Which CIA NOC was assassinated?

Which intelligence sources?

Why would a current current member of the U.S. House of Representatives be performing an intelligence function as a US government representative? We did’nt send him there to be some CIA Plame spy. Extreme political jeopardy? The representative was in this the moment he decided to use his position and be used by the Directorate of Operations at CIA. What is a
the staff of the member whose doing running a covert Iranian contact network in Congress? They should be arrested or put under Plame’s operations officer’s wings; like the Bush administration.

Which Congressmen, Chayes?

Brewsters Millions was blown a long time ago.

I can easily see her trading microfilm in back alleys, and other places, in a variety of global cities like Casablanca! I guess we don’t yet know the details of her classification status though.

I’ll see Wayne Madsen and raise a Dana Priest:

Valley Forge, Pa.: Hi Dana,

Thanks for doing these chats.

Now we are reading that Valerie Plame was involved with tracking nuclear proliferation/capabilities in Iran. Isn’t this old news? (I seem to remember reading this same thing quite a while ago in the MSM – I don’t generally read blogs)

From what you hear, was Ms. Plame working on Iran, how important was she to the tracking efforts, and how much has her â€outing†really set us back?

Dana Priest: It was reported before that she worked on proliferation issues for the CIA. The leap in this new round of information is that her outing significantly impacted our current intel on Iran. I don’t buy it. First, no one person who quit clandestine work four years ago is going to make that big of a dent in current knowledge. But also, nothing like this came up at the time of her outing and I believe it would have. Think we need some actual details. At present it just doesn’t smell right.

I don’t recall whether Mr. Madsen has any Pulitzers cluttering his bookshelf.

I’m sure you noticed this, but in that interview Novak not only goes back to saying his first source told him Plame worked for CPD, but he modifies his story on just what Armitage’s coaching effort in fall 2003 consisted of, in what would be a very very interesting way if it’s not just a slip:

This came out in the course with my source, who later, through a third party, said it was inadvertently that he brought her name up.

Now, I’m not going to get all excited about this, since Novak probably just means to say that Armitage conveyed to him that it was inadvertent that he brought her up. And just yesterday or the day before Novak was insisting that neither Armitage, Rove nor Harlow ever used Plame’s name at all. Novak’s account on TV the other day was that his first source conveyed to him that he had inadvertently told Novak classified information about Plame. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Armitage conveyed to Novak that in telling Novak her Plame name he had inadvertently conveyed classified information – which would make sense since the word has been that Plame was part of her undercover operations name, as distinct from her actual name, Valerie WIlson, which is the name any sensible person would take away from Who’s Who.

But I’m not going to get too excited. It was probably just another stupid slip on Novak’s part. Another one of those misstatements he’s quickly becoming known for.

Hey left wingers.

How did a point about whether Novak, after being informed by the CIA he shouldn’t use Plame’s name, his publication of that is somehow less problematic than the NYT’s publication of a program that had been previously described, turn into a question of the damage actually done?

I think the Madsen post came from the left.

But to rephrase – how did Novak’s decision to ignore Harlow’s ex ante warning become a discussion of the ex post damage?

Ahh – because one way to evaluate Novak’s judgment in ignoring Harlow is to check the actual damage?

Obviously, that is not perfect – Novak may have gotten lucky (if Harlow was â€right†that publishing would very probably harm national security but for some reason no damage ocurred); or Novak may have gotten unlucky (if Harlow was greatly exaggerating the threat but, by some wild longshot, something bad happened).

But as a practical matter, folks routinely look to actual ex post results to evaluate ex ante judgments.

As to the SWIFT story, the ex post results are not in. In Novak’s case, if he thought Harlow was blowing smoke (or not pushing very hard), and after the fact no damage was done, well, then – maybe Novak was right, and Harlow was not pushing that hard. *IF* the no damage reports (as offered by Priest, Woodward, and Mitchel) are accurate, Novak’s critics are left arguing that Harlow was right to argue that national security would be harmed, even though it has not been. That is not an impossible argument, but it is not exactly pocket aces, either.

