Cheney aide passed Plame's name to Libby, Hadley, those close to leak....

[sabra]

http://rawstory.com/admin/dbscripts/printstory.php?story=1339

Cheney aide passed Plame's name to Libby, Hadley, those close to leak investigation say

With the possibility of indictments just days away, sources close to the investigation into who outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson have provided RAW STORY a more detailed account into how and why Plame's name was leaked and what role the Pentagon and the vice president's office played.

Those close to the investigation say that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been told that David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told him that Plame set up the Wilson trip. He asserted that it was a boondoggle because she was a CIA agent, the sources said.

Libby then shared the information with Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, the sources said. Wurmser also passed on the same information about Wilson and his CIA to Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, they added.

Within a week, Wurmser, on orders from "executives in the office of the vice president," was told to leak her name to a specific group of reporters in an effort to muzzle her husband, Wilson, who had become a thorn in the side of the administration, those close to the inquiry say. It is unclear who Wurmser had spoken with in the media, the sources said, but they confirmed he did speak with reporters at national media outlets about Plame.

[msongs]

1. is this really legit LBN? nt

[sabra]

3. what are your concerns?

[hippiechick]

4. Actually not 'cause Wormy was all over DU last week ...

...but things are kinda loosey-goosey with the topics lately, I've noticed.

[RamboLiberal]

9. This is new because it details Wurmser passing the info

IMHO this one is definitely LBN and if true Raw has scooped all the MSM.

Last weeks posts on Wurmser were about his being cooperating with Fitzgerald.

This info details why it could very well be true since Fitz would've have a lot of bargaining chips is Wurmser passed the info to Rove/Libby and reporters.

This is getting juicy. Better than any soap opera I've ever seen!

[Mabus]

5. I wasn't sure either

so I started a post a while ago in GDP

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2178620&mesg_id=2178620

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

2. layer upon layer of cloaks, and daggers

Where will the peeled-away layers lead?

[AndyTiedye]

20. Where Indeed?

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

25. I can't look at Cheney these days and not think of

natterings and nabobs.

[berni_mccoy]

6. Why would Wurmser say it was a Boondoggle?

Because they had made up their mind to go to war or because they didn't need Wilson to go?

[Mabus]

10. Because there was nothing to the story

and they knew it. So sending Wilson to Niger was a waste of time and money, in otherwords, a boondoogle.

[jobycom]

16. PR spin

Boondoggle makes the trip sound more frivilous than "fact finding mission." Wurmser was trying to discredit the trip to even his close advisors.

You wonder if maybe Wurmser at this point was the only one who knew how much he had made up? I wonder, even, if he was responsible for forging the documents. Say, for instance, he had forged them, and made up other points, when his only instructions were to find facts to justify the invasion. They expected him to find real facts--not the whole story, but still facts that they could twist. Instead, Wurmser makes things up.

So when they ask him about Wilson's trip, he tries to dismiss it as nothing. "It was just a boondoggle" makes it sound like Wilson was just there having fun, not like anyone was suspicious about the claim.

Just one suggestion. Probably more to it than that.

That would be interesting, though, if the whole plot to mislead Congress got exposed because Wurmser made up a story he wasn't supposed to make up, and it was exposed by Wilson, and Wurmser tried to discredit Wilson to protect himself. Thus, the whole plot to lie to Congress got uncovered. I can even see WHIG obstructing justice thinking they were trying to protect themselves, when all they had to do was through Wurmser to the wolves for the whole thing--exposing Plame, forging the documents, providing false info.

As I said, that's all creative speculation on my part, more worthy of a novel than a series article, and there may be plenty of evidence to disprove it. I was just going off this one article.

Maybe John Le Carre needs to write this one up.

[KittyWampus]

22. Wurmser was, at that point, already determined to out Plame & smear them

this "info leak" simply doesn't go back that far in the timeline.

It's concerned with events later on in the whole affair.

[Catrina]

32. Yes, he said it was a 'boondoggle'

that she was a CIA agent. Since Wilson had not yet even written his article which he di in July, and they were already talking about him and Valerie Plame, in June, it seems they were very interested in Valerie before they had any reason to be mad at Joe.

They may not have been talking so much about Niger, as about her operation maybe tracking their 'ready-to-plant' WMDs. By then everyone knew the documents were forged.

And this is interesting, because I always thought Condoleeza Rice did not see the CIA memo, or know about Valerie Plame until she saw it on AF1:

Wurmser also passed on the same information about Wilson and his CIA to Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, they added.

So, both Hadley and Condy knew Valerie Plame's id one month before the trip to Africa, and before Joe Wilson's article appeared. Why would they want to out her to the press BEFORE Joe Wilson's article?

