Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
Say, does anyone remember the Off the Record Club? It was one of the most interesting details revealed at the Libby trial–that there’s this group of GOP-lobbyist-hacks who meet monthly and serve as an on-call damage control group for the Republicans.
But [Richard] Hohlt’s more significant role may be his leadership of a secretivesocial group of GOP heavy hitters and, occasionally, White Houseofficials, who convene to smoke cigars and mull over politics.
Here’s my Guardian column explaining all the involvement of Cheney and Bush in the Plame outing–which explains why Bush didn’t want Libby to lose his ability to refuse to testify.
On June 9, 2003, just one day after his national security advisor,Condoleezza Rice, got beaten up on the Sunday shows for claiming no onein the administration knew that the Niger intelligence was bunk, GeorgeBush expressed concern about the allegations.
I will return to the Libby commutation, I promise. But like Josh, I think this IG report is very very important–perhaps as bad as Nixon on steroids.
To review what I presented yesterday just as the Libby thing was exploding, DOD’s IG has released its report on the CIFA and TALON domestic spying program.
Digby’s all over Tim Noah’s latest idiocy.
Clinton was impeached and he faced the music. He was tried and acquittedaccording to the rules of the constitution. Bush, on the other hand,just used his plenary power to commute a sentence to cover his own baddeeds and keep one of his own aides from having to pay the price forhis crimes.
Well, folks, we’re down to congressional remedies and public opinion if we’re going to hold Cheney responsible for outing a CIA spy. To that end, here are some questions I suggest HJC pursue:
Did Bush ask Libby to take the lead in responding to Wilson’s allegations on June 9, 2003? How did Libby learn of Bush’s concerns about the allegations?
Via email from his spokesperson:
Wefully recognize that the Constitution provides that commutation decisions are a matter of presidential prerogative and we do not comment on the exercise of that prerogative.
We comment only on the statement in which the President termed the sentence imposed by the judge as “excessive.†The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout
Well, George did it. Made sure that Scooter wouldn’t flip rather than do jail time. He commuted Libby’s sentence, guaranteeing not only that Libby wouldn’t talk, but retaining Libby’s right to invoke the Fifth.
This amounts to nothing less than obstruction of justice.
Here’s Bush’s statement, in which a guy who is pushing to restore minimum sentencing laws says that Libby’s sentencing–which was the minimum according to the guidelines, was too tough:
Mr.
Holy Shit. Remember TALON and CIFA? Here’s a description I wrote in April:
It was designed to gather intelligenceon threats to defense installments in the United States–to try tocollect information (in the TALON database) on threatening peoplescoping out domestic bases. But it ended up focusing on peace activists and the lefty blogosphere’s own Jesus’ General.
Does it bother anyone that–at a time when Pakistan’s Interior Ministry is raising concerns about the Taliban taking over significant chunks of Pakistan, the father of Pakistan’s nuke program is on the loose? [Thanks to Mimikatz for the spelling correction.]
Authorities have eased the virtual house arrest imposed on A.Q. Khan,the disgraced scientist who sold Pakistan’s nuclear secrets to Iran,North Korea and Libya, officials said Monday.
[snip]
However, two senior government officials told the
Once upon a time in a land called Plameology, I was utterly obsessed with the CIA report on Joe Wilson’s trip. As I pointed out some time ago, the trip report, in addition to Valerie’s identity, was classified at the beginning of leak week. And as I pointed out over the weekend, it is crystal clear that Libby, at least, leaked material from this, knowing it was classified, with no claim