Put it another way – if we had clear evidence that harm *had* been done, wouldn’t that be offered in support of Harlow’s position? So why not the opposite?

But I do know this. Novak got–and ignored–a clear warning.

Do you think every reporter should refrain from publishing as soon as a press spokesperson aksk them too?

How would that rule relate to the NSA story, the SWIFT story, or the secret prisons story?

Do you think some warnings are more â€clear†than others – since it was his job to dissuade Novak, is there any special reason Harlow did not involve Tenet to intervene with Novak?

Do you think if Harlow *had* involved Tenet, it would have been effective?

Per his own account to Walter Pincus, Harlow talked with Novak, argued that Novak’s story was wrong, checked Plame’s status, then called Novak back to re-warn him against publishing.

Yet Harlow may have previously discussed Plame with other Admin officials (E.g., Catherine Martin of OVP) – why his uncertainty about her status? Had he not checked previously, had he (gasp!) forgotten, what?

From the WaPo:

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson’s wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak’s call, he checked Plame’s status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame’s name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.

Honest Injun – do you really think that was the strongest warning Harlow could deliver? Why not have Tenet pick up the phone – wouldn’t that have been a stronger warning? Why not reveal the classified info – surely that was a better alternative than having Novak go ahead and publish (assuming, of course, that Harlow really did want Novak to hold off).

I have no problem believing that parts of Novak’s story are self-serving, CYA BS, but the objective fact is that Harlow did not involve his higher-ups, which means he could have pushed a lot harder. It also suggests that Harlow’s story may be self-serving, CYA BS.

Tom

Ahh – because one way to evaluate Novak’s judgment in ignoring Harlow is to check the actual damage?

But the argument you all on the right make about the domestic spying â€damage†is not equivalent to the one you’re making on Plame.

For the right, if OBL stops using his hotmail account based on Eric Lichtblau’s reporting, that’s damage. But the only kind of damage that is worth considering in the case of the Plame outing is the number of dead NOCs (even though, we know Plame’s first response upon learning of the column, was making a list of what she needed to do to protect assets–it could be the CIA got lucky and saved some lives).

Why does it not count as damage that someone running assets with knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program got wasted by a malicious leak? We’re about to go to war against Iran because we don’t have any information on Iran’s nuclear program, just to be safe. That just to be safe war may far outpace the Iraq war in cost, in terms of lives and money. If we go to war because we’ve frivolously wasted the people who could tell us whether we could avoid that war or not, does that count as damage?

Sure makes sense to me.

Now frankly, I don’t think journalists should always listen when told not to publish. I think they ought to make a mature judgment balancing the interests of the public with the interests of security. Neither you nor I know whether Lichtblau and Risen and Keller made the right call–though they were clearly balancing the interest to the public of knowing about illegal surveillance with a year’s notice to the Admin.

How can you legitimately claim that Novak had to include Plame’s name and her covert status, even admitting a specious argument that the news was a fair retort to a critic. Even Novak isn’t making an argument that the leak of her covert status and her name served a purpose–all he needed to do to discredit Wilson was to say his wife who worked at the CIA recommended him (putting aside the fact it’s not true).

So the difference is that Lichtblau, Risen, and Keller are at least making a claim that the leak served the public interest. Novak’s not making that claim, not for the details of Plame’s name and covert status.

Um, maybe you’ve actually read the IIPA statute? You see, you need to prove motive to charge it. And remember how Patrick Fitzgerald said he had been prevented from establishing motive precisely by Scooter Libby’s obstruction? Remember that? You see, Fitz said he couldn’t charge on IIPA because he couldn’t prove motive because of Scooter Libby’s lies. That seems to me like he did imply she was covered, because if she weren’t, Libby’s motive wouldn’t make a goddamn difference.

As to the W-2s, that seems to me a prime place to start with the Wilson suit. I can’t see how it fell into Libby’s job description to go through Plame’s W-2s. Therefore it’d be hard for him to claim immunity.

Wow, where are the intelligent wingnuts?