Didn't they say all along she was outed because of his article? How was he a thorn in their sides before that?

[EST]

38. Wilson was making a lot of noise, around town and elsewhere,

before he wrote the NYT article. He went, he knew he'd gone and the results, as did they. The wheels were already in motion to discredit him, in true rovian fashion, and try to destroy him in the process-without an exit strategy.

[Garbo 2004]

45. Also he was bugging the administration through his contacts to get them to

correct the record, according to his own account. (He wanted Condi as NSA to issue a retraction, which she previously declined to do but promptly did right after Wilson's NYT Op Ed appeared, funny that.)

[sellitman]

7. Sounds like Wurmser & Libby are toast.

Leaving Rove, Cheney & junior off the hook?

[hang a left]

11. Cheney is definately toast.

Rove may get out with just perjury and obstruction, maybe a conspiracy charge. * had to be in on the coverup.

[Halliburton]

13. no it looks like Rove and possibly Cheney are toast

Wurmser was the original source of the information, not journalists. Rove's alibi isn't holding up. It also looks like Cheney was deeply involved in this.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

50. Libby and the rest of the WHIG are also toast...they discussed this....

...and took part in the disinformation campaign designed to not only discredit Wilson, but to also destroy one of the last two barriers to convincing a majority of Americans that Saddam had WMDs.

The last barrier to attacking Iraq was the team of UN Inspectors that Bush ordered out of Iraq prior to "shock & awe" being rained down on the heads of the Iraqis who were largely defenseless.

And how many of Herr Busch's closest minions will roll over on their beloved leader when Fitz starts turning the screws? That's right, Fitz hasn't even started to turn the screws yet.

[debbierlus]

8. Bumpity bumpity bump

Recommended

[rodeodance]

15. recomended

[The Witch]

12. Emphasis below added ---->

David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told him

Surely you mean "them." Or did one of them already know?

[Tight_rope]

27. Either way...I believe Cheney, Rove and Libby are burnt toast!

All of them know damn well that going public with the name of a CIA agent is definitely against the law.

I beginning to feel that anyone who is a repuke and worked under the Nixon administration, who is still working for the government needs to be fire or resign.

This nation can't afford any more crooks. We have lots too much money and too many innocent lives.

[cyberpj]

49. I'll take all of those, but this is the toast I REALLY want to see.....

[lovuian]

14. This is a smoke screen story!!! Its placing Wurmser as the source!

But there was AirForce One where Ari Bush Cheney Colin all there to talk about Plame!!!

I think Wurmser has been picked to be the fall guy and its interesting cause he is a NeoCon and with Pearle connected to the Aipac!!!

[jsamuel]

18. Wurmser, on orders from "executives in the office of the vice president,"

was told to leak her name to a specific group of reporters in an effort to muzzle her husband, Wilson"


I don't think this line pins it on him.

[alcibiades_mystery]

24. Correct

If he received orders to leak the name and he is talking, then any executive in the vice-president's office who told him to do so is on the hook for conspiracy with respect to the underlying offense.

Moreover, if Wurmser gave the name to Rove, then Rove is caught on perjury and obstruction, and if Rove was aware of the order to leak the name, he is also guilty of conspiracy. Since he confirmed the information to at least Matt Cooper of Time, moreover, he would also be implicated in the underlying offense, depending on the construal of the "trafficking in confidential information" section of the Espionage Act.

[Garbo 2004]

29. Recall that by Cooper's account Rove told him that soon info would be

declassified that would cast doubt on Wilson and his findings. http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1083899,00.html

Since Rove told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and was "responsible" for sending him on the trip (supposedly what the classified state dept memo said) looks like Rove may as much as admitted he was knowingly providing classified info to a person not authorized to receive it.

[leveymg]

21. Cheney wasn't on AF1 with Bush

They NEVER fly together.

Don't worry. There are going to be lots of indictments handed out, probably Wednesday. Wurmser isn't taking the fall by his lonesome.

[KittyWampus]

23. Not really, it's placing Wurmser as a source later in the Timeline

this story just doesn't go far enough back in the chronology of events.

[Garbo 2004]

26. Cheney wasn't on air force one and the state dept memo/info existed

long before the July 7 trip to Africa where Powell had the memo.

Memo first dated June 10 but Newsweek once reported the memo was actually first prepared in May by State Dept. It was prepared based on info State already had dating back to 2002, including notes regarding the meeting at CIA discussing sending Wilson. (Apparently CIA said the person who prepared the notes of the meeting included with the memo had not actually attended the meeting and the notes contained inaccuracies.)

