@@ JEW exposed in White House leak case @@
Arash
October 20, 2005
Lewis Libby possibly sought out reporters in CIA leak
Evidence about Cheney's chief of staff weakens White House's argument
Washington -- The evidence prosecutors have assembled in the CIA leak case suggests
Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby
(http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/libby/libby.php) 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.
For months, the White House and its supporters have argued top presidential aides did
not knowingly expose Valerie Plame Wilson
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame), the wife of administration critic
ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson), as a
CIA operative.
At most, the aides passed on information about her that entered the White House from
reporters, the supporters argued.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Fitzgerald)
now knows that Irv Lewis "Scooter" Libby met three times with a New York Times
reporter before the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_Affair), initiated a call to NBC’s Tim Russert
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Russert) and was a confirming source about Wilson’s
wife for a Time magazine reporter.
Rove’s source may have been Libby
And in a new twist, presidential political adviser Karl Rove
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove) has testified that it’s possible Irv Lewis
"Scooter" Libby was his source before Karl Rove talked to two reporters about the CIA
operative.
In light of all the disclosures, “it’s going to be as difficult for the defense to
prove the theory that the White House got the information from reporters as it is for
Patrick Fitzgerald to prove that the White House leaked the information about
ambassador Wilson’s wife”, said Washington-based white-collar defense attorney James
D. Wareham.
Where Lewis Libby first heard the information still isn’t publicly known, but a full
three weeks before Valerie Plame Wilson’s name first showed up in print, Libby was
telling New York Times reporter Judith Miller
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller_%28journalist%29) that he thought
ambassador, Joseph Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, according to Judith Miller’s
testimony.
While Lewis "Scooter" Libby maintains that he didn’t know Valerie Plame Wilson’s name
until it was published in the news media, the now-public evidence suggests Libby at
least was aware that ambassador Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and that he spread
the information.
Prosecutors must determine whether it was part of an effort to undermine the
credibility of Valerie Plame Wilson’s husband who was criticizing the White House
(http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm).
Challenging ‘the news media did it’ notion
Until this week, “the news media did it” was a standard defense among Republicans
trying to protect the Bush administration from the political fallout of Fitzgerald’s
criminal investigation. Loyalists said that even if White House aides had passed on
information, they didn’t get it from classified sources and were simply repeating
what they heard from journalists.
As new evidence accumulates on the public record, Lewis Libby’s original source of
information and how he passed the information on are becoming crucial unanswered
questions. The public still doesn’t know much about what the vice president and his
top aide talked about, either.
In grand jury testimony shown to Karl Rove, Lewis Libby said he had told Rove about
information he had gotten about ambassador, Joseph Wilson’s wife from Russert,
according to a person directly familiar with the information.
Prosecutors, however, have a different account from Tim Russert. The TV network has
said Russert told authorities he did not know about ambassador Wilson’s wife’s
identity until it was published and therefore could not have told Lewis "Scooter"
Libby about it. Russert also says that it was Lewis Libby who initiated the contact
with him.
In Judith Miller’s case, the reporter was interviewing Lewis Libby on June 23, 2003,
for a story on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when the vice
president’s chief of staff suggested a CIA tie for ambassador Wilson’s wife, Miller
has said.
“This was the first time I had been told that ambassador Wilson’s wife might work for
the CIA”, Judith Miller wrote in a first-person account over the weekend
(http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/101505W.shtml).
Judith Miller said this week that she never wrote a story about ambassador Wilson’s
wife because “it wasn’t that important to me. I was focused on the main question: Was
our WMD intelligence slanted?”
Fact file: Who's who in the CIA leak mystery
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8550312
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9759368
Cover-Up Issue Is Seen as Focus in Leak Inquiry
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/f8a438a900ef766e?hl=en
Secrets, Evasions and Classified Reports
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/e9da14f43b85eeba?hl=en
The Exorcism of the New York Times
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/4bb62103d6c6f358?hl=en
Larry Franklin-Plame connection
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/cbc77a30a4b0072f?hl=en