Okay, here goes slowly so you can understand it.

1) It’s not her name, it’s her covert status that is the problem. There was no reason to include the covert status to achieve Novak’s purported noble mission. But it might help to address my point. Novak was told not to include her name. He did it. That’s willful stupidity that doesn’t even serve his noble goal.

2) It’s not the SSCI that printed a lie. It was Roberts, Hatch, and Bond. Republicans Snowe, Warner, Chambliss, Lott, and Hagel didn’t even agree with the conclusion that Plame suggested Wilson. And if you’ve read the SSCI (which it’s clear you haven’t, or you would be aware you’re arguing something that more Republicans didn’t support than did support), you would realize the memo only lays out Wilson’s qualifications. Nowhere is there a quote from that memo that supports the â€suggest†verb. ANd in fact, the SSCI demonstrably misquoted the INR memo to support the â€suggest†verb. THat’s a provable misrepresentation. You want to hang your argument on a provable mispresentation? Please do it elsewhere.

3) Let me understand this. It’s only legal for the CIA to spy overseas. Plame had a covert role (even according to the evidence her attackers have presented) in 1999. Are you arguing she was working for Brewster Jennings spying here in the US? I’m guessing, though you may know about an extensive spy operation in the US, that her spying was not in the US. Or would you recommend that NOCs, who by very definition do not belong to a mission overseas, live overseas even if their cover would be more plausible if they lived in the US, solely so they can have protection from creeps like Scooter Libby?

Like I said, Fitzgerald, by his own account, said he needed to prove motive (and that was the standard you were looking for a second ago, before you realized you don’t know the facts in this case). He wouldn’t have needed to do so if Plame didn’t qualify for the IIPA.

jwest

Even according to your own standards, we’ve established that Fitz suggested he was proving motive away from an IIPA violation. You may say there was no motive. Fitzgerald says Scooter lied, which is a vastly different thing. Furthermore, I don’t understand how you would understand, â€serving overseas†to mean, â€lives overseas,†but it’s moot, as we’ve already agreed that Fitzgerald is only proving motive away from establishing IIPA. Neither you nor I know how he came to that position (though I, unlike you, have been told by people who would know that Plame was covert), but we know he has come to that position.

Therefore, all the rest of your blaterhing is just spewing of talking points to try to reclaim an argument you’ve already lost.

I’m not sure if you understand, but we value intelligent discussion based on available facts here, not your kind of brainless spewing of talking points. If you’d like to share an original thought, fine. Otherwise, please take it somewhere else. You are a discredit to the intelligent conservatives who do come here to engage in discussion.

EW, a quote from Galileo that you might find topical given some of today’s posts:

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea … gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage – if indeed it does not make them ill. Beside themselves with passion, some of them would not be backward even about scheming to suppress and silence their adversaries. I have had some experience of this myself. … No good can come of dealing with such people, especially to the extent that their company may be not only unpleasant but dangerous.

ew: â€they didn’t believe Wilson would go publicâ€
i read (again) this week that condi basically gave him an invitation/ green light to go public. it was a dangerous game of ’chicken.’

Lukery, that’s very interesting. Hadn’t heard that one before either.

EW, Thanks. That reminds me, though, about the mystery of the Niger forgeries.

I recall reading that maybe Ledeen was somehow involved in the forgery of some of the Niger papers and that some of the papers dated from 2001. When and how did Cheney learn about them? You would think the WH would be clued-in directly by fellow neocons to the â€benefits†of (waging war with) such forgeries.

Yet at the time Cheney asks CIA to investigate further the Niger papers, I assume he is unaware they are forgeries (why risk showing them to CIA if he knows otherwise?). But then how to explain his surprise and anger in 2003 upon learning the CIA performed due diligence and sent, on their own, a former ambassador to investigate the claims in the Niger papers? By then he must be aware the yellowcake claims are false, but he already had used them for justification of war. With the yellowcake claims ensconced permanently in the President’s State of the Union and the Iraq War already begun, any public airing of these forgeries could be detrimental to the Administration.

