http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0502255_pf.html
CIA Leak Judge Says No to Secret Arguments
By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 5, 2006; 8:53 PM
WASHINGTON -- A federal judge barred prosecutors in the CIA leak case Wednesday from making arguments that would be kept secret from the defendant, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.
Lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby are seeking a substantial amount of highly classified documents from the government so that the former White House aide can defend himself against five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI.
Libby is accused of making false statements about how he learned of the CIA employment of covert officer Valerie Plame and what he told reporters about her connection to the agency. Plame's identity was publicly disclosed in 2003, eight days after her husband accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.
In trying to scale back the amount of information they have to turn over to Libby, prosecutors said they should be allowed to argue their case in secret, out of the presence of the defendant and his lawyers, a request that U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton rejected.
"It is inappropriate and in fact unnecessary for the government to argue questions of materiality" without letting Libby's legal team know what the arguments are, Walton wrote.
The government wants to delete some classified information from documents Libby is seeking and wants to provide summaries for language in other highly sensitive classified documents.
Walton said the government may in some cases present the court the actual classified information that Libby wants for his defense without letting the defendant and his lawyers see it. The judge would then determine whether some of the deletions or substitutions that the government is making are proper.
"Despite the fact that the defendant is a former national security official and some of his defense team hold security clearances, this does not entitle them to view documents that exceed the level of their security clearances or documents that may discuss particularly sensitive issues with profound national security implications," the judge wrote.
© 2006 The Associated Press
Full Version: Judicial News from the Plame Case
Common Ground Common Sense > Issues that Affect Our Lives > Judicial System > Judicial System Issues Archive
It just occurred to me that the FBI should perhaps look into the possibility of performing background investigations and issuing Top Secret clearances for ALL of the federal court judges who are likely to be involved in trials concerning national defense, the war in Iraq and Republican corruption.
It might improve the concept of 'speedy trials', and unclog the courts.
There also should be a niche for criminal lawyers who have such clearances as well, to prepare for a whole slew of new clients!
It might improve the concept of 'speedy trials', and unclog the courts.
There also should be a niche for criminal lawyers who have such clearances as well, to prepare for a whole slew of new clients!
BUSH AUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE OF NIE TO NY TIMES' MILLER
President Bush specifically authorized Vice Presidential aide
Scooter Libby to disclose information from a classified National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to then-New York Times reporter Judith
Miller in July 2003, effectively declassifying the information,
according to a government filing in the Libby prosecution
yesterday.
"Defendant's [i.e. Libby's] participation in a critical
conversation with Judith Miller on July 8 [2003] occurred only
after the Vice President advised defendant that the President
specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain
information in the NIE," the government filing stated (at pp.
19-20).
"Defendant [Libby] testified that the circumstances of his
conversation with reporter Miller -- getting approval from the
President through the Vice President to discuss material that
would be classified but for that approval -- were unique in his
recollection."
The new filing in the Libby case was first reported today in the
New York Sun.
Whatever its significance for the Libby case, the latest filing
helps to resolve a lingering question that arose last February
regarding the Vice President's role in authorizing the disclosure
of classified information (Secrecy News, 02/16/06). It appears
that the Vice President did not direct disclosure on his own
authority but on that of the President.
"Defendant [Libby] testified that the Vice President later advised
him that the President had authorized defendant to disclose the
relevant portions of the NIE. Defendant testified that he also
spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom
defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and
Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly
disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the
document," the government filing said (p. 23).
See "Government's Response to Defendant's Third Motion to Compel
Discovery," April 5, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/libby/us040506.pdf
See also "Bush Said to Have Cleared Early Release of Iraq
Intelligence to Times" by Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, April 6:
http://nysun.com/timesleak.php
President Bush specifically authorized Vice Presidential aide
Scooter Libby to disclose information from a classified National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to then-New York Times reporter Judith
Miller in July 2003, effectively declassifying the information,
according to a government filing in the Libby prosecution
yesterday.
"Defendant's [i.e. Libby's] participation in a critical
conversation with Judith Miller on July 8 [2003] occurred only
after the Vice President advised defendant that the President
specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain
information in the NIE," the government filing stated (at pp.
19-20).
"Defendant [Libby] testified that the circumstances of his
conversation with reporter Miller -- getting approval from the
President through the Vice President to discuss material that
would be classified but for that approval -- were unique in his
recollection."
The new filing in the Libby case was first reported today in the
New York Sun.
Whatever its significance for the Libby case, the latest filing
helps to resolve a lingering question that arose last February
regarding the Vice President's role in authorizing the disclosure
of classified information (Secrecy News, 02/16/06). It appears
that the Vice President did not direct disclosure on his own
authority but on that of the President.
"Defendant [Libby] testified that the Vice President later advised
him that the President had authorized defendant to disclose the
relevant portions of the NIE. Defendant testified that he also
spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom
defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and
Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly
disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the
document," the government filing said (p. 23).
See "Government's Response to Defendant's Third Motion to Compel
Discovery," April 5, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/libby/us040506.pdf
See also "Bush Said to Have Cleared Early Release of Iraq
Intelligence to Times" by Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, April 6:
http://nysun.com/timesleak.php
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=710...id=aTAo1LZSEZDA
Bush Approved Leak of Iraq Arms Intelligence, Libby Testified
April 6 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush authorized disclosure of classified information on Iraq's weapons program to rebut war critics, a former top administration aide told a grand jury, according to documents filed in federal court.
The documents don't allege the president approved the identification of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, although they were filed in connection with the investigation into who leaked the operative's name to reporters in 2003. The court filing by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald also doesn't suggest Bush violated any rule or law governing the handling of classified material.
The document described federal grand jury testimony by I. Lewis Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, who was indicted last October of charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to FBI investigators probing the Plame case.
In the filing, Fitzgerald describes Libby's testimony about disclosure to former New York Times reporter Judy Miller of a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's pursuit of nuclear materials.
``Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE,'' Fitzgerald wrote.
Cheney previously has said he has authority to release classified information, as does the president.
``There's an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously it focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president,'' Cheney said in a Feb. 15 interview on Fox News.
The administration had no immediate comment on the court document, which was filed last night.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Richard Keil in Washington at dkeil@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: April 6, 2006 11:26 EDT
Bush Approved Leak of Iraq Arms Intelligence, Libby Testified
April 6 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush authorized disclosure of classified information on Iraq's weapons program to rebut war critics, a former top administration aide told a grand jury, according to documents filed in federal court.
The documents don't allege the president approved the identification of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, although they were filed in connection with the investigation into who leaked the operative's name to reporters in 2003. The court filing by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald also doesn't suggest Bush violated any rule or law governing the handling of classified material.
The document described federal grand jury testimony by I. Lewis Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, who was indicted last October of charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to FBI investigators probing the Plame case.
In the filing, Fitzgerald describes Libby's testimony about disclosure to former New York Times reporter Judy Miller of a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's pursuit of nuclear materials.
``Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE,'' Fitzgerald wrote.
Cheney previously has said he has authority to release classified information, as does the president.
``There's an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously it focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president,'' Cheney said in a Feb. 15 interview on Fox News.
The administration had no immediate comment on the court document, which was filed last night.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Richard Keil in Washington at dkeil@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: April 6, 2006 11:26 EDT
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0406nj1.htm
ADMINISTRATION
Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, April 6, 2006
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.
Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to the court papers. Libby was said to have testified that such presidential authorization to disclose classified information was "unique in his recollection," the court papers further said.
Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that Bush, by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, had in effect declassified the information. Legal experts disagree on whether the president has the authority to declassify information on his own.
The White House had no immediate reaction to the court filing.
Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war.
In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack," a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war.
Bush and Cheney authorized the release of the information regarding the NIE in the summer of 2003, according to court documents, as part of a damage-control effort undertaken only days after former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged in an op-ed in The New York Times that claims by Bush that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger were most likely a hoax.
According to the court papers, "At some point after the publication of the July 6 Op Ed by Mr. Wilson, Vice President Cheney, [Libby's] immediate supervisor, expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."
Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA officer at the time, and Cheney, Libby, and other Bush administration officials believed that Wilson's allegations could be discredited if it could be shown that Plame had suggested that her husband be sent on the CIA-sponsored mission to Niger.
Two days after Wilson's op-ed, Libby met with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and not only disclosed portions of the NIE, but also Plame's CIA employment and potential role in her husband's trip.
Regarding that meeting, Libby "testified that he was specifically authorized in advance... to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller" because Vice President Cheney believed it to be "very important" to do so, the court papers filed Wednesday said. The New York Sun reported the court filing on its Web site early Thursday.
Libby "further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE," the court papers said. Libby "testified that the Vice President had advised [Libby] that the President had authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions of the NIE."
Additionally, Libby "testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then counsel to the Vice President, whom [Libby] considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."
Addington succeeded Libby as Cheney's chief of staff after Libby was indicted by a federal grand jury on Oct. 28, 2005 on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice in attempting to conceal his role in outing Plame as an undercover CIA operative.
Four days after the meeting with Miller, on July 12, 2003, Libby spoke again to Miller, and also for the first time with Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper, during which Libby spoke to both journalists about Plame's CIA employment and her possible role in sending her husband to Niger.
Regarding those conversations, Libby understood that the Vice President specifically selected him to "speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson," the court papers said. Libby also testified, Fitzgerald asserted in the court papers, that "at the time of his conversations with Miller and Cooper, he understood that only three people -- the President, the Vice President and [Libby] -- knew that the key judgments of the NIE had been declassified.
"[Libby] testified in the grand jury that he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials-including Cabinet level officials-were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, the report about Wilson's trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003." It is unclear from the court papers what the January 24, 2003 document might be.
During those very same conversations with the press that day Libby "discussed Ms. Wilson's CIA employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time)," the court papers further said.
Although the special prosecutor's grand jury investigation has not uncovered any evidence that the Vice President encouraged Libby to release information about Plame's covert CIA status, the court papers said that Cheney had "expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."
Cheney told investigators that he had learned of Plame's employment by the CIA and her potential role in her husband being sent to Niger by then-CIA director George Tenet, according to people familiar with Cheney's interviews with the special prosecutor.
Tenet has told investigators that he had no specific recollection of discussing Plame or her role in her husband's trip with Cheney, according to people with familiar with his statement to investigators.
Two senior government officials said that Tenet did recall, however, that he made inquiries regarding the veracity of the Niger intelligence information as a result of inquires from both Cheney and Libby. As a result of those inquiries, Tenet then had the CIA conduct a new review of its Niger intelligence, and concluded that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had in fact attempted to purchase uranium from Niger or other African nations. Tenet and other CIA officials then informed Cheney, other administration officials, and the congressional intelligence committees of the new findings, the sources said.
Six days after Libby's conversation with Cooper and Miller regarding Plame, on July 18, 2003, the Bush administration formally declassified portions of the NIE on Iraqi weapons programs in an effort to further blunt the damage of Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration misused the faulty Niger intelligence information to make the case to go to war. It is unclear whether the information that Bush and Cheney were said to authorize Libby to disclose was the same information that was formally declassified.
One former senior government official said that both the president and Cheney, in directing Libby to disclose classified information to defend the administration's case to go to war with Iraq and in formally declassifying portions of the NIE later, were misusing the classification process for political reasons.
The official said that while the administration declassified portions of the NIE that would appear exculpatory to the White House, it insisted that a one-page summary of the NIE which would have suggested that the President mischaracterized other intelligence information to go to war remain classified.
