Archive for category: emptywheel

Actually, Dick’s comments about Libby are actually pretty interesting, so I thought I’d give them their own post. [My transcription.]

CBS: Have you spoken to your former top aide since his verdict?

Dick: I have.

CBS: Can you tell us anything about that conversation?

Dick: No. I’ve seen him socially on a number of occasions.

CBS: Do you believe the commutation that President Bush gave Scooter Libby for his prison term was enough, or if you had been President would you have granted a full pardon?

Dick: I thought the President handled it right. I supported his decision.

CBS: Did you disagree with the guilty verdict in the case?

Dick: I did.

CBS: Even though the President said he respects that verdict?

Dick [evil Cheney laugh]: I still … you asked me if I disagreed with the verdict and I did.

CBS: Do you think Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald went too far in pursuing a prosecution of Scooter Libby?

Dick: Well, I don’t want to go beyond where I have already. The matter’s still pending before the Courts, um, there’s an appeal pending, um, on the question and I don’t want to um elaborate further.

See, if you disagree with the verdict, then there’s only one reason to call for commutation rather Read more →

This is the second post in a series. In the prior post, I showed that, when Libby asked David Addington about paperwork relating to a CIA employee’s spouse traveling for the CIA, he was interested in identifying all backup documents to Wilson’s 2002 trip and/or the paperwork associated with Wilson’s 1999 trip to Niger relating to AQ Khan. In this post, I’ll show that, the two questions Libby asked Addington reflect the annotations Cheney wrote on Wilson’s op-ed.

As best as we can tell, on late July 6 or early July 7, 2003, DickCheney returned to DC from a long weekend in Jackson Hole. He broughtwith him his copy of Joe Wilson’s op-ed, folded vertically. In addition to a bunch of underlines Cheney had made, he had written at the top:

Have they done this sort of thing?

Send an Amb to answer a question?

Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us?

Or did his wife send him on a junket?

I have shownthat Cheney clearly read (and presumably annotated) this op-ed beforeJuly 8.That’s because the talking points he dictates to Cathie Martinon July 8 refer explicitly to what Wilson says in his op-ed.

But the important point about these talking points is that Cheney references Wilson’s op-ed. Ashard as Libby tries, he cannot claim that Cheney only read Wilson’sop-ed after the Novak article. Cheney uses an attack–the ridiculousattack about Wilson going pro bono–that he wrote in his op-ed talkingpoints in the talking points he dictated to Martin on July 8.

If you’ve got a strong heart, Fitzgerald does a much (much!) weedier version of this in his closing argument,showing that many of Cheney’s underlines and notes show up in thesetalking points. Both Fitzgerald’s and my version make it crystal clear thatCheney’s changed his instructions to Cathie Martin–and OVP’s standard talking points addressing Joe Wilson–in response to reading Wilson’s op-ed.

But what about Libby? Did Cheney change his instructions for Libby after annotating Wilson’s op-ed? If we can prove he was, it adds one more piece ofevidence to the accumulating collection of evidence showing that Cheneyordered Libby to leak Plame’s identity.

It looks like we’re approaching the point where some hack stands up and explains that the claim that any disagreements were not about the domestic wiretap program is no longer operative.

Documents indicate eight congressional leaderswere briefed about the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillanceprogram on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting swornSenate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

[snip]

A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.

At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearingTuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was notabout the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the NationalSecurity Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States withoutreceiving court approval.

Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe.

[snip]

"The dissent related to other intelligenceactivities," Gonzales testified at Tuesday’s hearing. "The dissent wasnot about the terrorist surveillance program."

I’m officially taking bets. Do you think Gonzales’ get-out-of-jail-card will come more quickly or more slowly than Libby’s did?

In light of the news that Alberto Gonzales granted Cheneypresidential powers to snoop into ongoing investigations in May 2006, I thoughtit was time to update my chronology of the CIFA side of the Cunningham scandal.

• September 2002, then Deputy Secretary of Defense for Counter-Intelligence Burtt establishes CIFA to oversee counterintelligence units of the armed services; consulting on the new agency was James King, recently retired director of National Imagery and Mapping Agency and MZM vice president
• Late 2002, Cunningham gets Mitchell Wade a data storage contract worth $6 million, of which $5.4 was profit
• January 2004, Cunningham adds $16.5 million to defense authorization for a "collaboration     center" that appears to include business for Wade’s company
• June 27, 2005, James King takes over MZM
• August 2005 Veritas announces takeover of MZM–will become Athena
• November 28, 2005, Cunningham pleads guilty to bribery
• November 30, 2005, USNORTHCOM JPEN deletes all TALON reports
• December 2005, Pincus reveals a CIFA database contains raw intelligence data on peace activists (and, presumably, Jesus’ General)
• March 2006, prosecutors in the Cunningham case are reviewing CIFA contracts to MZM
• March 2006, Stephen Cambone announces an investigation of CIFA’s contracting
• Goss implicated in Cunningham scandal
• May 4, 2006, Gonzales gives himself authority to "communicate directly … regarding any matter within the Read more →

John Bates has issued a ruling I’ve been anticipating–dismissing the Wilson lawsuit against Cheney, Rove, Libby, and Armitage. If I’m reading correctly, Bates ruled that he has no jurisdiction to rule in this matter.

This Court therefore lacks subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ tort claim for public disclosure of private facts.

He therefore did not deal with many of the arguments the Wilsons and the defendants raised in this case–including Cheney’s claim to absolute immunity. But he prefaces his detailed discussion with the following comment.

The merits of plaintiffs’ claims pose important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials.

All of which is a 40-page way of saying what Cheney and Libby and Rove and Armitage did was wrong. But a civil suit is not the appropriate venue to address that wrong. And with Bush’s self-serving commutation of Libby’s sentence, the criminal courts have been foreclosed as the means to address that wrong, too.

Which leaves Congress. There is abundant evidence already in the public record showing top members of the Administration–including Bush himself–abused their positions of power to rebut Joe Wilson. Some of those actions–including the commutation itself, since it removed Bush from criminal liability for his actions–fit Read more →