The CIA Doesn’t Want You to Know about Tom Cruise’s Lobbying for Scientologists
I’m mostly amused by Steven Aftergood’s report that the CIA refuses to release the PDB-related materials introduced at Scooter Libby’s trial.
Even though certain information concerning the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) was redacted and declassified for use in the prosecution of former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby in 2006, that same information is nonetheless “currently and properly classified,” the Central Intelligence Agency said (pdf) last week. The Agency denied release of the material under the Freedom of Information Act.
The existence of the declassified PDB material was disclosed in a January 9, 2006 letter (pdf) from Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald to Mr. Libby’s attorney. He wrote: “In response to our requests, we have received [from CIA] a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs and discussions involving Mr. Libby and/or Vice President Cheney concerning or relating to the PDBs. We have provided to Mr. Libby and his counsel (or are in the process of providing such documents consistent with the process of a declassification review) copies of any pages in our possession… in the redacted form in which we received them.”
Since declassified PDBs are comparatively rare, we submitted a Freedom of Information Act request in February 2006 for a copy of the PDB-related material that was declassified by CIA for the Libby prosecution. Last week, the CIA responded that it had located the requested material but that “we determined [it] is currently and properly classified and must be denied in its entirety.”
As Aftergood notes, two of the PDB-related tables of contents were introduced at the trial–Libby’s briefing for June 14, 2003, and Cheney’s briefing for July 14, 2003. Those tables of contents are prominently stamped "unclassified," but they’re entirely redacted except for a few logistical notes and Libby briefer Craig Schmall’s notes from those briefings, which are:
- Why was the Amb told this was a VP office question? Joe Wilson Valerie Wilson (June 14)
- Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz at his office. (June 14)
- Sensitive memo from DDCI] RETURN (June 14)
- Senior intel official: someone in the sessions spoke directly to the press > press is calling Scooter directly — he asked who he spoke to directly (June 14)
- Did you read the Novak article? Not your problem. (July 14)
For some reason, the CIA refused to release these two highly-redacted PDB-related documents. I guess they don’t want you to know that these top-secret briefing sessions include discussions of the private meetings that Scientologists get with the Vice President’s Chief of Staff (Cruise and Cruz were lobbying Libby–as they had lobbied Ricard Armitage that same week–to pressure Germany about its treatment of Scientologists). Our culture of secrecy is protecting some really important secrets, I guess.
That said, just to piss off the CIA, here’s what–according to Schmall’s testimony–the June 14 PDB contained, in general form, along with the daily threat assessment. Libby lawyer and graymail artist John Cline led Schmall through this list in an attempt to introduce the memory defense without having to put Libby on the stand.
Q I want to take you through those topics and see if you can recall briefing Mr. Libby about them on that Saturday June 14th. Now, all I want you to do, in answer to my question, is say yes, you recall or no, you don’t recall. I don’t want you to expand, okay?
A Okay. Recall briefing it on that day, sir, correct?
Q That’s correct. Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby on Saturday, June 14th, about a bomb that had been diffused near a western residential compound in Yemen?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby about the police arresting an individual responsible for a terrorist bombing in a country that I can’t identify?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby about nearly simultaneous explosions in the capitol of a country?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby about an East African extremist network?
A No, sir.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby about information on a possible Al-Qaeda attack in the United States?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby about a concern involving a specific vulnerability to terrorist attacks?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby about a proposed Middle East security plan?
A No, sir.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby about a country’s security measures hampering Al-Qaeda’s activities?
A No, sir.
Q How about an international organization’s position concerning a country’s nuclear program, do you recall briefing him on Saturday, June 14th?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q How about briefing Mr. Libby on the, that Iraq’s porous borders present a security threat?
A No, sir.
Q How about violent demonstrations in Iran?
A No, sir.
Q Do you recall that you gave Mr. Libby briefings on a total of 27 items that day?
A I’m not aware of how many items were briefed that day.
Q Did you review the unredacted table of contents before you came over to testify?
A Yes, I had seen them before.
Q And based on your review of that unredacted table of contents, are you able to confirm for us that there were 27 items that you briefed Mr. Libby on that day?
A No, sir. I really didn’t pay that much attention to these specific items in the briefings.
Q You mean in preparing for your testimony?
A Yes, sir.
Q At the time you paid close attention?
A Absolutely, sir.
Q Because you knew this was very important stuff, right?
A Yes, sir.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby on June 14th on the challenge posed by Palestinian terrorist groups to improving relations between the Palestinian authorities and Israel?
A No, sir.
Q Do you recall that Mr. Libby requested that several items from the June 14, 2003, list, several of these articles that you gave him, be returned to him on June 16th?
A I don’t recall that specifically.
Q That did happen from time to time, correct?
A Yes, sir.
Q You just don’t recall what happened on this day?