As National Journal recently disclosed, the one-page summary of the NIE told Bush that although "most agencies judge" that an Iraqi procurement of aluminum tubes was "related to a uranium enrichment effort", the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."
Despite receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."
The former senior official said in an interview that he believed that the attempt to conceal the contents of the one-page summary were intertwined with the efforts to declassify portions of the NIE and to leak information to the media regarding Plame: "It was part and parcel of the same effort, but people don't see it in that context yet."
Although the court papers filed Wednesday revealed that Libby had testified that Bush and Cheney had authorized him to disclose details of the NIE, two other senior government officials said in interviews that Libby had asserted that Cheney had more broadly authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq as part of an administration effort to make the case to go to war.
In another instance, Libby had claimed that Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack."
Other former senior government officials said that Bush directed people to assist Woodward in the book's preparation: "There were people on the Seventh Floor [of the CIA] who were told by Tenet to cooperate because the President wanted it done. There were calls to people to by [White House communication director] Dan Bartlett that the President wanted it done, if you were not co-operating. And sometimes the President himself told people that they should co-operate," said one former government official.
It is unclear whether Libby will argue during his upcoming trial that these other authorizations by both the President and Vice President show that he did not engage in misconduct by disclosing Plame's CIA status to reporters, or that he considered these other authorizations giving him broad authority to make other disclosures.
Fitzgerald has apparently avoided questioning Libby, other government officials, and journalists about other potential leaks of classified information to the media, according to attorneys who have represented witnesses to the special prosecutor's probe. Outside legal experts said this might be due to the fact that other authorized leaks might aid Libby's defense, and because Fitzgerald did not want to question reporters about other contacts with Libby because of First Amendment concerns.
In a Feb. 17, 2006 letter to John D. Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote that he believed that disclosures in Woodward's book damaged national security. "According to [Woodward's} account, he was provided information related to sources and methods, extremely sensitive covert actions, and foreign intelligence liaison services."
Woodward's book contains, for example, a detailed account of a January 25, 2003 briefing that Libby provided to senior White House staff to make the case that Saddam Hussein had aggressive programs underway to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.
Two former government officials said in interviews that the account provided sensitive intelligence information that had not been cleared for release. The book referred to intercepts by the National Security Agency of Iraqi officials that purportedly showed that Iraq was engaging in weapons of mass destruction program.
Much of the information presented by Libby at the senior White House staff meeting was later discarded by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and then-CIA Director George Tenet as unreliable, and would not have either otherwise been made public.
One former senior official said: "They [the leakers] might have tipped people to our eavesdropping capacities, and other serious sources and methods issues. But to what end? The information was never presented to the public because it was bunk in the first place."
In the letter to Negroponte, Sen. Rockefeller complained: "I [previously] wrote both former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet and Acting DCI John McLaughlin seeking to determine what steps were being taken to address the appalling disclosures in [Woodward's book]. The only response that I received was to indicate that the leaks had been authorized by the Administration."
-- Previous coverage of pre-war intelligence and the CIA leak investigation from Murray Waas. Brian Beutler provided research assistance for this report.
ADMINISTRATION
Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, April 6, 2006
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.
Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to the court papers. Libby was said to have testified that such presidential authorization to disclose classified information was "unique in his recollection," the court papers further said.
Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that Bush, by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, had in effect declassified the information. Legal experts disagree on whether the president has the authority to declassify information on his own.
The White House had no immediate reaction to the court filing.
Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war.
In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack," a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war.
Bush and Cheney authorized the release of the information regarding the NIE in the summer of 2003, according to court documents, as part of a damage-control effort undertaken only days after former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged in an op-ed in The New York Times that claims by Bush that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger were most likely a hoax.
According to the court papers, "At some point after the publication of the July 6 Op Ed by Mr. Wilson, Vice President Cheney, [Libby's] immediate supervisor, expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."
Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA officer at the time, and Cheney, Libby, and other Bush administration officials believed that Wilson's allegations could be discredited if it could be shown that Plame had suggested that her husband be sent on the CIA-sponsored mission to Niger.
Two days after Wilson's op-ed, Libby met with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and not only disclosed portions of the NIE, but also Plame's CIA employment and potential role in her husband's trip.
Regarding that meeting, Libby "testified that he was specifically authorized in advance... to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller" because Vice President Cheney believed it to be "very important" to do so, the court papers filed Wednesday said. The New York Sun reported the court filing on its Web site early Thursday.
Libby "further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE," the court papers said. Libby "testified that the Vice President had advised [Libby] that the President had authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions of the NIE."
Additionally, Libby "testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then counsel to the Vice President, whom [Libby] considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."
Addington succeeded Libby as Cheney's chief of staff after Libby was indicted by a federal grand jury on Oct. 28, 2005 on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice in attempting to conceal his role in outing Plame as an undercover CIA operative.
Four days after the meeting with Miller, on July 12, 2003, Libby spoke again to Miller, and also for the first time with Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper, during which Libby spoke to both journalists about Plame's CIA employment and her possible role in sending her husband to Niger.
Regarding those conversations, Libby understood that the Vice President specifically selected him to "speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson," the court papers said. Libby also testified, Fitzgerald asserted in the court papers, that "at the time of his conversations with Miller and Cooper, he understood that only three people -- the President, the Vice President and [Libby] -- knew that the key judgments of the NIE had been declassified.
"[Libby] testified in the grand jury that he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials-including Cabinet level officials-were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, the report about Wilson's trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003." It is unclear from the court papers what the January 24, 2003 document might be.
During those very same conversations with the press that day Libby "discussed Ms. Wilson's CIA employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time)," the court papers further said.
Although the special prosecutor's grand jury investigation has not uncovered any evidence that the Vice President encouraged Libby to release information about Plame's covert CIA status, the court papers said that Cheney had "expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."
Cheney told investigators that he had learned of Plame's employment by the CIA and her potential role in her husband being sent to Niger by then-CIA director George Tenet, according to people familiar with Cheney's interviews with the special prosecutor.
Tenet has told investigators that he had no specific recollection of discussing Plame or her role in her husband's trip with Cheney, according to people with familiar with his statement to investigators.
Two senior government officials said that Tenet did recall, however, that he made inquiries regarding the veracity of the Niger intelligence information as a result of inquires from both Cheney and Libby. As a result of those inquiries, Tenet then had the CIA conduct a new review of its Niger intelligence, and concluded that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had in fact attempted to purchase uranium from Niger or other African nations. Tenet and other CIA officials then informed Cheney, other administration officials, and the congressional intelligence committees of the new findings, the sources said.
Six days after Libby's conversation with Cooper and Miller regarding Plame, on July 18, 2003, the Bush administration formally declassified portions of the NIE on Iraqi weapons programs in an effort to further blunt the damage of Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration misused the faulty Niger intelligence information to make the case to go to war. It is unclear whether the information that Bush and Cheney were said to authorize Libby to disclose was the same information that was formally declassified.
One former senior government official said that both the president and Cheney, in directing Libby to disclose classified information to defend the administration's case to go to war with Iraq and in formally declassifying portions of the NIE later, were misusing the classification process for political reasons.
The official said that while the administration declassified portions of the NIE that would appear exculpatory to the White House, it insisted that a one-page summary of the NIE which would have suggested that the President mischaracterized other intelligence information to go to war remain classified.
As National Journal recently disclosed, the one-page summary of the NIE told Bush that although "most agencies judge" that an Iraqi procurement of aluminum tubes was "related to a uranium enrichment effort", the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."
Despite receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."
The former senior official said in an interview that he believed that the attempt to conceal the contents of the one-page summary were intertwined with the efforts to declassify portions of the NIE and to leak information to the media regarding Plame: "It was part and parcel of the same effort, but people don't see it in that context yet."
Although the court papers filed Wednesday revealed that Libby had testified that Bush and Cheney had authorized him to disclose details of the NIE, two other senior government officials said in interviews that Libby had asserted that Cheney had more broadly authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq as part of an administration effort to make the case to go to war.
In another instance, Libby had claimed that Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack."
Other former senior government officials said that Bush directed people to assist Woodward in the book's preparation: "There were people on the Seventh Floor [of the CIA] who were told by Tenet to cooperate because the President wanted it done. There were calls to people to by [White House communication director] Dan Bartlett that the President wanted it done, if you were not co-operating. And sometimes the President himself told people that they should co-operate," said one former government official.
It is unclear whether Libby will argue during his upcoming trial that these other authorizations by both the President and Vice President show that he did not engage in misconduct by disclosing Plame's CIA status to reporters, or that he considered these other authorizations giving him broad authority to make other disclosures.
Fitzgerald has apparently avoided questioning Libby, other government officials, and journalists about other potential leaks of classified information to the media, according to attorneys who have represented witnesses to the special prosecutor's probe. Outside legal experts said this might be due to the fact that other authorized leaks might aid Libby's defense, and because Fitzgerald did not want to question reporters about other contacts with Libby because of First Amendment concerns.
In a Feb. 17, 2006 letter to John D. Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote that he believed that disclosures in Woodward's book damaged national security. "According to [Woodward's} account, he was provided information related to sources and methods, extremely sensitive covert actions, and foreign intelligence liaison services."
Woodward's book contains, for example, a detailed account of a January 25, 2003 briefing that Libby provided to senior White House staff to make the case that Saddam Hussein had aggressive programs underway to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.
Two former government officials said in interviews that the account provided sensitive intelligence information that had not been cleared for release. The book referred to intercepts by the National Security Agency of Iraqi officials that purportedly showed that Iraq was engaging in weapons of mass destruction program.
Much of the information presented by Libby at the senior White House staff meeting was later discarded by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and then-CIA Director George Tenet as unreliable, and would not have either otherwise been made public.
One former senior official said: "They [the leakers] might have tipped people to our eavesdropping capacities, and other serious sources and methods issues. But to what end? The information was never presented to the public because it was bunk in the first place."
In the letter to Negroponte, Sen. Rockefeller complained: "I [previously] wrote both former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet and Acting DCI John McLaughlin seeking to determine what steps were being taken to address the appalling disclosures in [Woodward's book]. The only response that I received was to indicate that the leaks had been authorized by the Administration."
-- Previous coverage of pre-war intelligence and the CIA leak investigation from Murray Waas. Brian Beutler provided research assistance for this report.
http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/04/06/grif...administration/
Grifting Your Own Administration
By Christy Hardin Smith
Reader looseheadprop catches a great bit in the Fitz filing that I wanted to highlight for everyone:
Page 24 of the Fitz filing. Only 3 people Pres, VP and Libby knew that Pres had authorized disclosure of NIE (which Addington gave an off the cuff opinion amounted to de-classification). [RH notes: Selective disclosure — it’s important to note here that they cherry-picked only the portions that made them look good in the NIE, while keeping the large portions that contradicted their public statements behind the classified wall. Pathetic, weak little cheaters who can’t make an argument for their actions based on the whole truth and the facts.]
Yet despite the fact that the Pres supposedly had already declassified it, and Libby had already revealed it to Miller, the WH was still pressing for it for it to be declassified???
How can the Pres request the declassification of something he has already declassified???
Sure brings the Fitzgerald statement about Libby throwing sand in his eyes with his obstruction and perjury and false statements in terms of getting to the truth in the investigation into a much, much sharper focus, now doesn’t it?
In this case, it’s a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn’t to one person. It wasn’t just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.
And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?
FITZGERALD: Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?
And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He’s trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.