The theory of entrapment by the CIA is intriguing: that some people in CIA purposely dangled these known forgeries in front of the Administration to lay a trap before the Iraq war. Perhaps CIA officers by 9/12/01 were thinking the Bush Admin was eager to strike Iraq at any cost.

The Administration assumes it is protected from potential whistleblowers in the intelligence community (they are all caught behind a wall of secrecy), so the Administration is caught off guard when it learns CIA independently sent someone to investigate and report on the bogus Niger intel. That person Joseph Wilson is NOT bound to secrecy. Wilson jeopardizes the Administration’s existence when he comes forward publicly to admonish Bush and Cheney. Impeachment proceedings, if Congress wishes to investigate, would include the examination of the paper trail the CIA has created showing that it informed the Administration BEFORE the invasion of Iraq that the Niger papers are forgeries. (I don’t know how forcefully it informed Bush’s Administration. Did Tenet deny he ever said â€slam dunkâ€?)

Even if this laying of the trap never occured, it seems Bush and the OVP thought something like this had transpired. Does it explain the sudden purgings at CIA during Goss’ reign?

pdaly – Tenet has said that he will explain the ’context’ of ’slam dunk’ in his new book. the book was supposed to be released in october, but the release date was pushed out beyond the election (feb/march?)

i guess we should be thankful that he was sufficently bold that he even *announced* that he’d publish pre-election…

actually, it appears that I may have been thinking of leopold:

â€I had direct discussions with the State Department, Senate committees,†Wilson said in April in a speech to college students and faculty at California State University Northridge. â€I had numerous conversations to change what they were saying publicly. I had a civic duty to hold my government to account for what it had said and done.â€

Wilson said he was rebuffed at every instance and that he received word, through then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that he could state his case in writing in a public forum. And that’s exactly what he didâ€

I can’t find the transcript of the speech, so i’m not sure if Wilson made that specific claim about Rice in that speech or elsewhere.

It’s not exactly clear whether Rice was *taunting* him, or *inviting* him to publish or whatever.

pdaly

Sorry, I didn’t complete my point. This SISMI intermediary kind of moots the possibility that the Niger forgeries were a trap. They may have been (though I don’t think so). But the trap would have worked at SISMI, not CIA.

Jeff

Thanks for the additions. If jwest were to develop his talking point beyond sheer repetition, I might be more sympathetic/interested. But he doesn’t appear to be able to do so, instead twisting language to sustain the disproven talking points. I just don’t particularly care to face Orwellian language on my own blog.

Polly, you know I luv ya, but your link showing Novak had been told that Plame is covered is to an Oct 1 2003 column – obviously, that was after the dark matter impacted the whirling cooling system, so we are left wondering whether Novak was told she was covered in July, or only after making follow-up inquiries at a later date.

On that point, someone dropped on me a link to an Oct 5, 2003 Meet The Press with Russert, Novak, and Dana Priest. Great material for everyone – Novak reeats the â€covered†claim, but says he spoke to his CIA sources as recently as the previous week.

And Dana Priest is a classic – she sounded then the way Keith Olbermann still sounds today in terms of the damage done by the leak (she had just broken the 1 x 2 x 6, and how did that hold up?). It is interesting to note her evolution on this point.

Well, a power glitch crashed me out and the link is gone (but not forgotten).

Responding to this point from EW:

For the right, …the only kind of damage that is worth considering in the case of the Plame outing is the number of dead NOCs…

Really? That was hardly the point of the Priest quote I provided.

Or would you recommend that NOCs, who by very definition do not belong to a mission overseas, live overseas even if their cover would be more plausible if they lived in the US,

Following Jeff’s point – a NOC may have stayed in the States for the last ten years of his hypothetical career, simply to protect/maintain his cover while his activities were wound down. Such a person is still a NOC (for purposes of the CIA payroll, for example) even though they are *not* covered by the IIPA statute (since they fail the â€overseas service in last five years†test).

Did that happen with Ms. Plame? Fitzgerald has been coy about her service file, and the definition of â€served overseas†has never been litigated in the IIPA context, so who knows if she is covered by that statute?