A Not on June 14, no, sir.
Q Now, I’ve asked you about some of the inteligence articles that you briefed Mr. Libby about on Saturday, June 14th. You don’t recall any of them; right?
A That’s correct, sir.
Q Now, I’m going to ask you about some of the items on that list of terrorist threats that we talked about before but can’t name. Are you familiar with what I’m talking about?
A Yes, sir.
Q Do you remember briefing Mr. Libby on Saturday, June 14, about the concern over possible suicide operations to highjacked aircraft at Al-Qaeda International Airport by a terrorist group with links to Al-Qaeda?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby on Saturday, June 14th, about a concern about terrorists providing support to a planned terrorist operation or business transaction by Al-Qaeda?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q Do you remember briefing Mr. Libby on Saturday, June 14th, about potential suicide attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq by a terrorist group?
A No, sir.
Q Do you recall briefing Mr. Libby on Saturday, June 14th, about potential terrorist attacks at unspecified times against the U.S. Embassy and the British High Commission in Kenya?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q Do you recall, Mr. Schmall, that there were 11 pages of terrorist threats in that list that you gave him that day, Saturday, June 14th?
A It’s not clear. I’m not sure whether I actually gave it to him that day. It wasn’t listed on my table of contents. And there came a time when frankly we stopped putting that compilation in the briefing books.
Q I understand. If it has been represented to us by the Agency that this was presented to him that day, would you agree with me that those items were in there or do you not recall?
A I don’t recall, sir.
Q I take it you don’t recall briefing Mr. Libby that an unspecified group was observed videotaping facilities near a U.S. university on Saturday, June 14th?
A No, sir, I don’t.
Q That list of items that I’ve just run down for you, both the articles and the terrorist threats, I understand you don’t recall anything that happened on June 14th in terms of what you briefed Mr. Libby on, correct?
A Yes, sir.
Q I gather, though, that those types of items, putting aside the question of when you stopped presenting the list of the terrorist items, those are the kinds of items that would be briefed to Mr. Libby six days a week, correct?
A Yes, sir.
There. I’ve just exposed highly classified PDB-related materials the CIA says cannot be released. Pretty impressive huh?
(I think admitting that our top CIA briefers are wasting time talking about Scientologists might be an even greater threat than releasing the information in the actual briefing document.)
emptywheel,
Did you get an e-mail from me?
I got it while traveling. I need to look at it again–thanks for the reminder.
Is that a transcription error or did Cline make that error? I’d guess he meant to say Baghdad International Airport.
Dunno if it’s a transcription error of the court reporter or not, but thus was a direct cut and paste from the transcript.
In that case, it was certainly Cline’s error. It’s the type of error that only someone who knew end of the sentence would make. It appears that Cline changed the sentence mid-stream. He probably started out intending to say
I’m thinking that some form of memory test needs to become a requirement to work for the White House or OVP. Almost every answer above is some form of “I don’t remember”.
Boxturtle (Were these guys BORN with an 18 1/2 minute gap in their brains?!?)
No,
Just “born again” with an 18.5 minute gap in their brains.
We may get some of that 18 1/2 minutes, yet.
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..8-minutes/
When do you think we will be granted info on the Plame episode.
Will it be a couple of years, or sooner, any idea?
So being forgetful is a pretty sought after characteristic in a briefer, eh?
OT – compare and contrast the complete lack of cooperation and lack of concern by the US military over the Dostum massacres with this story on US reaction to Iraq raiding an “Iranian opposition” camp. This was the only story on this that I saw that used the reference to just what kind of “Iranian opposition” they meant (MEK)(aka Rummy’s Irregulars) although it still doesn’t mention the terrorist status of the MEK group.
With reports of 8 Iranians (what, not 8 terrorists?) killed in the Iraqi raids,
Apparently these raids are causing some angst in DC.
Ah yes – the decision that illegal immigrant terrorists should be protected. That would only make sense, after all:
But they are Rumsfeld’s pals. Such good pals that, even though they were terrorists, it was more important to protect them when the war started than it was to get al-Qaeda operatives handed over:
Of course it made sense to turn down the Iranian overtures, because by then Rumsfeld’s crew had some long standing ties with MEK:
The Rome meeting, the MEK, years of war, thousands of US troops killed, tens of thousands and more Iraqi killings and Iraqi/US maimings, and now the “victory” of Iraq sovereignty resulting in Rummy’s terrorist pals getting attacked by the Iraqi government while US soldiers nearby are on hold (I’m betting the MEK guys would make bad CIA briefers, what with the likelihood of their having a memory and all)
I have to wonder if that noise I hear is someone in Tehran, laughing.
Fixed it for ya!
I think Iran suckered us from the very start in Iraq and they played BushCo like a fine violin throughout the last 8 years.