As you sit here now, if you’re asking me what his motives were, I can’t tell you; we haven’t charged it.
So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.
I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.
This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.
For whom is Scooter Libby covering? That question just got a whole lot more interesting as I’m reading through the Fitz motion response.
I’ll have more on the filing as I get through the entire document and do a bit of research, but for now, sit back and really think about what looseheadprop said: why would President Bush ask members of his Administration to declassify portions of a document that he, himself, had already declassified?
Is it because: (a) Bush didn’t actually know that he had declassified this — because he didn’t really, and Dick Cheney lied to Libby in order to get that information out to Judy Miller? Or Libby lied in that portion of his testimony as well? (And won’t that be an interesting free-for-all if the Rove/Bush end of things starts flinging that mud at Team Libby?) (
Bush was grifting his own administration and not being forthcoming about having already declassified the information because he either wanted it declassified to cover his butt or because he didn’t want them to know he had previously declassified the information because…he knew what was done with it — including revealing Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity — was wrong? (And criminal, in the case of outing a CIA NOC?)
So many questions, so few real answers. So much more digging to do today…and I promise to get to a full read and analysis of everything as soon as I can. But isn’t that a little conundrum worth a whole lot of pondering?
Let alone, what was David Addington (then counsel to the Veep, now in the former Scooter Libby chair) told about all of this? What a cozy little arrangement this seems to have been…
Grifting Your Own Administration
By Christy Hardin Smith
Reader looseheadprop catches a great bit in the Fitz filing that I wanted to highlight for everyone:
Page 24 of the Fitz filing. Only 3 people Pres, VP and Libby knew that Pres had authorized disclosure of NIE (which Addington gave an off the cuff opinion amounted to de-classification). [RH notes: Selective disclosure — it’s important to note here that they cherry-picked only the portions that made them look good in the NIE, while keeping the large portions that contradicted their public statements behind the classified wall. Pathetic, weak little cheaters who can’t make an argument for their actions based on the whole truth and the facts.]
Yet despite the fact that the Pres supposedly had already declassified it, and Libby had already revealed it to Miller, the WH was still pressing for it for it to be declassified???
How can the Pres request the declassification of something he has already declassified???
Sure brings the Fitzgerald statement about Libby throwing sand in his eyes with his obstruction and perjury and false statements in terms of getting to the truth in the investigation into a much, much sharper focus, now doesn’t it?
In this case, it’s a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn’t to one person. It wasn’t just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.
And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?
FITZGERALD: Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?
And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He’s trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.
As you sit here now, if you’re asking me what his motives were, I can’t tell you; we haven’t charged it.
So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.
I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.
This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.
For whom is Scooter Libby covering? That question just got a whole lot more interesting as I’m reading through the Fitz motion response.
I’ll have more on the filing as I get through the entire document and do a bit of research, but for now, sit back and really think about what looseheadprop said: why would President Bush ask members of his Administration to declassify portions of a document that he, himself, had already declassified?
Is it because: (a) Bush didn’t actually know that he had declassified this — because he didn’t really, and Dick Cheney lied to Libby in order to get that information out to Judy Miller? Or Libby lied in that portion of his testimony as well? (And won’t that be an interesting free-for-all if the Rove/Bush end of things starts flinging that mud at Team Libby?) (
Bush was grifting his own administration and not being forthcoming about having already declassified the information because he either wanted it declassified to cover his butt or because he didn’t want them to know he had previously declassified the information because…he knew what was done with it — including revealing Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity — was wrong? (And criminal, in the case of outing a CIA NOC?) So many questions, so few real answers. So much more digging to do today…and I promise to get to a full read and analysis of everything as soon as I can. But isn’t that a little conundrum worth a whole lot of pondering?
Let alone, what was David Addington (then counsel to the Veep, now in the former Scooter Libby chair) told about all of this? What a cozy little arrangement this seems to have been…
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/articl...t_id=1002313106
New Court Filing: Libby Got OK from Bush to Leak to Miller
Judith Miller
By E&P Staff
Published: April 06, 2006 11:00 AM ET
NEW YORK Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to New York Times reporter Judith Miller in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.
This information was first published by The New York Sun earlier today. E&P has now examined the 39-page filing in PDF form.
"The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr. Bush violated any law or rule," the Sun's Josh Gerstein observes. "However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter."
In a court filing late Wednesday responding to requests from Libby's attorneys for government records that might aid his defense, Fitzgerald wrote about the July 8, 2003, meeting: "Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was 'pretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was 'very important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out."
Libby testified that "at first" he rebuffed Cheney's suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according Libby, Cheney subsequently said he received an okay for the release directly from Bush. "Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE," the filing said.
Libby told the grand jury that a legal counsel to the vice president, David Addington, said that Bush's permission to disclose the estimate "amounted to a declassification of the document."
The court papers "do not make clear whether Mr. Bush knew the disclosure was destined for Ms. Miller, though they indicate Mr. Cheney knew that fact," the Sun relates. "Messrs. Bush and Cheney have been interviewed by Mr. Fitzgerald and his staff, but it is not known how their accounts of the events compared to that of Mr. Libby."
Murray Waas, who has broken several key stories about this case, analyzes the latest twist at the National Journal's site today. He adds this: "Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war.
"In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for 'Plan of Attack,' a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war."
Waas also relates: "One former senior government official said that both the president and Cheney, in directing Libby to disclose classified information to defend the administration's case to go to war with Iraq and in formally declassifying portions of the NIE later, were misusing the classification process for political reasons.
"The official said that while the administration declassified portions of the NIE that would appear exculpatory to the White House, it insisted that a one-page summary of the NIE which would have suggested that the President mischaracterized other intelligence information to go to war remain classified."
The new court filing also quotes from handwritten suggestions Libby gave to the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, "urging the spokesman to proclaim the vice presidential aide's innocence with the same vigor that the press secretary previously denounced as ridiculous suggestions that Mr. Rove might have had a hand in leaking Ms. Plame's identity," according to Gerstein.
Libby's note, as typed up by the prosecution, reads "like a stanza of verse," Gerstein observes. Here it is:
"People have made too much of the difference in
How I described Karl and Libby
I've talked to Libby.
I said it was ridiculous about Karl
And it is ridiculous about Libby.
Libby was not the source of the Novak story.
And he did not leak classified information."
The prosecutor then states in the filing:
"As a result of defendant’s request, on October 4, 2003, White House Press Secretary McClellan stated that he had spoken to Mr. Libby (as well as Mr. Rove and Elliot Abrams) and 'those individuals assured me that they were not involved in this.'”
A key portion from the filing follows:
*
One of the key conversations that will be proved at trial took place between defendant and reporter Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel on the morning of July 8, 2003. Defendant testified in the grand jury that he and Miller did not discuss the CIA employment of Ambassador Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, on that occasion, and that he could not have done so because he had forgotten by that time that he had learned about Ms. Wilson’s employment a month earlier from the Vice President.
Defendant further testified that when he spoke with reporter Tim Russert the following day, Russert informed him that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, and defendant was “taken aback.” Defendant
testified that he thought that the information was new to him, and that he made sure not to confirm the information to Russert.
Defendant thereafter testified that he repeated what he learned from
Russert to other reporters (including Cooper and Miller) on July 12, taking care to caution those reporters that he did not know if the information were true or even if Ambassador Wilson even had a wife.
As to the meeting on July 8, defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was “pretty definitive” against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the Vice President thought that it was “very important” for the key judgments of the NIE to come out. Defendant further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not
have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE.
Defendant testified that the Vice President later advised him that the President had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE.
Defendant testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document.
Defendant testified that he thought he brought a brief abstract of the NIE’s key judgments to the meeting with Miller on July 8. Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure” uranium.
Defendant testified that this July 8th meeting was the only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the President’s authorization that it be disclosed. Defendant testified that one of the reasons why he met with Miller at a hotel was the fact that he was sharing this information with Miller exclusively.
In fact, on July 8, defendant spoke with Miller about Mr. Wilson after requesting that attribution of his remarks be changed to “former Hill staffer.” ...
Defendant further testified that when he spoke with reporter Tim Russert the following day, Russert informed him that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, and defendant was “taken aback.” Defendant
testified that he thought that the information was new to him, and that he made sure not to confirm the information to Russert. Defendant thereafter testified that he repeated what he learned from
Russert to other reporters (including Cooper and Miller) on July 12, taking care to caution those reporters that he did not know if the information were true or even if Ambassador Wilson even had a wife.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E&P Staff
New Court Filing: Libby Got OK from Bush to Leak to Miller
Judith Miller
By E&P Staff
Published: April 06, 2006 11:00 AM ET
NEW YORK Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to New York Times reporter Judith Miller in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.
This information was first published by The New York Sun earlier today. E&P has now examined the 39-page filing in PDF form.
"The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr. Bush violated any law or rule," the Sun's Josh Gerstein observes. "However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter."
In a court filing late Wednesday responding to requests from Libby's attorneys for government records that might aid his defense, Fitzgerald wrote about the July 8, 2003, meeting: "Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was 'pretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was 'very important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out."
Libby testified that "at first" he rebuffed Cheney's suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according Libby, Cheney subsequently said he received an okay for the release directly from Bush. "Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE," the filing said.
Libby told the grand jury that a legal counsel to the vice president, David Addington, said that Bush's permission to disclose the estimate "amounted to a declassification of the document."
The court papers "do not make clear whether Mr. Bush knew the disclosure was destined for Ms. Miller, though they indicate Mr. Cheney knew that fact," the Sun relates. "Messrs. Bush and Cheney have been interviewed by Mr. Fitzgerald and his staff, but it is not known how their accounts of the events compared to that of Mr. Libby."
Murray Waas, who has broken several key stories about this case, analyzes the latest twist at the National Journal's site today. He adds this: "Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war.
"In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for 'Plan of Attack,' a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war."
Waas also relates: "One former senior government official said that both the president and Cheney, in directing Libby to disclose classified information to defend the administration's case to go to war with Iraq and in formally declassifying portions of the NIE later, were misusing the classification process for political reasons.
"The official said that while the administration declassified portions of the NIE that would appear exculpatory to the White House, it insisted that a one-page summary of the NIE which would have suggested that the President mischaracterized other intelligence information to go to war remain classified."
The new court filing also quotes from handwritten suggestions Libby gave to the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, "urging the spokesman to proclaim the vice presidential aide's innocence with the same vigor that the press secretary previously denounced as ridiculous suggestions that Mr. Rove might have had a hand in leaking Ms. Plame's identity," according to Gerstein.
Libby's note, as typed up by the prosecution, reads "like a stanza of verse," Gerstein observes. Here it is:
"People have made too much of the difference in
How I described Karl and Libby
I've talked to Libby.
I said it was ridiculous about Karl
And it is ridiculous about Libby.
Libby was not the source of the Novak story.
And he did not leak classified information."
The prosecutor then states in the filing:
"As a result of defendant’s request, on October 4, 2003, White House Press Secretary McClellan stated that he had spoken to Mr. Libby (as well as Mr. Rove and Elliot Abrams) and 'those individuals assured me that they were not involved in this.'”
A key portion from the filing follows:
*
One of the key conversations that will be proved at trial took place between defendant and reporter Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel on the morning of July 8, 2003. Defendant testified in the grand jury that he and Miller did not discuss the CIA employment of Ambassador Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, on that occasion, and that he could not have done so because he had forgotten by that time that he had learned about Ms. Wilson’s employment a month earlier from the Vice President.