Also Wurmser and Hannah had ties to Bolton/State Dept (where they previously worked) and may have been able to get the info independently. Regardless, the info was available long before the July 7 Africa trip (which Cheney did not go on). Whether from state department sources or, as the article claims, CIA sources.

And finally, the info was being leaked weeks before the July 7 trip. Libby was talking to Miller about the CIA, Wilson and his wife on June 23, according to Miller. This was not info she volunteered to Fitz, her memory that she had met with Libby in June had to be "refreshed" by showing her a copy of the visitors log.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

28. Yes...

... this article smells. Another attempt at putting it all on Wurmser.

[Kagemusha]

35. Even if it (the original leak) is on Wurmser, it's still conspiracy.

After all, let's say he did leak the name to the media. Reporters then call up Karl Rove and Scooter Libby and try to get confirmed information they already illicitly know and Rove and Libby drag their feet and hem and haw and go, "Ok, yes, his wife did work at the CIA, and... no, I've already told you too much." (Rove) This after having been privately briefed on the matter by Wurmser.

Now, if Wurmser either didn't know or didn't pass on that Plame was covert, and none of the others thought to make sure she wasn't, they're all potentially culpable. And if Wurmser was the "plausible deniability" man enabling Rove and Libby to say that they first heard about Plame from the media, when they knew damn well who she was from Wurmser himself (as did the reporters), then he is the lynch pin of the conspiracy.

So no, this does not have the effect of putting it all on Wurmser. Not one little bit.

[Garbo 2004]

39. Rove gave Cooper the Wilson's wife story. According to Cooper, Rove

started talking before he could even ask a question. So not merely confirming info or saying he was aware of rumors about Wilson, Rove actively gave the story directly to Cooper. http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1083899,00.html

[hang a left]

41. Wurmser is Judith's source.

That is who the earlier unattributed Valerie Flame notation in her notebook comes from??

[peacetalksforall]

34. Verify what you are saying about Cheney - supposedly the Pres and VP

do not travel on the same aircraft, therefore, Cheney would have to 'be there' on the phone. Right? Who has reported that Cheney was on board?

[kestrel91316]

54. Bush and Cheney are never together on AF1. For security reasons.

[leveymg]

17. Here's Justin Raimondo's short take on Wurmser (10/21/05)

http://www.etherzone.com/2005/raim102105.shtml

SNIP

Raw Story, which is the place to go these days for the latest in the rats' sweepstakes, reported that John Hannah, Dick Cheney's national security adviser, was turning state's evidence as of yesterday, and today it's David Wurmser, Cheney's chief adviser on Middle East affairs.

Wurmser, whose Israeli-born wife Meyrav is Middle East scholar-in-residence at the neoconservative Hudson Institute, is the principal author of a by-now-famous 1996 policy paper, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," prepared for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Advanced Strategic Political Studies. The "Clean Break" strategy proposed an attempt by Israel to break out of its military and political isolation in the midst of a hostile Arab sea by pursuing regime-change in Iraq, and eventually Syria. Wurmser sought to mobilize the far-right wing of Israel's Likud party, represented by Netanyahu, around a vision of a Greater Israel surrounded by much lesser enemies. Syria, in Wurmser's view, was the main target, but the road to Damascus, he contended, had to run though Baghdad. "Whoever inherits Iraq dominates the entire Levant strategically," he wrote. The key to Israel's regional hegemony was in rejecting "land for peace" and creating a "natural axis" consisting of Israel, Jordan, and a Hashemite Iraq that could "squeeze and detach Syria from the Saudi peninsula." This would be "the prelude to redrawing the map of the Middle East" – to Israel's advantage, of course.

Among the other co-authors whose names adorn "A Clean Break": Douglas J. Feith, director of policy at the Department of Defense, and the ubiquitous Richard Perle, who is having his own problems with prosecutor Fitzgerald.

The connection of Israel to all this is plain enough: for the neoconservatives, Israel plays the same role as the old Soviet Union did to the American Communist Party. Acting sometimes in tandem with Tel Aviv, and always in Israel's interests, the cabal Wilkerson and others have identified is pursuing an ideological vision, which Seymour Hersh refers to above. Yet it could not be pursued in a vacuum, without the assistance of allies, and certainly the Israelis have played a key role in influencing the U.S. government to tread the path to war – covertly in the case of Iraq, and now quite openly when it comes to Syria and Iran.