This was also from EW in response to my earlier post:

How can you legitimately claim that Novak had to include Plame’s name and her covert status, even admitting a specious argument that the news was a fair retort to a critic

I’m not following – the general consensus (as with Josh Marshall, for example) is that if Novak had simply published â€Joe Wilson’s wife is at the CIA and may have helped him get the Niger gigâ€, intel services with access to â€Who’s Who or the internet would have quickly found that â€Joe Wilson’s wife†was Valerie Wilson nee Plame and that her 1999 FEC filing showed Brewster-Jennings as her employee.

SO, my position is that including her name added nothing, but subtracting it would have subtracted nothing, in terms of possible harm to national security.

Fitz said he couldn’t charge on IIPA because he couldn’t prove motive because of Scooter Libby’s lies. That seems to me like he did imply she was covered, because if she weren’t, Libby’s motive wouldn’t make a goddamn difference.

Far be it from me to judge the sincerity of this talking point (I see â€Fitz was blocked by Libby’s lies†everywhere) but – is there any chance that Fitzgerald engaged in a bit of self-serving spin there?

For example, per a defense filign we are told that Libby testified unequivocally that he did not know Ms. Plame’s status was classified.

*IF* Fitzgerald were to prove an IIPA, he would need to prove (among other elements) that Libby was lying on that point, and was in fact aware of her status; *IF* Fitzgerald could prove that, it would have been a much more impressive perjury charge than some of the stuff we actually got.

SO – my inference from the absence of a perjury indictment on that point is that Fitzgerald felt he could not prove beyond a resaonable doubt that Libby was lying when he claimed ignorance of her classified status. (Actually, there is no good reporting showing he *did* know her status.)

Which means Fitzgerald could not prove the elements of an IIPA, independently of Libby’s lies.

I hve made that argument many times, and the point is quite sincere. On a good day, I even mention Fitzgerald’s aside in the Miller affidavit, where he argues that Miller’s testimony is vital because, to date (Aug 2004) he has no direct evidence that Libby knew Plame was covert. By Aug 2004, most everybody had testified (we think) and Fitzgerald asserted in some filing that he was virtually done but for a few reporter’s testimony (wishful thinking!).

ALTHOUGH NO ONE ASKED: My take on Fitzgerald’s â€I couldn’t make the fine judgements due to sand in my eyes†is this:

Fitzgerald is quite sure Libby did not tell â€the truthâ€; therefore, we don’t know what â€the truth†is.

*IF* Libby had simply given testimony that merely matched Cooper, Miller, and Russert, and had skipped the weird memory loss – does anyone think there would have been IIPA charges? I do not. Things like proof that Libby knew she was classified seems to be missing.

HOWEVER – Fitzgerald is not inclined to assume that if Libby had told â€the truth†he would have simply matched other people’s stories (and there is no reason for him to make that minimalist assumption). Fitzgerald (IMHO) is making the point that if Libby had told â€the truthâ€, he *might* have delivered a full confession to every element needed under the IIPA.

Is Libby that dumb/crazy? Probably not, but who knows? All Fitzgerald knows is that Libby did not tell the truth, so we are left in the dark as to what Libby might have said.

Now, for my money Fitzgerald is stretching a long way to say that since Libby lied, and since as an alternative to lying Libby *might* have delivered a full confession, therefore it was Libby’s lies (i.e., failure to deliver a full confession) that impeded an IIPA indictment.

But I don’t think Fitzgerald is in doubt as to what Libby discussed with Cooper and Miller, so the direct lies cited in the indictment are not a real obstacle to anything.

Tom

Dana Priest is neither making the same case that right wingers are, nor is she supporting your point:

Dana Priest: It was reported before that she worked on proliferation issues for the CIA. The leap in this new round of information is that her outing significantly impacted our current intel on Iran. I don’t buy it. First, no one person who quit clandestine work four years ago is going to make that big of a dent in current knowledge.