Defendant further testified that when he spoke with reporter Tim Russert the following day, Russert informed him that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, and defendant was “taken aback.” Defendant
testified that he thought that the information was new to him, and that he made sure not to confirm the information to Russert.
Defendant thereafter testified that he repeated what he learned from
Russert to other reporters (including Cooper and Miller) on July 12, taking care to caution those reporters that he did not know if the information were true or even if Ambassador Wilson even had a wife.
As to the meeting on July 8, defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was “pretty definitive” against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the Vice President thought that it was “very important” for the key judgments of the NIE to come out. Defendant further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not
have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE.
Defendant testified that the Vice President later advised him that the President had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE.
Defendant testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document.
Defendant testified that he thought he brought a brief abstract of the NIE’s key judgments to the meeting with Miller on July 8. Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure” uranium.
Defendant testified that this July 8th meeting was the only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the President’s authorization that it be disclosed. Defendant testified that one of the reasons why he met with Miller at a hotel was the fact that he was sharing this information with Miller exclusively.
In fact, on July 8, defendant spoke with Miller about Mr. Wilson after requesting that attribution of his remarks be changed to “former Hill staffer.” ...
Defendant further testified that when he spoke with reporter Tim Russert the following day, Russert informed him that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, and defendant was “taken aback.” Defendant
testified that he thought that the information was new to him, and that he made sure not to confirm the information to Russert. Defendant thereafter testified that he repeated what he learned from
Russert to other reporters (including Cooper and Miller) on July 12, taking care to caution those reporters that he did not know if the information were true or even if Ambassador Wilson even had a wife.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E&P Staff
BUSH AUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE OF NIE TO NY TIMES' MILLER
President Bush specifically authorized Vice Presidential aide
Scooter Libby to disclose information from a classified National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to then-New York Times reporter Judith
Miller in July 2003, effectively declassifying the information,
according to a government filing in the Libby prosecution
yesterday.
"Defendant's [i.e. Libby's] participation in a critical
conversation with Judith Miller on July 8 [2003] occurred only
after the Vice President advised defendant that the President
specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain
information in the NIE," the government filing stated (at pp.
19-20).
"Defendant [Libby] testified that the circumstances of his
conversation with reporter Miller -- getting approval from the
President through the Vice President to discuss material that
would be classified but for that approval -- were unique in his
recollection."
The new filing in the Libby case was first reported today in the
New York Sun.
Whatever its significance for the Libby case, the latest filing
helps to resolve a lingering question that arose last February
regarding the Vice President's role in authorizing the disclosure
of classified information (Secrecy News, 02/16/06). It appears
that the Vice President did not direct disclosure on his own
authority but on that of the President.
"Defendant [Libby] testified that the Vice President later advised
him that the President had authorized defendant to disclose the
relevant portions of the NIE. Defendant testified that he also
spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom
defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and
Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly
disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the
document," the government filing said (p. 23).
See "Government's Response to Defendant's Third Motion to Compel
Discovery," April 5, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/libby/us040506.pdf
See also "Bush Said to Have Cleared Early Release of Iraq
Intelligence to Times" by Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, April 6:
http://nysun.com/timesleak.php
President Bush specifically authorized Vice Presidential aide
Scooter Libby to disclose information from a classified National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to then-New York Times reporter Judith
Miller in July 2003, effectively declassifying the information,
according to a government filing in the Libby prosecution
yesterday.
"Defendant's [i.e. Libby's] participation in a critical
conversation with Judith Miller on July 8 [2003] occurred only
after the Vice President advised defendant that the President
specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain
information in the NIE," the government filing stated (at pp.
19-20).
"Defendant [Libby] testified that the circumstances of his
conversation with reporter Miller -- getting approval from the
President through the Vice President to discuss material that
would be classified but for that approval -- were unique in his
recollection."
The new filing in the Libby case was first reported today in the
New York Sun.
Whatever its significance for the Libby case, the latest filing
helps to resolve a lingering question that arose last February
regarding the Vice President's role in authorizing the disclosure
of classified information (Secrecy News, 02/16/06). It appears
that the Vice President did not direct disclosure on his own
authority but on that of the President.
"Defendant [Libby] testified that the Vice President later advised
him that the President had authorized defendant to disclose the
relevant portions of the NIE. Defendant testified that he also
spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom
defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and
Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly
disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the
document," the government filing said (p. 23).
See "Government's Response to Defendant's Third Motion to Compel
Discovery," April 5, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/libby/us040506.pdf
See also "Bush Said to Have Cleared Early Release of Iraq
Intelligence to Times" by Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, April 6:
http://nysun.com/timesleak.php
Key Players in the CIA Leak Investigation
On Oct. 28, 2005, a grand jury handed down a five-count indictment in the 22-month-long investigation into whether White House officials illegally leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent, in retaliation for public criticisms made by her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, about the Iraq war.
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle
On Oct. 28, 2005, a grand jury handed down a five-count indictment in the 22-month-long investigation into whether White House officials illegally leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent, in retaliation for public criticisms made by her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, about the Iraq war.
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Introducing the FindLaw Corporate Counsel Center. A comprehensive and free online resource designed exclusively for in-house counsel. Featuring practice area and industry-specific research tools, forms, articles, news, and attorney directories. Click here to learn more today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* SPECIAL COVERAGE: IRAQ AFTERMATH & THE WAR ON TERROR
Bush Authorized Leak of Intelligence Data on Iraq, Says New Court Filing in CIA Leak Case
* Read The New Disclosure
* TOP NEWS - RELEVANT HEARSAY
Jury Splits Verdict in Two New Jersey Vioxx Lawsuits
* Who Represented The Winning Plaintiff?
* LEGAL COMMENTARY
How The Ohio Legislature Has Betrayed Child Victims Of Clergy Abuse
* Special Coverage: Clergy Sexual Abuse Litigation
* CYBERLAW NEWS - DOWNLOAD THIS!
Judge Allows Sex Blogs Lawsuit to Proceed
* CRIMINAL LAW - ARRESTING DEVELOPMENTS
NYPD Detectives Convicted of Mob Murders
* Read Their Indictment
* LEGAL LITE
Night-Vision Cameras Aim To Stop Graffiti
* Browse FindLaw's Criminal Law Center
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From The Commander-In-Chief?
BUSH AUTHORIZED LEAK OF INTELLIGENCE DATA ON IRAQ, SAYS NEW COURT FILING IN CIA LEAK CASE
Associated Press
Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President George W. Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.
http://public.findlaw.com/pnews/news/ap/p/...2841670f5c.html
Read The New Disclosure
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...y40506grsp.html
Why Do Thousands of Corporate Counsel Attorneys Use FindLaw Each Month?
Introducing the FindLaw Corporate Counsel Center. A comprehensive and free online resource designed exclusively for in-house counsel. Featuring practice area and industry-specific research tools, forms, articles, news, and attorney directories. Click here to learn more today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* SPECIAL COVERAGE: IRAQ AFTERMATH & THE WAR ON TERROR
Bush Authorized Leak of Intelligence Data on Iraq, Says New Court Filing in CIA Leak Case
* Read The New Disclosure
* TOP NEWS - RELEVANT HEARSAY
Jury Splits Verdict in Two New Jersey Vioxx Lawsuits
* Who Represented The Winning Plaintiff?
* LEGAL COMMENTARY
How The Ohio Legislature Has Betrayed Child Victims Of Clergy Abuse
* Special Coverage: Clergy Sexual Abuse Litigation
* CYBERLAW NEWS - DOWNLOAD THIS!
Judge Allows Sex Blogs Lawsuit to Proceed
* CRIMINAL LAW - ARRESTING DEVELOPMENTS
NYPD Detectives Convicted of Mob Murders
* Read Their Indictment
* LEGAL LITE
Night-Vision Cameras Aim To Stop Graffiti
* Browse FindLaw's Criminal Law Center
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From The Commander-In-Chief?
BUSH AUTHORIZED LEAK OF INTELLIGENCE DATA ON IRAQ, SAYS NEW COURT FILING IN CIA LEAK CASE
Associated Press
Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President George W. Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.
http://public.findlaw.com/pnews/news/ap/p/...2841670f5c.html
Read The New Disclosure
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...y40506grsp.html
Court Paper Excerpts in CIA Leak Case
By The Associated Press
Thu Apr 6, 3:50 PM ET
Excerpts from court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak investigation:
___
"At some point after the publication of the July 6, 2003, OpEd by Wilson, Vice President Cheney, defendant's immediate superior, expressed concerns to defendant regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife. And in considering 'context,' there was press reporting that the vice president had dispatched Mr. Wilson on the trip (which in fact was not accurate). Disclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson's wife sent him on the Niger trip was one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the vice president had done so, while at the same time undercutting Mr. Wilson's credibility if Mr. Wilson was perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism."
___
"Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversations with reporter Miller — getting approval from the president through the vice president to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval — were unique in his recollection. Defendant further testified that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by the vice president to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson. Defendant was instructed to provide what was for him an extremely rare 'on the record' statement, and to provide 'background' and 'deep background' statements, and to provide information contained in a document defendant understood to be the cable authored by Mr. Wilson. During the conversations that followed on July 12, defendant discussed Ms. Wilson's employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time). Even if someone else in some other agency thought that the controversy about Mr. Wilson and/or his wife was a trifle, that person's state of mind would be irrelevant to the importance and focus defendant placed on the matter and the importance he attached to the surrounding conversations he was directed to engaged in by the vice president."
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By The Associated Press
Thu Apr 6, 3:50 PM ET
Excerpts from court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak investigation:
___
"At some point after the publication of the July 6, 2003, OpEd by Wilson, Vice President Cheney, defendant's immediate superior, expressed concerns to defendant regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife. And in considering 'context,' there was press reporting that the vice president had dispatched Mr. Wilson on the trip (which in fact was not accurate). Disclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson's wife sent him on the Niger trip was one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the vice president had done so, while at the same time undercutting Mr. Wilson's credibility if Mr. Wilson was perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism."
___
"Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversations with reporter Miller — getting approval from the president through the vice president to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval — were unique in his recollection. Defendant further testified that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by the vice president to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson. Defendant was instructed to provide what was for him an extremely rare 'on the record' statement, and to provide 'background' and 'deep background' statements, and to provide information contained in a document defendant understood to be the cable authored by Mr. Wilson. During the conversations that followed on July 12, defendant discussed Ms. Wilson's employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time). Even if someone else in some other agency thought that the controversy about Mr. Wilson and/or his wife was a trifle, that person's state of mind would be irrelevant to the importance and focus defendant placed on the matter and the importance he attached to the surrounding conversations he was directed to engaged in by the vice president."
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions or Comments
Privacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright/IP Policy - Ad Feedback
Former Cheney Aide: Bush Authorized Iraq Intelligence Leak
By William Branigin
A former top aide to Vice President Cheney told a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity that President Bush authorized him to disclose classified intelligence information about Iraq as a way of rebutting criticism from the agent's husband, according to court papers...
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle
By William Branigin
A former top aide to Vice President Cheney told a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity that President Bush authorized him to disclose classified intelligence information about Iraq as a way of rebutting criticism from the agent's husband, according to court papers...
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0602062_pf.html
Testimony Adds New Element to Probe of CIA Leak
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; A09
The allegation that President Bush authorized the dissemination of secret intelligence as part of an effort to buttress his case for war with Iraq introduces a new dimension to the long-running CIA leak investigation, while posing troubling new political problems for the administration.