Boxturtle (It’s like they threw us a curveball)
The MEK for months has been (or was, until recently) staging a large demonstration in front of the White House in defense of its “Ashram”.
MEK is on the State Dept terrorism list, but allowed to assemble for protests in front of the WH. Meanwhile, Uzbek refugees sit in GITMO.
Apparently they missed out on the revelations on the road to
DamascusRome.From a self-serving interview given to the Washington Times, so take it with a man-sized grain of salt.
So the most direct route to influence the NSC is AIPAC?
Here’s the reaction to the raid from the MEK’s own website.
http://www.mojahedin.org/pagesEn/index.aspx
Steven Aftergood, who for years has directed the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, is a trooper when it comes to digging out classified material. A dozen years ago, he was the plaintiff in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that led to the declassification and publication of the total US intelligence budget for the first time since the CIA was founded. In 2006, PGS won a FOIA lawsuit against the National Reconnaissance Office for release of certain unclassified budget records.
But the main focus has been on turning up and publishing policy-relevant government records that have been suppressed, withdrawn or otherwise withheld.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..,-Says-CIA
Since 2000, his blog and associated newsletter, Secrecy News, has been a heavily sourced must-read for any investigative blogger or journalist interested in what the intelligence side of government is hiding, regardless of the concealed material’s value in enhancing national security. A monthly hard-copy predecessor, Secrecy & Government Bulletin, appeared from 1991, when the FAS Project on Government Secrecy began.
It can be argued that current law allows far too much to remain classified that shouldn’t be. Leaving that ideological point aside, however, the loosening of declassification rules, the FOIA and basic logic still allows for quite a lot of unaccountable, unacceptable hiding to continue.
It’s like they threw us a
cCurveball*G*
And while we were waiting around, trying to figure out what the next pitch would be, the rest of the ME had moved on to the soccer field.
OT and more OT this time. Horton has a piece up at Harpers on the sale of Ambassadorships and while it is interesting in general, this part popped out to me:
So even the Dem party finance chairman was Goldman Sachs? Good lord – they’re like the outwear version of thongs, turning up all kinds of places that would make you a little nauseous if you thought about it too much.
Al-Qaeda International Airport eh ?? hopefully we’re watching all flights emanating form there … [/snark]
Who was it that said recently that the CIA wants to classify its lunch menus?
OT
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton moved to halt disclosure of CIA torture evidence, court told
• Miliband claims relations with US would suffer
• Judge doubts alleged harm to intelligence sharing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..ia-torture
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, warned David Miliband that America would consider cutting security co-operation with the UK if a British court releases information about a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, two judges have been told
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new…..-case.html
Miliband explains Clinton’s objection in terms of the “principle” that intelligence furnished should not be disclosed, even in court proceedings. However, it is fairly obvious that the American State Department is acting as a proxy for American intelligence services in this process. And there is a far more powerful principle in play. The torture practiced on Binyam Mohamed was a serious crime. Evidence is being suppressed to preclude the full investigation of that crime and to block possible criminal prosecutions of those involved. That’s called obstruction of justice, and it’s also a crime. This case well exemplifies how the Obama Administration is using claims of national security interests to preclude serious investigations of criminal conduct and accountability of those involved.
http://www.harpers.org/archive…..c-90005452
This whole thing has blown my mind – the fact that Miliband’s assertions have, for months now, been so open and blatant – that the Obama administration is threatening Britain (and all the Americans and other allies’ citizens who happen to be in Britain at any time and from time to time) with allowing terrorist attacks that we know about to take place without a heads up if the Brits don’t cover up US crimes –
– and the US media and Congressional attention has been nil.
It doesn’t matter about US attention this time. It’s the British court who will decide if this becomes public and it’s front page news in London.
I am enjoying this. Popcorn, anyone?
Boxturtle (A civil judgement in Britan could be very inconvienent for ObamaCo)
That really is the issue
with all the crimes that have been committed all efforts should be directed toward exposing the exec and doj for their overt obstruction in burying everything even to the extremes of coersion,blackmail and bribery.
On the other hand this has surely been an excellent education in the the fact that the rule of law is a complete joke
That’s the argument made here and elsewhere every single time they’re trying to hide evidence of whom we partner with internationally (for example, it’s on those terms that CIA claims it can’t have the countries Italy, Niger, and UK released as part of Cheney’s Fitz interview). And the issue here is, probably, as much about Morocco as it is about UK.
I know that doesn’t make it right. But I’m not surprised about the lack of attention on it, bc it is really boilerplate language to protect when we use foreign countries.
The part that surprises me for not getting attention is the US threat to Britain to hold back information that can save lives if they release the war crimes evidence. The US press pretty much ignored it when S.Arabia was doing it as well.