Dana is not here reflecting reporting of her own, she’s just speculating based on the knowledge that Plame had quit clandestine work 4 years earlier (and not 10, as you just made up out of thin air, which of course puts it within the range of IIPA). That may well be true, but Dana is not saying that’s true based on actual knowledge.

But also, nothing like this came up at the time of her outing and I believe it would have. Think we need some actual details. At present it just doesn’t smell right.

Again, Dana is not saying she did reporting to come to this conclusion. She’s saying she didn’t hear about the negative effects of someone being outed. â€It doesn’t smell right.†Again, she may be right, be she is not claiming to have information to support her case.

On the perjury charge, are you saying you buy Libby’s story that he was getting Presidential permission to leak the NIE, for the first time in his career, in spite of the fact that he had leaked it two weeks earlier to someone, but he doesn’t know if he had permission? You see, I think Fitzgerald is pretty damn close to proving the truth behind Libby’s lie–that he said he was ordered to leak Plame’s ID to Judy Miller, with the approval of the President because it was so sensitive. If he proves that, he proves maliciousness, intent, and knowledge of classified status, pretty compellingly. He gets into a Ollie NOrth situation, sure, where the Veep ordered a NOC outed. BUt as I have been saying, how can the Veep insta-declassify a NOC without telling her? Yes, Fitzgerald didn’t charge that. Though he has had several new pieces of evidence related to it: new awareness of the July 2 meeting, testimony from Woodward regarding the NIE leak. Really, you’ve never even attempted a compelling explanation for why Libby is telling two completely contradictory stories about the NIE leak. I obviously don’t know that that is the direction Fitzgerald is heading. But I’ve not heard any compelling counter-argument from you, and I’d kind of expect it.

And the critical bit you’re missing when you dismiss the aside about Miller is that Fitzgerald had now way of knowing what Libby had told Miller at that point. He now knows Libby talked to Miller twice about Plame, and mentioned her CIA affiliation both times. If we believe Judy Miller, that gets Libby out of the IIPA leak, only because Libby didn’t say Plame is covert. But when you add it to the lie of the NIE, it gets you pretty close to IIPA.

WRT to Wen Ho Lee versus Novak, are you really suggesting there’s a valid parallel? Pincus’ source had not signed a waiver releasing him. Pincus’ had not just testified. Now Novak might be able to litigate people asking him his source–though I suspect the Wilsons might be able to get Armitage to act differently on this one, if it extnded beyong the criminal trial. But you might get pretty far by asking Novak quesitons that have nothing to do with the name of his source. Like, â€Did you have any knowledge of Plame when you first met Armitage? WHy were you so confident that Wilson had no CIA affiliation? Did you have any other relevant conversations about Plame the week of the leak?â€

Tom

And Dana Priest is a classic

Agreed, you should focus a little on what she says about Novak’s excuses for publishing despite the warning from Harlow. It doesn’t redound to Novak’s credit.

Following Jeff’s point

First off, it will be great progess in the prevailing view on the right if many people acknowledge that Plame was not a glorified secretary at the CIA, but was a NOC, regardless of when the last time she’d served overseas. So I’m pleased to see that. Second, it will be interesting to see if she did in fact do overseas work in the previous five years – despite the wiggle room Fitzgerald provides himself on the point, I do suspect she had done covert work overseas – I bet just not in Europe! – in the previous five years, and the good faith expectation of the CIA was that she would do so again in the future.

Which means Fitzgerald could not prove the elements of an IIPA, independently of Libby’s lies.

I actually agree with a modified – but an importantly modified version – of this. Fitzgerald judged that he couldn’t prove the elements of an IIPA with the same confidence he had that he could prove the obstruction case against Libby that he made. I’ve said this many times before, but my understanding from my lawyer friends is that federal prosecutors have the distinctive luxury of making those kinds of judgments about exactly what to prosecute.