Until now, the investigation had been about aides to Bush and their alleged efforts to attack the credibility of a vocal administration critic, including by possibly leaking classified information. Bush cast himself as a disinterested observer, eager to resolve the case and hold those responsible accountable.
But court papers filed late Wednesday night by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, in the perjury case of former White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, implicate Bush as knowing about efforts to disseminate sensitive information -- and also as orchestrating them.
Although Fitzgerald specifically said Bush was not aware of the leaking of a CIA agent's affiliation, the allegation that the president was involved at all in a leak campaign unleashed a torrent of criticism from Democrats.
"The buck doesn't stop anywhere with this White House. Now we know why the president hasn't been straight with Americans," said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). "Two and a half years ago, President Bush said. 'If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.' He said he'd fire whoever leaked classified information, and now we know the president himself authorized it. Now we know that the president's search for the leaker needs to go no further than a mirror."
The White House refused to comment directly on the court filing, except to point out that Bush's very decision to disclose classified information means he declassified it -- an assessment shared by independent legal experts.
A senior administration official, speaking on background because White House policy prohibits comment on an active investigation, said Bush sees a distinction between leaks and what he is alleged to have done. The official said Bush authorized the release of the classified information to assure the public of his rationale for war as it was coming under increasing scrutiny.
Also, the official said, the president has not been accused of authorizing the release of the name of Valerie Plame, the undercover CIA operative whose unmasking in a July 2003 newspaper column prompted the federal investigation.
"There is a clear difference between the two," the official said. "I understand that in politics these two can be conflated. And we're going to have to try to deal with that. But there is an active investigation and that limits our ability to do so."
Still, Bush's action stands in stark contrast to his condemnations of the kind of disclosure that the court filing said he authorized. "Let me just say something about leaks in Washington," Bush told reporters in September 2003. "There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch, there's leaks in the legislative branch, there's just too many leaks. I want -- and if there's a leak out of the administration, I want to know who it is. And if a person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
That statement was one of many Bush has made over the past three years condemning leaks of sensitive information. His strong words may make the distinction between leaks of classified data and what he is alleged to have done difficult for the White House to explain.
"It causes a political problem to the extent the White House lets it," said a former administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.
The former official said Bush erred at the beginning of the scandal by saying he wanted to get to the bottom of the case and fire any leakers because he implicitly accepted that an illegal leak had occurred. That set the impression that anyone involved must have done something wrong. Now the documents suggest he was involved, and it is hard to argue that nothing wrong was done, the former official said.
Congressional Democrats certainly seized upon that vulnerability.
"I served for 13 years on the House intelligence committee, and I know intelligence must never be classified or declassified for political purposes," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "One of the constants in the Bush administration's miserable record on Iraq has been the manipulation of intelligence precisely for political purposes. That has caused our intelligence -- which used to be accepted without question around the world -- to be viewed with skepticism by the international community."
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the disclosure punctures the president's credibility.
"The president has always stood so strong against leaks. If he leaked himself, he should explain why this is different than every other leak," he said. ". . . The more we hear, the more it is clear this goes beyond Scooter Libby. At the very least, President Bush and Vice President Cheney should fully inform the American people of any role in allowing classified information to be leaked. Did they believe they had the right to do this and if so, in what circumstance?"
Staff writer Peter Baker, washingtonpost.com staff writer Chris Cillizza and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
Testimony Adds New Element to Probe of CIA Leak
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; A09
The allegation that President Bush authorized the dissemination of secret intelligence as part of an effort to buttress his case for war with Iraq introduces a new dimension to the long-running CIA leak investigation, while posing troubling new political problems for the administration.
Until now, the investigation had been about aides to Bush and their alleged efforts to attack the credibility of a vocal administration critic, including by possibly leaking classified information. Bush cast himself as a disinterested observer, eager to resolve the case and hold those responsible accountable.
But court papers filed late Wednesday night by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, in the perjury case of former White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, implicate Bush as knowing about efforts to disseminate sensitive information -- and also as orchestrating them.
Although Fitzgerald specifically said Bush was not aware of the leaking of a CIA agent's affiliation, the allegation that the president was involved at all in a leak campaign unleashed a torrent of criticism from Democrats.
"The buck doesn't stop anywhere with this White House. Now we know why the president hasn't been straight with Americans," said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). "Two and a half years ago, President Bush said. 'If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.' He said he'd fire whoever leaked classified information, and now we know the president himself authorized it. Now we know that the president's search for the leaker needs to go no further than a mirror."
The White House refused to comment directly on the court filing, except to point out that Bush's very decision to disclose classified information means he declassified it -- an assessment shared by independent legal experts.
A senior administration official, speaking on background because White House policy prohibits comment on an active investigation, said Bush sees a distinction between leaks and what he is alleged to have done. The official said Bush authorized the release of the classified information to assure the public of his rationale for war as it was coming under increasing scrutiny.
Also, the official said, the president has not been accused of authorizing the release of the name of Valerie Plame, the undercover CIA operative whose unmasking in a July 2003 newspaper column prompted the federal investigation.
"There is a clear difference between the two," the official said. "I understand that in politics these two can be conflated. And we're going to have to try to deal with that. But there is an active investigation and that limits our ability to do so."
Still, Bush's action stands in stark contrast to his condemnations of the kind of disclosure that the court filing said he authorized. "Let me just say something about leaks in Washington," Bush told reporters in September 2003. "There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch, there's leaks in the legislative branch, there's just too many leaks. I want -- and if there's a leak out of the administration, I want to know who it is. And if a person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
That statement was one of many Bush has made over the past three years condemning leaks of sensitive information. His strong words may make the distinction between leaks of classified data and what he is alleged to have done difficult for the White House to explain.
"It causes a political problem to the extent the White House lets it," said a former administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.
The former official said Bush erred at the beginning of the scandal by saying he wanted to get to the bottom of the case and fire any leakers because he implicitly accepted that an illegal leak had occurred. That set the impression that anyone involved must have done something wrong. Now the documents suggest he was involved, and it is hard to argue that nothing wrong was done, the former official said.
Congressional Democrats certainly seized upon that vulnerability.
"I served for 13 years on the House intelligence committee, and I know intelligence must never be classified or declassified for political purposes," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "One of the constants in the Bush administration's miserable record on Iraq has been the manipulation of intelligence precisely for political purposes. That has caused our intelligence -- which used to be accepted without question around the world -- to be viewed with skepticism by the international community."
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the disclosure punctures the president's credibility.
"The president has always stood so strong against leaks. If he leaked himself, he should explain why this is different than every other leak," he said. ". . . The more we hear, the more it is clear this goes beyond Scooter Libby. At the very least, President Bush and Vice President Cheney should fully inform the American people of any role in allowing classified information to be leaked. Did they believe they had the right to do this and if so, in what circumstance?"
Staff writer Peter Baker, washingtonpost.com staff writer Chris Cillizza and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114...ff_main_tff_top
Libby Prosecutor
Outlines Effort
At High Levels
Fitzgerald Aims to Show
An Organized Plan Led
To Leak of CIA Agent's Name
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO
April 8, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The special prosecutor trying the case against former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis Libby will try to show that the leaking of a CIA agent's name grew out of a highly organized administration effort that commanded high-level attention, a court filing this week shows.
Pretrial filings by Mr. Libby's defense team indicate they intend to argue that any misstatements made in Mr. Libby's testimony to investigators and a grand jury were innocent mistakes because of his focus on more pressing national-security issues. They are seeking a wide array of classified and sensitive information they say is necessary for trial, including secret daily intelligence briefings given to the president.
This week's filing by Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, was intended to convince the judge to deny the defense's latest request for information. In doing so, the prosecutor also attacked Mr. Libby's bad-memory defense by introducing new information about the attention -- including by President Bush -- placed on responding to Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador and critic of the Iraq war.
Lawyers say in a high-profile legal battle like this, where the judge already has warned both sides not to try their case in public, pretrial motions become a critical element in the public-relations campaign.
"Mr. Libby's defense, as we understand it, is that because of his 24-7 national-security responsibilities, he just forgot his conversations with reporters," says Scott Fredericksen, a Washington defense attorney and former prosecutor. "And what Mr. Fitzgerald is telling the judge here is that Mr. Libby was expressly authorized to go have these conversations with reporters by the vice president and authorized to release classified information by the president. That is a unique situation and not very forgettable."
For instance, Mr. Fitzgerald cites the express permission by the president to disclose certain elements of a highly classified report about Iraq to a New York Times reporter. While the president has broad latitude to declassify information, the government's filing quotes Mr. Libby's grand-jury testimony as saying such an authorization was "unique in his recollection."
On Friday, the White House didn't challenge the assertion that Mr. Bush declassified intelligence information to counter war critics. White House spokesman Scott McClellan spent nearly an hour drawing a distinction between the leaking of information judged to be "in the public interest" and the willful disclosure of information that could endanger national security.
At issue are portions of the previously classified National Intelligence Estimate the White House made public on July 18, 2003 -- some ten days after prosecutors allege Mr. Libby discussed the information with a New York Times reporter. In that conversation, Mr. Libby also disclosed the identity of Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, a Central Intelligence Agency official, according to his indictment. (Leaking the identity of a covert official can be a crime, but Mr. Libby isn't charged with that violation.)
There is no suggestion by Mr. Fitzgerald that either President Bush or Vice President Cheney told Mr. Libby to leak her name. Mr. McClellan dismissed as "crass politics" the suggestion from some Democrats that Mr. Bush sanctioned or engaged in a scheme to disclose sensitive information that would presumably include releasing Ms. Plame's identity.
The case against Mr. Libby, who is charged with five counts of lying and obstructing a federal investigation, isn't expected to go to trial until next January at the earliest. He has pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Fitzgerald alleges Mr. Libby took the lead in disputing Mr. Wilson's claims, and in doing so disclosed Ms. Plame's identity to reporters. Thus, the government alleges, he sought to cover up his role in Ms. Plame's unveiling by lying under oath and trying to obstruct the investigation.
--Christopher Cooper contributed to this article.
Write to Anne Marie Squeo at annemarie.squeo@wsj.com
Libby Prosecutor
Outlines Effort
At High Levels
Fitzgerald Aims to Show
An Organized Plan Led
To Leak of CIA Agent's Name
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO
April 8, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The special prosecutor trying the case against former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis Libby will try to show that the leaking of a CIA agent's name grew out of a highly organized administration effort that commanded high-level attention, a court filing this week shows.
Pretrial filings by Mr. Libby's defense team indicate they intend to argue that any misstatements made in Mr. Libby's testimony to investigators and a grand jury were innocent mistakes because of his focus on more pressing national-security issues. They are seeking a wide array of classified and sensitive information they say is necessary for trial, including secret daily intelligence briefings given to the president.
This week's filing by Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, was intended to convince the judge to deny the defense's latest request for information. In doing so, the prosecutor also attacked Mr. Libby's bad-memory defense by introducing new information about the attention -- including by President Bush -- placed on responding to Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador and critic of the Iraq war.
Lawyers say in a high-profile legal battle like this, where the judge already has warned both sides not to try their case in public, pretrial motions become a critical element in the public-relations campaign.
"Mr. Libby's defense, as we understand it, is that because of his 24-7 national-security responsibilities, he just forgot his conversations with reporters," says Scott Fredericksen, a Washington defense attorney and former prosecutor. "And what Mr. Fitzgerald is telling the judge here is that Mr. Libby was expressly authorized to go have these conversations with reporters by the vice president and authorized to release classified information by the president. That is a unique situation and not very forgettable."