The Israeli penetration of our national security has been put in the spotlight, lately, by the indictment – and guilty plea – of former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin on charges of spying for Israel. During his tenure as the Pentagon's top Iran specialist, when he worked for Doug Feith, Franklin was caught red-handed funneling highly classified information to Steve Rosen, AIPAC's chief lobbyist, and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's top foreign policy analyst, who then passed the stolen secrets on to the Israeli embassy. The interconnectedness of the investigation into AIPAC's treason with Fitzgerald's probe is underscored by the following passage from Franklin's indictment:

SNIP

[longship]

19. K&R

nt

[Garbo 2004]

30. Two things that don't quite make sense to me:

1. If lower level staff like Wurmser and/or Hannah were ordered to leak to the press and did so, why were Libby and Rove also doing so? One would have thought they would have simply confined themselves at most to perhaps confirming they heard the rumor when asked rather than apparently telling the story to Miller and Cooper which they did prior to Novak's column. Especially with Rove telling Cooper there was "classified info" soon to be declassified that would discredit Wilson. One would have thought they would have distanced themselves from disseminating the info which would be the entire point of having flunkies do it for them.

2. I find it unlikely that Libby, as the article states, didn't know until June that Wilson was criticizing the Administration's claims. Wilson had reportedly first caught their attention in March when he appeared on CNN after the Niger documents had been declared bogus and suggested the administration was being less than candid about being taken in by the fraudulent docs. That it had already had info that cast doubt on the claims so they shouldn't/couldn't have been taken in by the documents. Then most notably in May Kristof wrote an article in NYT where Wilson was a thinly veiled source. But the article says Wilson wasn't at all on Libby's radar as a critic of the Niger claims until June? Are Rawstory's sources spinning them?

[lovuian]

36. Bingo Garbo!!! this raw story is raw alright!!! Its missing the BIG

names!!! Scaredy cats!!!

[jsamuel]

31. something doesn't add up

Where did he find out "Plame" was her undercover name...

Me thinks Hannah and Bolton may be one step before this.

[Toots]

33. Looks like Wurmser is the one going to take the fall

Wurmser was the leaker by his accord and uder instructions from above he continued to leak. In a way this clears Rove and Libby unless it was them that told Wurmser to spread the leak..

[lovuian]

37. or try to take the fall!!!

but the others all perjured themselves covering it up!!!

[hang a left]

42. Maybe that is why Rove said she was "fair game"

[Garbo 2004]

43. I suspect in the VP"s office food chain two people could have ordered

Wurmser/Hannah to leak: Cheney and/or his Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby. Absent an org chart to confirm, who else in the VP's office has that kind of authority over VP office staffers?

[IndianaGreen]

47. Libby is only a staffer

Cheney is the only one with executive authority.

[Garbo 2004]

48. Who could exercise it by having his chief of staff direct other staff

(which as I understand is what a Chief of Staff does).

I don't think the reference is necessarily specifically intended literally and constitutionally, unless we indeed have two VP's ("executives in the office of the vice president").

But it an odd choice of words IMO unless it's some totally unnecessary super duper double coy wink instead of just outright naming the VP as others have done. And this article is not as I recall the first time I've read it reported that midlevel staff in VP's office were ordered by higher ups to leak to media. (Whether what I previously read also was from rawstory or another entirely separate source, I can't right now recall but I thought I'd seen it elsewhere before.)

While I've no doubt these guys have culpability in a wide variety of crimes, including the Plame thing, and all should be at minimum treated to open-ended detention as material witnesses down at Gitmo, there still are a few things rather conveniently "off" about this story. Which makes me wonder the purpose of these sources "close" to the investigation. Especially the claim that Libby only "first" knew in June that Wilson was criticising the Administration's uranium claims.

[IndianaGreen]

40. Wurmser, on orders from "executives in the office of the vice president"

Wurmser, on orders from "executives in the office of the vice president

The only executive in the office of the vice president is Dick Cheney, everyone else is staff.

I hope Wurmser turns into a prosecution witness.

[Carolab]

44. It points to CHENEY. n/t

[many a good man]

51. Cheny told Libby

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1874364

[misternormal]

46. CBS Evening News John Roberts...

Just reported that someone has stated that it was a mysterious "Mister X" that leaked the information to the press, not anyone that is soon to be under indictment...

Go figure huh???

This is liberal news??

[Media_Lies_Daily]

53. I thought they stated that "Mister X" was the source of the leak....

...that filtered down through Libby and Rove.

We already know...and so does the press...that Libby and Rove were actively involved in leaking Plame's name to the press. Did you already forget that part?

[cantstandbush]

52. Believe me, they are going to try to cover for the VP and Bush

Hannity and the rest of the Republicans look really stupid trying to marginalize the Plame incident by bringing up Clinton...especaially after what that fool K.B. Hutchinson said today.