiar with the document, the (paid-restricted) Wall Street
Journal reports Tuesday. Excerpts follow.
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Karl Rove's Nondisclosure Agreement
By Rep. Waxman
YubaNet.com
Friday 15 July 2005
A fact sheet released today by Rep. Waxman explains that the nondisclosure agreement signed by Karl Rove prohibited Mr. Rove from confirming the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Wilson to reporters. Under the nondisclosure agreement and the applicable executive order, even "negligent" disclosures to reporters are grounds for revocation of a security clearance or dismissal.
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How the Media Helped the White House Lie About Plame
By MARTIN SCHRAM
Jul 13, 2005, 06:43
Today we take a close-up look at White House lying about the outing of a
covert CIA agent - and the news media's complicity in covering it up.
We also shed new insight upon what is the apparent real motive of a special
prosecutor who has appeared to be running amok in probing whether any Bush
official committed a federal crime in blowing the cover of covert CIA agent
Valerie Plame. It is a bizarre probe that has so far jailed no Bush official, and
not even journalist Robert Novak, who revealed Plame's CIA tie. The only one
jailed has been a journalist who never wrote a word about it.
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It doesn't look good for Karl Rove
By John Dean
FindLaw Columnist
Special to CNN.com
(FindLaw) -- As the scandal over the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame'sidentity has continued to unfold, there is a renewed focus on Karl Rove -- the White House deputy chief of staff whom President Bush calls his political"architect."
Newsweek has reported that Matt Cooper, in an e-mail to his bureau chief at Time magazine, wrote that he had spoken "to Rove on double super-secret background for about two min[ute]s before he went on vacation ..." In that conversation, Rove gave Cooper "big warning" that Time should not "get too far out on Wilson."
Rove was referring, of course, to former Ambassador Joe Wilson's
acknowledgment of his trip to Africa, where he discovered that
(WMD) program.
Cooper's email indicates that Rove told Cooper that
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The Plame Affair: Rove and Cheney Are Guilty As Charged
by Jeffrey Steinberg
Within the next days or weeks, it is anticipated that Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald will ask a Federal grand jury to hand down indictments against one or more senior White House officials, for obstruction of justice, perjury, and, perhaps, violation of national security laws banning the public disclosure of the identities of American undercover agents. The two names that have surfaced most prominently in the two-year old probe are White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Vice Presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The scandal unavoidably tars Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush.
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Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on Bush adviser Karl Rove to explain or resign
A letter penned by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on Bush adviser Karl Rove to explain or resign over his role in outing a CIA agent has garnered a handful of signatories in the House, RAW STORY has learned.
Just 17 members have signed. Finding congressmembers to sign a letter during a Congressional recess is often difficult, and Conyers' office has extended a deadline for others to sign on until next Wednesday.
The current signers are Reps. John Conyers, Jr.; Maurice Hinchey; Sheila Jackson Lee; Sam Farr; Diane Watson; Barbara Lee; Zoe Lofgren; Danny Davis; Henry Waxman; Corrine Brown; Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick; Raul Grijalva; James McGovern; Bernie Sanders; Lynn Woolsey; Mike Honda; and Carolyn Maloney.
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Rove-Plame: The Word from
By Arianna Huffington
How is it that the second most powerful man in
fall and the mainstream media are largely taking a pass? Could it be that the
fear of Karl Rove and this White House is so great that not even the biggest
of the media big boys are willing to take them on? Does the answer to that
one go without saying?
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Karl Rove: Worse Than Osama bin Laden
FBI and Congress Must Act Against White House Traitors
by : Ted Rall
Posted July 6, 2005
betray with intimate knowledge in painful detail and demoralize by their cynical example.
This explains why, at the end of occupations, the newly liberated exact vengeance upon
their treasonous countrymen even they allow foreign troops to conduct an orderly withdrawal.
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Private Spy and Public Spouse Live at Center of Leak Case
July 5, 2005
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, July 1 - For nearly two years, the investigation into
the leak of a covert C.I.A. officer's name has unfolded clamorously
in the nation's capital, with partisan brawling on talk shows,
prosecutors interviewing President Bush and top White House
officials, and the imminent prospect that reporters could go to jail
for contempt of court.
But the woman at the center of it all, Valerie E. Wilson, has kept
her silence, showing the discipline and discretion that colleagues
say made her a good spy. As her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, has
become a highly visible critic of the administration and promoted
his memoirs, Ms. Wilson has ferried their 5-year-old twins to
doctors' appointments, looked after their hilltop house in the
upscale Palisades neighborhood of
with postpartum depression.
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Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jun 3, 2004, 05:28
Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew
about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA
operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her
husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.
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MSNBC Analyst Says 2nd Source Confirms Karl Rove as Plame Leaker
By Greg Mitchell
Published: July 02, 2005 1:00 PM ET
NEW YORK Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source. Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, now claims that at least two sources have confirmed that the name is--top White House mastermind Karl Rove.
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The Serious Implications Of President Bush's Hiring A Personal Outside Counsel For The Valerie Plame Investigation
By JOHN W. DEAN
Posted July 4, 2005
Recently, the White House acknowledged that President Bush is talking with, and considering hiring, a non-government attorney, James E. Sharp. Sharp is being consulted, and may be retained, regarding the current grand jury investigation of the leak revealing the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA covert operative.
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