For instance, Mr. Fitzgerald cites the express permission by the president to disclose certain elements of a highly classified report about Iraq to a New York Times reporter. While the president has broad latitude to declassify information, the government's filing quotes Mr. Libby's grand-jury testimony as saying such an authorization was "unique in his recollection."
On Friday, the White House didn't challenge the assertion that Mr. Bush declassified intelligence information to counter war critics. White House spokesman Scott McClellan spent nearly an hour drawing a distinction between the leaking of information judged to be "in the public interest" and the willful disclosure of information that could endanger national security.
At issue are portions of the previously classified National Intelligence Estimate the White House made public on July 18, 2003 -- some ten days after prosecutors allege Mr. Libby discussed the information with a New York Times reporter. In that conversation, Mr. Libby also disclosed the identity of Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, a Central Intelligence Agency official, according to his indictment. (Leaking the identity of a covert official can be a crime, but Mr. Libby isn't charged with that violation.)
There is no suggestion by Mr. Fitzgerald that either President Bush or Vice President Cheney told Mr. Libby to leak her name. Mr. McClellan dismissed as "crass politics" the suggestion from some Democrats that Mr. Bush sanctioned or engaged in a scheme to disclose sensitive information that would presumably include releasing Ms. Plame's identity.
The case against Mr. Libby, who is charged with five counts of lying and obstructing a federal investigation, isn't expected to go to trial until next January at the earliest. He has pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Fitzgerald alleges Mr. Libby took the lead in disputing Mr. Wilson's claims, and in doing so disclosed Ms. Plame's identity to reporters. Thus, the government alleges, he sought to cover up his role in Ms. Plame's unveiling by lying under oath and trying to obstruct the investigation.
--Christopher Cooper contributed to this article.
Write to Anne Marie Squeo at annemarie.squeo@wsj.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1300111_pf.html
Libby Wasn't Ordered to Leak Name, Papers Say
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2006; A07
In grand jury testimony two years ago, former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby did not assert that President Bush or Vice President Cheney instructed him to disclose the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters as part of an effort to rebut criticism of the Iraq war, Libby's lawyers said in a court filing late yesterday.
A court filing last week by the special federal prosecutor investigating the disclosure of Plame's identity had highlighted the fact that Bush and Cheney ordered Libby to disclose details of a previously classified intelligence report as part of an effort to rebut criticism by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. This disclosure provoked speculation that Bush or Cheney had instructed Libby to disclose Plame's identity.
But the lawyers asserted that White House documents outlining what Libby was to say in conversations with reporters did not mention Plame's name. They said this supports Libby's contention that he did not participate in a campaign to damage Wilson by disclosing Plame's CIA employment or in a coverup of the episode.
The statement that Libby did not link Bush and Cheney to the disclosure of Plame's name during his 2004 grand jury testimony is meant to bolster Libby's contention that no conspiracy existed to make selective disclosures to undermine a key administration critic, as some in Washington have charged.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted last year for allegedly lying to the FBI and a grand jury when he said he had not known, that the CIA employed Plame and had not told reporters that. Wilson had traveled to Niger at the CIA's behest to look into allegations that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear weapons materials there.
After Wilson's return, he wrote a newspaper article in July 2003 disputing those claims and accusing the administration of twisting intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
The article set off an intense effort by the Bush administration to rebut the criticism by documenting its anxieties about Iraqi intentions, partly by leaking -- at the instruction of Bush and Cheney -- details from a classified, October 2002 intelligence estimate about Iraq.
Libby was a key player in the effort, and met privately with a few reporters who later were subpoenaed by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who was assigned in December 2003 with finding out who leaked Plame's name. Several of the reporters told Fitzgerald that Libby not only discussed the intelligence estimate but also mentioned Plame's employment.
According to the indictment, Libby told several reporters that Wilson's trip was requested by Plame. Fitzgerald, in his court filing last week, said the motive for leaking this information was to undermine Wilson's credibility by making it seem as if he "received the assignment [to visit Niger] on account of nepotism."
Libby's court filing yesterday was the latest salvo in his battle to gain access to a wide range of information held by the administration and by government investigators about Wilson's trip to Niger, and about other officials' statements to reporters regarding Wilson and Plame.
Libby has said he needs these documents partly to prepare for expected testimony at his trial by current and former senior administration officials, who Libby says were also aware of Plame's employment. Yesterday's filing also noted Libby's suspicion that one of those, former CIA director George J. Tenet -- who directed the agency when it lodged a formal complaint to the Justice Department over the leak of Plame's name -- had a "bias against Mr. Libby." The suspicion appears to stem in part from past disagreements between the CIA and Cheney's office over the credibility of the White House's alarm about Iraq.
Libby has said the documents will show that Plame's employment was a peripheral matter in his conversations with others, and that thus he had good reason to forget precisely what he said to reporters about it. "He testified to the grand jury unequivocally that he did not understand Ms. Wilson's employment by the CIA to be classified information," the new court filing states.
Libby's legal team complained that he had received less than 10 percent of Fitzgerald's investigative file, a document production it called "exceptionally meager." It also said the case is complex and described as "a fairy tale" the government's assertion that it involves only false statements by Libby.
In his April 5 filing, Fitzgerald urged the court to dismiss Libby's demand for information about leaks to reporters by other government officials, on the grounds that what really counts in the case against Libby are the actions taken by him and "the discrete number of persons with and for whom he worked." Anything occurring outside those White House offices, Fitzgerald said, is "a irrelevant distraction from the issues of the case."
Although he pointedly said he was not accusing Libby of involvement in a White House conspiracy against Wilson and Plame, Fitzgerald said the evidence he had accumulated demonstrated that "multiple people" there wanted to repudiate Wilson's criticisms.
In light of the grand jury testimony, Fitzgerald said, "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Libby Wasn't Ordered to Leak Name, Papers Say
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2006; A07
In grand jury testimony two years ago, former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby did not assert that President Bush or Vice President Cheney instructed him to disclose the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters as part of an effort to rebut criticism of the Iraq war, Libby's lawyers said in a court filing late yesterday.
A court filing last week by the special federal prosecutor investigating the disclosure of Plame's identity had highlighted the fact that Bush and Cheney ordered Libby to disclose details of a previously classified intelligence report as part of an effort to rebut criticism by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. This disclosure provoked speculation that Bush or Cheney had instructed Libby to disclose Plame's identity.
But the lawyers asserted that White House documents outlining what Libby was to say in conversations with reporters did not mention Plame's name. They said this supports Libby's contention that he did not participate in a campaign to damage Wilson by disclosing Plame's CIA employment or in a coverup of the episode.
The statement that Libby did not link Bush and Cheney to the disclosure of Plame's name during his 2004 grand jury testimony is meant to bolster Libby's contention that no conspiracy existed to make selective disclosures to undermine a key administration critic, as some in Washington have charged.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted last year for allegedly lying to the FBI and a grand jury when he said he had not known, that the CIA employed Plame and had not told reporters that. Wilson had traveled to Niger at the CIA's behest to look into allegations that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear weapons materials there.
After Wilson's return, he wrote a newspaper article in July 2003 disputing those claims and accusing the administration of twisting intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
The article set off an intense effort by the Bush administration to rebut the criticism by documenting its anxieties about Iraqi intentions, partly by leaking -- at the instruction of Bush and Cheney -- details from a classified, October 2002 intelligence estimate about Iraq.
Libby was a key player in the effort, and met privately with a few reporters who later were subpoenaed by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who was assigned in December 2003 with finding out who leaked Plame's name. Several of the reporters told Fitzgerald that Libby not only discussed the intelligence estimate but also mentioned Plame's employment.
According to the indictment, Libby told several reporters that Wilson's trip was requested by Plame. Fitzgerald, in his court filing last week, said the motive for leaking this information was to undermine Wilson's credibility by making it seem as if he "received the assignment [to visit Niger] on account of nepotism."
Libby's court filing yesterday was the latest salvo in his battle to gain access to a wide range of information held by the administration and by government investigators about Wilson's trip to Niger, and about other officials' statements to reporters regarding Wilson and Plame.
Libby has said he needs these documents partly to prepare for expected testimony at his trial by current and former senior administration officials, who Libby says were also aware of Plame's employment. Yesterday's filing also noted Libby's suspicion that one of those, former CIA director George J. Tenet -- who directed the agency when it lodged a formal complaint to the Justice Department over the leak of Plame's name -- had a "bias against Mr. Libby." The suspicion appears to stem in part from past disagreements between the CIA and Cheney's office over the credibility of the White House's alarm about Iraq.
Libby has said the documents will show that Plame's employment was a peripheral matter in his conversations with others, and that thus he had good reason to forget precisely what he said to reporters about it. "He testified to the grand jury unequivocally that he did not understand Ms. Wilson's employment by the CIA to be classified information," the new court filing states.
Libby's legal team complained that he had received less than 10 percent of Fitzgerald's investigative file, a document production it called "exceptionally meager." It also said the case is complex and described as "a fairy tale" the government's assertion that it involves only false statements by Libby.
In his April 5 filing, Fitzgerald urged the court to dismiss Libby's demand for information about leaks to reporters by other government officials, on the grounds that what really counts in the case against Libby are the actions taken by him and "the discrete number of persons with and for whom he worked." Anything occurring outside those White House offices, Fitzgerald said, is "a irrelevant distraction from the issues of the case."
Although he pointedly said he was not accusing Libby of involvement in a White House conspiracy against Wilson and Plame, Fitzgerald said the evidence he had accumulated demonstrated that "multiple people" there wanted to repudiate Wilson's criticisms.
In light of the grand jury testimony, Fitzgerald said, "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...y40506grsp.html
FindLaw Legal News: Special Coverage: War In Iraq: Documents
... Files] Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush
Authorized Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. DHS ...
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FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp38.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp20.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...40506grsp2.html
Bush, Cheney directed Libby's leak campaign on Iraq critics, ...
... Thursday, April 6, 2006, ... Bush, Cheney directed Libby's leak campaign
on Iraq critics, court papers indicate. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/p/56/04-07-2006...38606b5b18.html
Judge sets limits on Libby, prosecutors in fights over ...
... Thursday, April 6, 2006, ... Judge sets limits on Libby, prosecutors
in fights over classified information. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/04-06-2006...0d8016a47f.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp37.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp19.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
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FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...40506grsp3.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0606grsp20.html
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... Civil and Criminal Terror Cases. Most documents are PDF files that
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http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/us/terrorism/cases/
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... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
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FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp18.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp22.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...40506grsp4.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp35.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp23.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp17.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...40506grsp5.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp34.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp24.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp16.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...40506grsp6.html
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...y40506grsp.html
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... Files] Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush
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FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp38.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp20.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...40506grsp2.html
Bush, Cheney directed Libby's leak campaign on Iraq critics, ...
... Thursday, April 6, 2006, ... Bush, Cheney directed Libby's leak campaign
on Iraq critics, court papers indicate. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/p/56/04-07-2006...38606b5b18.html
Judge sets limits on Libby, prosecutors in fights over ...
... Thursday, April 6, 2006, ... Judge sets limits on Libby, prosecutors
in fights over classified information. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/04-06-2006...0d8016a47f.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp37.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp19.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp21.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...40506grsp3.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0606grsp20.html
FindLaw Legal News: Special Coverage: War on Terror: Cases
... Civil and Criminal Terror Cases. Most documents are PDF files that
may be viewed using AdobeReader. ... Categories: ...
http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/us/terrorism/cases/
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp36.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp18.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp22.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...40506grsp4.html
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... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp35.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp23.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp17.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...40506grsp5.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp34.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp24.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/us...0506grsp16.html
FindLaw: US vI Lewis 'Scooter' Libby: Government filing ...
