Is Miers the anonymous "CIA briefer" who read the 8/6/01 PDB to Bush?

[leveymg]

Editor & Publisher picked up on a report in the LA Times that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers was the briefer who read the notorious August 8, 2001 CIA Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) to President Bush. That is startling news in itself, considering that she's also W's lawyer and advised him about the handling of 9/11 after the attacks.

Here's another unexploded bombshell. Up until now, it has been reported that Bush reviewed the Top Secret PDB with an anomymous "CIA briefer."

This raises a few new questions:

Is Harriet Miers an employee or operative of the Central Intelligence Agency? Or, did someone else in the room read the document to Bush, while Ms. Miers listened? What did she advise the President to do, both before and after 9/11, about the terrorist attack? What, if anything, will Senators ask her about this subject?

Here's the E&P story:

Miers Briefed Bush on Famous Bin Laden Memo, But Newspapers Handle the AP Photo Quite Differently

By E&P Staff

Published: October 04, 2005 10:45 AM ET


NEW YORK On its front page today, The New York Times publishes a photo of new U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers going over a briefing paper with President George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch, “in August 2001,” the caption reads. USA Today and the Boston Globe carried the photo labeled simply “2001,” but many other newspapers ran the picture in print or on the Web with a more precise date: August 6, 2001.

Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous “PDB” that declared that Osama Bin Laden was “determined” to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?

As it turns out, yes, according to today's Los Angeles Times. An article by Richard A. Serrano and Scott Gold observes that early in the Bush presidency “Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial 'presidential daily briefing' hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.”

So the August 6 photo may show this historic moment, though quite possibly not . . . Two others in the background are Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Steve Biegun of the national security staff."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001221205

[CottonBear]

1. So did she have a top secret security clearance?

She wasn't the chief WH counsel then.

[back2basics909]

2. Sounds about right..

.. Bush gives great jobs to anybody who can implicate him. Anybody involved in the criminal acts is either promoted or given a medal.

[EST]

3. By George, I think you've got it!

[Mabus]

4. Wait til Sibel Edmonds' case reaches SCOTUS

I wonder how Miers will rule on that one? Or will she recuse herself?

:eyes:

[cascadiance]

6. My guess is that O'Connor will still be on the court then...

I think they decide whether to hear her case or not within the next couple of weeks before they go into session again. I doubt that the Dems will let this nomination go through that quickly. Bush might be trying to "beat the clock" on this one, but I would hope that Dems (assuming that they aren't in BIG trouble with Edmonds' testimony as well) will be sensitive to this and make sure that Edmonds' case is heard before O'Connor gets replaced. O'Connor might be the wild card that helps it go to Edmonds' favor.

[EC]

5. So, she's Bush's** Rosemary Woods? ...n/t