And the same point weakens your argument about the sand in Fitzgerald’s eyes, even though again I think there’s something to it (all you have to imagine is Libby taking the 5th Amendment – but see below). You seem to imagine that Fitzgerald’s indictment reflects which are the most important lies Libby told, or that any purported lies Fitzgerald did not indict Libby on are ones that Fitzgerald could not prove. But I think that’s just wrong. Fitzgerald had to indict Libby on significant, not trivial, lies. But we know he thinks confidently that Libby’s story is shot through with lies, and many of them will be subject to proof at the trial. He made the choices he did presumably because those lies 1)were significant enough; 2)ones that he felt very very confident he could make the prosecution hinge on. Therefore Fitzgerald is not arguing that the specific lies the indictment hinges on are an obstacle to an IIPA indictment and conviction. The indictment is designed to make a serious case he can get a conviction on.

And the fact that Fitzgerald holds the quaint view that if Libby had told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under oath, Fitzgerald might have learned that Libby had violated IIPA – that’s not Fitzgerald making the point you say he’s making:

Fitzgerald (IMHO) is making the point that if Libby had told â€the truthâ€, he *might* have delivered a full confession to every element needed under the IIPA.

That’s Fitzgerald making the point that if the truth is that Libby violated IIPA (knew she was classified, had served overseas, was being protected by the CIA and so on), Libby should have testified to that, or taken the 5th.

One thing to add to Jeff’s point:

You seem to imagine that Fitzgerald’s indictment reflects which are the most important lies Libby told, or that any purported lies Fitzgerald did not indict Libby on are ones that Fitzgerald could not prove. But I think that’s just wrong. Fitzgerald had to indict Libby on significant, not trivial, lies. But we know he thinks confidently that Libby’s story is shot through with lies, and many of them will be subject to proof at the trial. He made the choices he did presumably because those lies 1)were significant enough; 2)ones that he felt very very confident he could make the prosecution hinge on.

I also think Fitz wants to indict on lies that don’t touch on the primary lies, so as to hole them in reserve for a possible IIPA conviction (or to bargain with Libby with or to indict someone else).

That is, he has indicted on moderate level lies. He hasn’t touched on the VP authorization. THat means he can return to those VP authorization lies (particularly now that he’s gotten more evidence relating to them) to indict further. He hasn’t wasted the IIPA evidence on a perjury case.

kim

I heard that. I understand C&L will have the vid up shortly.

re: Novak; I think N got involved for paleoideological reasons, whetted for the standoff in a civil action. The WHLee matter involved international sensibilities, and WHL received his due tribute to compensate for the anguish of the ordeal of the investigation. I found charming the comment in one thread a few months ago when the settlement finalized: one employee there observed that the workplace is so regulated EveryOne takes work home because of the impediments of following SOPs in the office, lab; maybe. The standards for reporter shield in a GJ are different from the civil arena and more intrusive; Novak seemingly dissimilated fairly uniformly until recently. I continue with the sense N never explained fully the fit of pique mid WhosWho-on-the-desk interview, given he apparently has had more information about the subject all along.

Waaay late, and in random response order:

I also think Fitz wants to indict on lies that don’t touch on the primary lies, so as to hole them in reserve for a possible IIPA conviction (or to bargain with Libby with or to indict someone else).

Well – I think that if Fitzgerald decides he wants to induce a coronary in Judge Walton, he will let him know that the last year of dancing around has been a waste of time, but now Fitzgerald is ready to present the real indictment.

My guess – there won’t be any significant new charges against Libby or anyone else. Time will tell.

From Jeff:

And the fact that Fitzgerald holds the quaint view that if Libby had told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under oath, Fitzgerald might have learned that Libby had violated IIPA – that’s not Fitzgerald making the point you say he’s making…

Well, my theory is that people are runnning this argument backwards, and inappropriately.

Fitzgerald said, roughly, the sand in my eyes was one of the things preventing an IIPA indictment.

Fitzgerald’s defenders run that backwards and say, if not for the sand, there would have been an IIPA indictment.

*I* say, Fitzgerald was delivering CYA spin in overstating the impact of the sand – *MAYBE* if Libby had told â€the truth†he (1) would have confessed, maybe (2) he would have taken the fifth, maybe (3) Fitzgerald would have had no grounds to indict anyone for anything.