... Prosecutors: Scooter Libby Alleges Pres. Bush Authorized
Intelligence Leak [HTML File]. ...
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FindLaw Legal News: Politics
... 07] US Senate confirms new Pentagon spokesman (AP) [04/07] Bush, Cheney directed
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President Authorized a Leak of Classified Information:
The President and Vice President Are Not In the Clear Yet
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Apr. 07, 2006
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has now revealed in court filings bombshell information that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told the grand jury investigating the leak of Valerie Plame-Wilson's covert CIA identity. According to Fitzgerald's filings, Libby said that he was authorized by the President and Vice President to leak classified information to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
This revelation has been accompanied by a number of public misstatements, which call for correction. The most blatant of these is the claim that Fitzgerald's filing indicates that the President authorized the release of Valerie Plame's covert status at the CIA. In fact, the document is conspicuously silent on this fact. The filing does indicate that the President authorized the release of classified information, but it was different information - a National Intelligence Estimate that had been classified pursuant to an executive order.
In addition, conventional wisdom - if that label fits the consensus information that is surfacing on radio and television news shows - has it that this information does not reveal that the President or Vice President did anything illegal. But that claim, too, is not necessarily accurate.
At a minimum, the filing indicates that the President and Vice President departed radically, and disturbingly, from long-set procedures with respect to classified documents - and that the Vice President, in particular, exceeded his declassification authority. And it may indicate that they, too, ought to be targets of the grand jury.
Libby's Grand Jury Testimony Regarding Valerie Plame
As readers will likely be aware, Fitzgerald indicted Libby for obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to federal investigators. In response, Libby has repeatedly sought discovery of government information that he argues is relevant to his defense. On April 5, Fitzgerald's office filed a response to Libby's third effort at discovery of such information.
In his response, Fitzgerald treated Libby's request as a mere fishing expedition, a fairly typical response by a party who does not want to give up discovery. But Fitzgerald also revealed crucial new information about his investigation and findings in opposing Libby's request.
The Plame controversy, readers will recall, began with a July 6, 2003 New York Times Op Ed by Joseph Wilson, taking aim at the Administration's claim that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Africa to be used in nuclear weapons. The Op Ed began, explosively, as follows: "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
Fitzgerald's filing noted that the "evidence will show that" that Op Ed "was viewed in the Office of the Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the Vice President (and the President) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq."
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Undercutting Wilson's Credibility with Classified Information
Plainly, Fitzgerald believes Libby lied, and this will be the central issue at his forthcoming trial. Fitzgerald contends that the evidence will show that contrary to Libby's statements to investigators and the grand jury, not only did Libby know of Valerie Plame's work at the CIA before he spoke to journalist Tim Russert, but Libby also used that information as part of the effort to discredit Wilson's Op Ed.
According to Fitzgerald, Libby "undertook vigorous efforts to rebut" Wilson because "Vice President Cheney, defendant's immediate superior, expressed concern to defendant regarding whether Mr. Wilson's [CIA-sponsored] trip [to Africa to determine if Iraq was getting uranium from Niger] was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."
This disclosure about Wilson's wife, according to Fitzgerald's filing, "was one way" to undercut the Op Ed - based on the hope it would be taken less seriously "if Mr. Wilson were perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism."
Another way to undercut the Op Ed was to use the top-secret information in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). A knowledgeable reporter like Judith Miller would understand that this information was the best judgment of the American intelligence community.
Fitzgerald reports that Libby "testified that he was specifically authorized … to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller" because the information "was 'pretty definite' against Ambassador Wilson… and that the Vice President thought that it was 'very important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out."
When Libby raised the problem of discussing the NIE with Miller because of its classified status, the filing reports that Libby "testified that the Vice President later advised him that the President had authorized" Libby to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE. (Emphasis added.)
The word "later" here, in the filing, is crucially ambiguous: Did the President authorized Libby's actions before Libby actually revealed the classified information to Miller, or afterward? The distinction may make a large difference in Libby's defense: If the authorization was retroactive, then Libby initially revealed classified information without permission to do so; thus, he would have reason to lie.
In addition, Cheney's counsel (now Chief of Staff) "opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document." (Emphasis added.)
Again, the language here is telling. The filing says that the President's actions "amounted to" declassification, not that the President had unilaterally declassified the material. To the contrary, it appears the material was not declassified for several days.
Can a President or Vice President Unilaterally and Selectively Declassify?
Assuming that Libby's testimony is accurate, did the President do anything wrong by so declassifying the NIE? Given the fact that the national security classification system is created by executive order of the president, it would appear logical that the president has authority to unilaterally and selective declassify anything he might wish. However, that is not the way any president has ever written the executive orders governing these activities. To the contrary, the orders set forth rather detailed declassification procedures.
In addition, there is law that says that when a president issues an executive order he must either amend that executive order, or follow it just as others within the executive branch are required to do. At present, we have so few facts it is difficult to know what precisely Bush did and how he did it, and thus whether or not this law is applicable. There is also the problem that no one has standing in court to challenge a president's refusal to follow his own rules. But voters may take note of the disposition of this administration to play by the rules, and put a Democratic Congress in place to keep an eye on the last two years of the Bush/Cheney presidency.
What is apparent, however, based on Fitzgerald's filing, is that no one other than Bush, Cheney, Libby and apparently Addington was aware of this unilateral and selective declassification - if, indeed, the NIE was declassified. The secrecy surely suggests cover-up. For example, Fitzgerald notes that Libby "consciously decided not to make [then Deputy National Security Adviser] Hadley aware of the fact that defendant [Libby] himself had already been disseminating the NIE by leaking it to reporters while Mr. Hadley sought to get it formally declassified." (Also, CIA Director George Tenet apparently was not aware of the partial declassification by Bush.)
Whatever authority Bush may or may not have had, however, it is crystal clear that Vice President Cheney did not have any authority to unilaterally and selectively declassify the NIE.
Recently, Cheney made the public claim (to Brit Hume of Fox News) that he had authority to declassify national security information. Learning of this, Congressman Henry Waxman asked the Congressional Reference Service of the Library of Congress, which issues non-partisan reports, whether Cheney was right. CRS found that the Vice President has limited declassification authority, generally speaking. And their report shows Cheney had no authority in this instance - only in situations where the Vice President had been the authority to classify the material in the first place, could the Vice President have the authority to unilaterally declassify it.
The Meaning of Libby's Revelations - and Their Possible Consequences
Libby's statements regarding the President are clearly hearsay; he was repeating to the grand jury what he claims Cheney told him. Accordingly, Bush is probably still protected by Cheney.
Presumably, Patrick Fitzgerald asked both Bush and Cheney about their actions when he interviewed them. But what they said, has yet to be revealed. If Cheney lied to protect himself, in the interviews, then he could also have lied to protect the President. Or Cheney could have opted to take the fall, and leave the President out of it.
Many commentators are dismissing this situation as run-of-the-mill presidential/vice presidential politics. But I believe it is more serious.
From a political perspective, separate from the illegality, there is the hypocrisy: The Bush Administration has prosecuted and sent to jail officials who leaked far less serious information - as I discussed in detail in a prior column. It is actively, and currently, threatening to prosecute others who have leaked information about the president's illegal electronic surveillance of Americans.
Beyond the hypocrisy, however, is what the President, Vice President, Libby and no doubt others did to destroy the career of Valerie Plame. Maybe the administration has quietly settled with the Wilsons, who seem to have dropped out of the public eye. This would have been wise, because as the facts unravel, it increasingly appears that administration officials did indeed attack Mr. Wilson for his speaking out; the leak of his wife's identity does indeed seem to have been done in harsh retribution. Such a violation of civil rights is a crime.
Finally, even if Bush and Cheney both get away clean of criminal charges, or even the suggestion of criminal conduct, this is still devastating for the Administration. Illegal or not, the President and Vice-President's actions, as recounted by Libby, are ugly in the extreme.
After all, Fitzgerald's filings indicate that, at a bare minimum, these highest of officials played fast and loose with declassification rules as part of a scheme to take an uncalled-for revenge against a critic who dared to question an Iraqi war justification. Even more damning, is that the critic turned out to be right: Weapons of mass destruction have never surfaced, no uranium was sold by Niger to Iraq, and the Administration's call to arms was bogus.
There will be more devastating revelations from the Libby case, I am certain. I have written of this matter in the past, and anticipate writing more in the future. The Commander-in-Chief-can-do-no-wrong veneer is wearing off, thankfully. For a nation that cannot hold its commander-in-chief responsible is something other than a democracy.
President Authorized a Leak of Classified Information:
The President and Vice President Are Not In the Clear Yet
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Apr. 07, 2006
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has now revealed in court filings bombshell information that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told the grand jury investigating the leak of Valerie Plame-Wilson's covert CIA identity. According to Fitzgerald's filings, Libby said that he was authorized by the President and Vice President to leak classified information to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
This revelation has been accompanied by a number of public misstatements, which call for correction. The most blatant of these is the claim that Fitzgerald's filing indicates that the President authorized the release of Valerie Plame's covert status at the CIA. In fact, the document is conspicuously silent on this fact. The filing does indicate that the President authorized the release of classified information, but it was different information - a National Intelligence Estimate that had been classified pursuant to an executive order.
In addition, conventional wisdom - if that label fits the consensus information that is surfacing on radio and television news shows - has it that this information does not reveal that the President or Vice President did anything illegal. But that claim, too, is not necessarily accurate.
At a minimum, the filing indicates that the President and Vice President departed radically, and disturbingly, from long-set procedures with respect to classified documents - and that the Vice President, in particular, exceeded his declassification authority. And it may indicate that they, too, ought to be targets of the grand jury.
Libby's Grand Jury Testimony Regarding Valerie Plame
As readers will likely be aware, Fitzgerald indicted Libby for obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to federal investigators. In response, Libby has repeatedly sought discovery of government information that he argues is relevant to his defense. On April 5, Fitzgerald's office filed a response to Libby's third effort at discovery of such information.
In his response, Fitzgerald treated Libby's request as a mere fishing expedition, a fairly typical response by a party who does not want to give up discovery. But Fitzgerald also revealed crucial new information about his investigation and findings in opposing Libby's request.
The Plame controversy, readers will recall, began with a July 6, 2003 New York Times Op Ed by Joseph Wilson, taking aim at the Administration's claim that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Africa to be used in nuclear weapons. The Op Ed began, explosively, as follows: "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
Fitzgerald's filing noted that the "evidence will show that" that Op Ed "was viewed in the Office of the Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the Vice President (and the President) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq."
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Undercutting Wilson's Credibility with Classified Information
Plainly, Fitzgerald believes Libby lied, and this will be the central issue at his forthcoming trial. Fitzgerald contends that the evidence will show that contrary to Libby's statements to investigators and the grand jury, not only did Libby know of Valerie Plame's work at the CIA before he spoke to journalist Tim Russert, but Libby also used that information as part of the effort to discredit Wilson's Op Ed.
According to Fitzgerald, Libby "undertook vigorous efforts to rebut" Wilson because "Vice President Cheney, defendant's immediate superior, expressed concern to defendant regarding whether Mr. Wilson's [CIA-sponsored] trip [to Africa to determine if Iraq was getting uranium from Niger] was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."