It doesn’t surprise me to hear the, “we can’t release info bc it will touch on another country and may hurt our relationships” blather and have that get no press. But for one of our closest allies to be saying that yes, the court has pretty much said what is being held back is evidence of a crime, but we can’t reveal it bc the US is willing to let Brits and Americans in Britain die as a retaliatory measure – in a normal world, that should be pretty shocking (and should have been as well during the BAE/Saudi Arabia debacle) to even the “we can’t be in favor of releasing evidence of war crimes bc that would be *partisan* press”
@20 It’s a British Court that will decide, but it’s also a British court that has blocked the release before based on just this argument. The main reason they ended up back in court as the Miliband went from Court to Parliament and told Parliament that, “hahaha, just a little misunderstanding over there with the Court, you know how foggy judges are, of course the US didn’t threaten us, nah, didn’t happen that way at all, they are our allies and would never end up allowing the Royal Family to be taken out by snipers bc we revealed their war crimes, nah, just a misunderstanding by the court”
The court is trying to parse out the could v. would though, so maybe they are losing patience? And the criminal investigation is ongoing, but what are the odds it will hit it’s own BAE/Saudi moment, where it, too, is shut down for national security reasons?
Meanwhile, Newsweek argues that Obama needs to appoint a war criminal as special envoy to the ME, since it will make Israel happy.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/209174
British Foreign Secretary: Clinton threatened to cut-off intelligence-sharing if torture evidence is disclosed
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..index.html
The amazing quest of Binyam Mohamed – a British resident released from Guantanamo in February, 2009 after seven years in captivity – to compel public disclosure of information in the possession of the British Government proving he was tortured while in US custody. At the center of Mohamed’s efforts lie the claims of high British government officials that the Obama administration has repeatedly threatened to cut off intelligence-sharing programs with the UK if the British High Court discloses information which British intelligence officials learned from the CIA about how Mohamed was tortured. New statements from the British Foreign Secretary yesterday – claiming that Hillary Clinton personally re-iterated those threats in a May meeting – highlight how extreme is this joint American/British effort to cover-up proof of Mohamed’s torture.
Well at least media is not talking about Healthcare. That would be terrible.
Well it seems that the British are getting their act together Iraq war inquiry to take evidence in Iraq
The British Judges are pretty peeved at what is coming to light … expect them to lay the wood on the Poodle and his cohorts. I only hope that Vaughn Walker & Co. will continue to reclaim their powers and rap BushCo as hard.
It’s also hard to imagine the frothy Clinton obsessed press passing up their opportunity to share in this kind of headline:
Hillary Clinton made security help ‘threat’ to David Miliband over Binyam Mohamed case
Hillary threatening Britain with death to its citizens unless it helps cover up Presidential crime and the Murdochian Press passes?
Clinton tied to endagering the lives of children, and yet Fox says nada?
Who could have predicted …
Well Hillary DID have that sit-down with Rupert during the campaign . . . .
Thank you Marci Cronkite, I mean EW, you are incredible.
L Ron Hubbard was long involved with the intelligence community up to his eyeballs. He was involved with Operation Bluebird and Paperclip, bringing Nazi scientists here with their medical (psyop) research. He was playing footsie with the guy who started the Jet Propulsion Lab, who also happened to be a member of Crowley’s Golden Dawn. I wish this was just an insane conspiracy theory, but it’s unfortunately true.
The Scientologist mind-control techniques were perfected by the CIA and their precursors. This is not a mystery.
The truth of the link between Intelligence and Scientology is much weirder than you can even imagine. And that’s before you add the Mormon leadership of the 1950’s and 60’s to the mix (for real).
Historian Peter Levenda’s excellent and thoroughly sourced epic work, Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft provides the details. The connections are just astounding. Don’t read it before bedtime.
Here,here!
Try googling Mormon Mafia sometime.
Seems it started back during Howard Hughes days in Vegas.Hughes hired ONLY Mormons.
The government also patterened much of their data systems off the Mormon genealogy compilation methods.
Is it any wonder that Harry Reid,a Mormon from Vegas is in the position he is?
OR that Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital is partnered with the Carlyle Group-MIC heavyweight?
I read that much of the missionary work done in the Mormon religion -especially that done in foreign lands, provides significant numbers of potential government operatives.
Now wouldn’t it just be a pip if Scientology and the infamous “Family” of C Street were linked?
This post is great. Yet more proof that Bush and Obama’s administrations will abuse the classification system. Where is some pixie dust when silliness like this abounds?
Schmall’s bar for reaching the “I don’t recall” phrase is pretty low given the qualifier to every John Cline question is “on Saturday June 14.” As I understand it, even if Schmall has perfect recall of the Saturday conversation with Libby, if Schmall does not recall it was the “14th” then Schmall has to answer, “I do not recall.”
Maybe somewhere later in the transcript someone asks Schmall the same questions– minus the limiting date stamp?