I think folks give short shrift to choice (3). An example of short shrift was in the comments above:

And remember how Patrick Fitzgerald said he had been prevented from establishing motive precisely by Scooter Libby’s obstruction? Remember that? You see, Fitz said he couldn’t charge on IIPA because he couldn’t prove motive because of Scooter Libby’s lies.

A casual reader might infer that, absent obstruction, motive *would* have been established. I disagree.

Really, you’ve never even attempted a compelling explanation for why Libby is telling two completely contradictory stories about the NIE leak.

My non-compelling view is that Libby leaked classified stuff from time to time, got caught with the NIE thing, made up a BS story, and Fitzgerald let it slide. Why? Because (a) he was out to criminalize leaks of NOCs, not all leaks, and (b) there was that puzzle about Judy’s clearance ( (b) counts for about 5%; mostly, Fitzgerald went with (a)).

From the EW post:

See, Scooter Libby is simultaneously claiming that the NIE leak was part of a larger campaign, a leak he repeated at least six times. And he’s claiming that his leak to Judy was a unique event, an exclusive leak.

I find this to be a bit over-stated (OK, way over-stated.) My story – Libby leaked to Woodward without formal authorization because everybody had been told to cooperate with Woodward and gave him stuff all the time.

Libby then got a bit edgy about leaking to Miller, got a green light, and used that green light to cover his chats with Miller, Cooper, Kesler, and whoever.

In my version, it was the Woodward leak that stood out as unusual. That leaves me deeply unconvinced by the rest of your hypothesis:

Neither the NIE, nor the CIA report on Joe Wilson’s trip (which was a central part of Tenet’s statement and Ari’s press briefings that week), were leaks uniquely targeted to Judy Miller. So if there was a unique leak on July 8, it had to be something else.

…The NIE leak claims are important because they prove that Libby lied when he said that the instruction in his notes related exclusively to the NIE and had nothing to do with Valerie Plame.

My version – Libby leaked the NIE to Woodward, gulped, got specific permission to leak to Miller, made a note of it, and used that permission to cover chats with other reporters.

Even if my version is wrong, Fitzgerald won’t be proving it – its not in the notes, and neither Libby nor Cheney are confessing.

And a check of Miller’s version will support my story, IIRC – I believe she asked him at the June 23 meeting for more details,
which he delivered on July 8. Here we go, although it is ambiguous (at best) since she places it in her discussion of the July 8 meeting:

An unclassified version of that estimate had been made public before my interviews with Mr. Libby. I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I had pressed Mr. Libby to discuss additional information that was in the more detailed, classified version of the estimate. I said I had told Mr. Libby that if The Times was going to do an article, the newspaper needed more than a recap of the administration’s weapons arguments. According to my interview notes, though, it appears that Mr. Libby said little more than that the assessments of the classified estimate were even stronger than those in the unclassified version.

If she had pressed him for the classified stuff, and he had the classified stuff on July 8, my read is that she asked for it in June, which led to the July 2 â€approvalâ€.

WRT to Wen Ho Lee versus Novak, are you really suggesting there’s a valid parallel?

Surely, in terms of legal precedent and procedure there ought to be – Wen Ho lee sued government officials for defamation and sought testimony from reporters in a civil suit; the Wilsons are suing government officials and seeking testimony from reporters in a civil suit.

As to the waivers, sure, that is a wrinkle, but I haven’t actually seen one (have I?) – if it is limited to grand jury testimony, that won’t help the Wilsons much, I wouldn’t think.

Oh, I wanted to pitch in the other Dana Priest quote, from last fall:

Columbia, S.C.: Great Work!

How do you answer critics who point out this may be a ’leak’ that could potentially compromise national security, ala the Plame leak?

Dana Priest: I don’t actually think the Plame leak compromised national security, from what I’ve been able to learn about her position. As for my article, we tried to minimize that by not naming the countries involved and, otherwise, no, I don’t believe it compromised national security at all.

Taking her two quotes together suggests to me that she has poked around this story (why wouldn’t she?) and come up empty.