This disclosure about Wilson's wife, according to Fitzgerald's filing, "was one way" to undercut the Op Ed - based on the hope it would be taken less seriously "if Mr. Wilson were perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism."
Another way to undercut the Op Ed was to use the top-secret information in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). A knowledgeable reporter like Judith Miller would understand that this information was the best judgment of the American intelligence community.
Fitzgerald reports that Libby "testified that he was specifically authorized … to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller" because the information "was 'pretty definite' against Ambassador Wilson… and that the Vice President thought that it was 'very important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out."
When Libby raised the problem of discussing the NIE with Miller because of its classified status, the filing reports that Libby "testified that the Vice President later advised him that the President had authorized" Libby to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE. (Emphasis added.)
The word "later" here, in the filing, is crucially ambiguous: Did the President authorized Libby's actions before Libby actually revealed the classified information to Miller, or afterward? The distinction may make a large difference in Libby's defense: If the authorization was retroactive, then Libby initially revealed classified information without permission to do so; thus, he would have reason to lie.
In addition, Cheney's counsel (now Chief of Staff) "opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document." (Emphasis added.)
Again, the language here is telling. The filing says that the President's actions "amounted to" declassification, not that the President had unilaterally declassified the material. To the contrary, it appears the material was not declassified for several days.
Can a President or Vice President Unilaterally and Selectively Declassify?
Assuming that Libby's testimony is accurate, did the President do anything wrong by so declassifying the NIE? Given the fact that the national security classification system is created by executive order of the president, it would appear logical that the president has authority to unilaterally and selective declassify anything he might wish. However, that is not the way any president has ever written the executive orders governing these activities. To the contrary, the orders set forth rather detailed declassification procedures.
In addition, there is law that says that when a president issues an executive order he must either amend that executive order, or follow it just as others within the executive branch are required to do. At present, we have so few facts it is difficult to know what precisely Bush did and how he did it, and thus whether or not this law is applicable. There is also the problem that no one has standing in court to challenge a president's refusal to follow his own rules. But voters may take note of the disposition of this administration to play by the rules, and put a Democratic Congress in place to keep an eye on the last two years of the Bush/Cheney presidency.
What is apparent, however, based on Fitzgerald's filing, is that no one other than Bush, Cheney, Libby and apparently Addington was aware of this unilateral and selective declassification - if, indeed, the NIE was declassified. The secrecy surely suggests cover-up. For example, Fitzgerald notes that Libby "consciously decided not to make [then Deputy National Security Adviser] Hadley aware of the fact that defendant [Libby] himself had already been disseminating the NIE by leaking it to reporters while Mr. Hadley sought to get it formally declassified." (Also, CIA Director George Tenet apparently was not aware of the partial declassification by Bush.)
Whatever authority Bush may or may not have had, however, it is crystal clear that Vice President Cheney did not have any authority to unilaterally and selectively declassify the NIE.
Recently, Cheney made the public claim (to Brit Hume of Fox News) that he had authority to declassify national security information. Learning of this, Congressman Henry Waxman asked the Congressional Reference Service of the Library of Congress, which issues non-partisan reports, whether Cheney was right. CRS found that the Vice President has limited declassification authority, generally speaking. And their report shows Cheney had no authority in this instance - only in situations where the Vice President had been the authority to classify the material in the first place, could the Vice President have the authority to unilaterally declassify it.
The Meaning of Libby's Revelations - and Their Possible Consequences
Libby's statements regarding the President are clearly hearsay; he was repeating to the grand jury what he claims Cheney told him. Accordingly, Bush is probably still protected by Cheney.
Presumably, Patrick Fitzgerald asked both Bush and Cheney about their actions when he interviewed them. But what they said, has yet to be revealed. If Cheney lied to protect himself, in the interviews, then he could also have lied to protect the President. Or Cheney could have opted to take the fall, and leave the President out of it.
Many commentators are dismissing this situation as run-of-the-mill presidential/vice presidential politics. But I believe it is more serious.
From a political perspective, separate from the illegality, there is the hypocrisy: The Bush Administration has prosecuted and sent to jail officials who leaked far less serious information - as I discussed in detail in a prior column. It is actively, and currently, threatening to prosecute others who have leaked information about the president's illegal electronic surveillance of Americans.
Beyond the hypocrisy, however, is what the President, Vice President, Libby and no doubt others did to destroy the career of Valerie Plame. Maybe the administration has quietly settled with the Wilsons, who seem to have dropped out of the public eye. This would have been wise, because as the facts unravel, it increasingly appears that administration officials did indeed attack Mr. Wilson for his speaking out; the leak of his wife's identity does indeed seem to have been done in harsh retribution. Such a violation of civil rights is a crime.
Finally, even if Bush and Cheney both get away clean of criminal charges, or even the suggestion of criminal conduct, this is still devastating for the Administration. Illegal or not, the President and Vice-President's actions, as recounted by Libby, are ugly in the extreme.
After all, Fitzgerald's filings indicate that, at a bare minimum, these highest of officials played fast and loose with declassification rules as part of a scheme to take an uncalled-for revenge against a critic who dared to question an Iraqi war justification. Even more damning, is that the critic turned out to be right: Weapons of mass destruction have never surfaced, no uranium was sold by Niger to Iraq, and the Administration's call to arms was bogus.
There will be more devastating revelations from the Libby case, I am certain. I have written of this matter in the past, and anticipate writing more in the future. The Commander-in-Chief-can-do-no-wrong veneer is wearing off, thankfully. For a nation that cannot hold its commander-in-chief responsible is something other than a democracy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1301687_pf.html
Judge in CIA Leak Case Threatens Gag Order
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 14, 2006; A03
The federal judge presiding over the pending trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby threatened yesterday to impose a gag order barring statements or disclosures to the news media by Libby's defense team or by the special prosecutor investigating alleged wrongdoing by the former White House official.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walston did not explain exactly what provoked his pique, but he wrote in his order that "on several occasions information has been distributed to the press by counsel, which has included not only public statements, but also the dissemination of material that had not been filed on the public docket."
He complained that the parties to the case did not heed an earlier warning that he would not tolerate "this case being tried in the media," and he said such disclosures could impair the court's ability "to ensure that both sides receive a fair trial." Walton gave both sides eight days to state any objections before he imposes the gag order.
He made the threat a week after special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is investigating leaks to the media by administration officials about a CIA operative, wrote in a court filing that President Bush and Vice President Cheney had authorized Libby to release information to the media from a classified intelligence report.
In a reply brief filed late Wednesday evening, Libby's defense team noted that this disclosure set "off an avalanche of media interest." Acting in response to questions, one of Libby's lawyers had made a brief statement to the media that Libby's White House-authorized release of information about Iraq was disconnected from any release of the name of the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, contrary to what Fitzgerald said in his court papers.
Plame's employment by the CIA was classified. She is married to former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was dispatched by the CIA to look into reports that Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear weapons materials in Africa. Wilson disputed the reports and wrote publicly that the administration had twisted intelligence to support its invasion of Iraq. Fitzgerald has alleged that officials leaked Plame's name in an effort to undermine Wilson by making it appear as if his assignment for the CIA stemmed from nepotism.
In their reply brief, which was described in late editions of Thursday's Washington Post, Libby's lawyers said he did not assert in grand jury testimony that Bush or Cheney instructed him to disclose Plame's name to reporters as part of an effort to rebut Wilson's criticisms.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted last year on charges of lying to the FBI and a grand jury when he said he had not discussed Plame with reporters. His new court filing was the latest salvo in his battle to gain access to information held by the administration and by government investigators about Wilson's trip, and about other officials' statements to reporters regarding Wilson and Plame.
Libby has said he needs these documents partly to prepare for expected testimony at his trial by current and former senior administration officials, who Libby says were aware of Plame's employment.
Libby has said the documents will show that Plame's employment was a peripheral matter in his conversations with others, and that thus he had good reason to forget precisely what he had said to reporters about it. "He testified to the grand jury unequivocally that he did not understand Ms. Wilson's employment by the CIA to be classified information," the court filing states.
In a related development, The Post yesterday was subpoenaed by Libby's defense team to produce records related to the case that the newspaper had not turned over to Fitzgerald. Eric Lieberman, a counsel at The Post, said the newspaper would comply by providing Libby with a complete copy of a memorandum by Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward from his interview with Libby on June 27, 2003.
Woodward has said Libby spoke in the interview about the same intelligence report he discussed with other journalists. "This action does not pose legal or journalistic concerns to The Post or Mr. Woodward," Lieberman said.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Judge in CIA Leak Case Threatens Gag Order
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 14, 2006; A03
The federal judge presiding over the pending trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby threatened yesterday to impose a gag order barring statements or disclosures to the news media by Libby's defense team or by the special prosecutor investigating alleged wrongdoing by the former White House official.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walston did not explain exactly what provoked his pique, but he wrote in his order that "on several occasions information has been distributed to the press by counsel, which has included not only public statements, but also the dissemination of material that had not been filed on the public docket."
He complained that the parties to the case did not heed an earlier warning that he would not tolerate "this case being tried in the media," and he said such disclosures could impair the court's ability "to ensure that both sides receive a fair trial." Walton gave both sides eight days to state any objections before he imposes the gag order.
He made the threat a week after special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is investigating leaks to the media by administration officials about a CIA operative, wrote in a court filing that President Bush and Vice President Cheney had authorized Libby to release information to the media from a classified intelligence report.
In a reply brief filed late Wednesday evening, Libby's defense team noted that this disclosure set "off an avalanche of media interest." Acting in response to questions, one of Libby's lawyers had made a brief statement to the media that Libby's White House-authorized release of information about Iraq was disconnected from any release of the name of the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, contrary to what Fitzgerald said in his court papers.
Plame's employment by the CIA was classified. She is married to former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was dispatched by the CIA to look into reports that Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear weapons materials in Africa. Wilson disputed the reports and wrote publicly that the administration had twisted intelligence to support its invasion of Iraq. Fitzgerald has alleged that officials leaked Plame's name in an effort to undermine Wilson by making it appear as if his assignment for the CIA stemmed from nepotism.
In their reply brief, which was described in late editions of Thursday's Washington Post, Libby's lawyers said he did not assert in grand jury testimony that Bush or Cheney instructed him to disclose Plame's name to reporters as part of an effort to rebut Wilson's criticisms.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted last year on charges of lying to the FBI and a grand jury when he said he had not discussed Plame with reporters. His new court filing was the latest salvo in his battle to gain access to information held by the administration and by government investigators about Wilson's trip, and about other officials' statements to reporters regarding Wilson and Plame.
Libby has said he needs these documents partly to prepare for expected testimony at his trial by current and former senior administration officials, who Libby says were aware of Plame's employment.
Libby has said the documents will show that Plame's employment was a peripheral matter in his conversations with others, and that thus he had good reason to forget precisely what he had said to reporters about it. "He testified to the grand jury unequivocally that he did not understand Ms. Wilson's employment by the CIA to be classified information," the court filing states.
In a related development, The Post yesterday was subpoenaed by Libby's defense team to produce records related to the case that the newspaper had not turned over to Fitzgerald. Eric Lieberman, a counsel at The Post, said the newspaper would comply by providing Libby with a complete copy of a memorandum by Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward from his interview with Libby on June 27, 2003.
Woodward has said Libby spoke in the interview about the same intelligence report he discussed with other journalists. "This action does not pose legal or journalistic concerns to The Post or Mr. Woodward," Lieberman said.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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