PLAME: Cooper's Email About Rove & WH Spin in Newsweek >

[Stephanie]

Regarding the Newsweek article:



Q: Did Plame send Wilson? I thought that was disproved.

Q: Didn't Cheney's office request that the CIA to look into the Niger issue?

Q: Rove's implication that there was other evidence that Niger was involved with Iraq is a flat out lie, right?

Q: The WH spin, discouraging Newsweek from printing things that are false - they are sacrificing Rove for Cheney here, aren't they?

Q: Did Time leak the email to Newsweek?

Q: What is double super secret background? Does the reporter have to keep his fingers crossed? Is there a special decoder ring?



I think these paragraphs deserve particular scrutiny:

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Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH " and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.

***

Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an suspect but so is the report. he implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro Niger... "

***

A source close to Rove, who declined to be identified because he did not wish to run afoul of the prosecutor or government investigators, added that there was "absolutely no inconsistency" between Cooper's e-mail and what Rove has testified to during his three grand-jury appearances in the case. "A fair reading of the e-mail makes clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false," the source said, referring to claims in circulation at the time that Cheney and high-level CIA officials arranged for Wilson's trip to Africa.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek

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[mrdmk]

1. Yeah, I looking at that also and you are right

Plame send Wilson. No

Cheney's Office. Yes

Rove's implication. Good one

WH spin. Maybe

Time leak. Somebody did

Double Super. When people speak in this fashion they are selling a bill of goods. Any decent reporter should know enough of the subject to know when he/she is being BS'd.

Here is David Corn take.

http://www.davidcorn.com/

[im10ashus]

3. Thanks for the link!

From David Corn:

This new evidence could place Rove in serious political, if not legal, jeopardy (or, at least it should). If what I am told is true, this is proof that the Bush White House was using any information it could gather on Joseph Wilson--even classified information related to national security--to pursue a vendetta against Wilson, a White House critic. Even if it turns out Rove did not break the law regarding the naming of intelligence officials, this new disclosure could prove Rove guilty of leaking a national security secret to a reporter for political ends.

What is the penalty for leaking a national security secret to a reporter? Still the 10 years?

[peacetalksforall]

6. Who paid for the trip to Niger? Was Cheney talking to the CIA?

Assuming that the CIA paid for the trip, did they vet the decision to send Wilson and if so, who approved it?

Using logic:

. It's the White House that had the interest in the yellowcake claim.

. knowing what we know about the involvement of Bush in details and knowing that Cheney calls the shots from the bunkers and private meetings and speeches and the Cheney is probably in charge the handlers in the Oval Office, Cheney would be in on something this important to the White House.

. no one refutes that Rove said "Plame is fair game" after Wilson's column is published in the NYT.

. the creme de la key witnesses is Tenet. If he claims he knew nothing about the trip, the reporters who are so keen to get involved will no doubt figure out who was in charge. It is doubtful that Plame authorized the money advance to send Wilson.

Follow the money reporters.

The right wing is a vast military operation (against us and the people of certain countries). They have battalions on every level - legal, media, undercover, religious, corporate tax and law evaders, tax payed employees in the military and intelligence, thousands of thinkers from the think tanks, the Constitution destroyers, the head honchos who approve the operations.

THEY ARE ALL IN FULL MODE. WATCH THEIR OPERATION IN RELATION TO THIS SCANDAL. EDUCATE YOURSELVES IF YOU ARE NEW TO THEIR GAME. THIS IS GOING TO BE BETTER THAN A MOVIE AND WILL DEFINE THE UGLINESSS OF THIS COUNTRY AT THE HANDS OF MANIACAL, GREEDY, AND UN-AMERICAN FEW.

They consumed a decade and ruined lives and bank accounts and put a woman in jail for a year and a half because she wouldn't lie for them - all over an affair and unsubstatiated claims of illegal investments of a pittance of money compared to the Enron connected thefts and scandals of Cheney and Bush friends (to name just one).

They may have brought down the WTC, a portion of the pentagon, the airlines and a nation who had a beligerant leader and whose citizens had a precious commodity under their sand.

This Niger positioning may or not be small in comparison. Maybe people will understand the forged documents a little better. Including the Brits who were very involved.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Answers

Q: Did Plame send Wilson? I thought that was disproved.

No one takes it seriously. Wilson denies it. He says someone in Cheney's office asked him to go.

Q: Didn't Cheney's office request that the CIA to look into the Niger issue?

Yes. See above.

Q: Rove's implication that there was other evidence that Niger was involved with Iraq is a flat out lie, right?

It was most likely a flat out lie.

Q: The WH spin, discouraging Newsweek from printing things that are false - they are sacrificing Rove for Cheney here, aren't they?

I don't know. You're guess is as good as mine. I don't think the WH is attempting to sacrifice anybody. I don't think anybody is going to just fall on his sword.

Q: Did Time leak the email to Newsweek?

Isikoff had to get the story from somebody at Time, as did O'Donnell. I doubt it was Cooper.

Q: What is double super secret background? Does the reporter have to keep his fingers crossed? Is there a special decoder ring?

I'll leave that to a journalist. I don't believe that it is a technical term. My guess is that probably means the same thing as deep background; Cooper was just trying to emphaize the importance of keeping the source confidential.

[H2O Man]

4. Truthout

sent an article with interesting information on the memo, including Cooper's insisting Rove and the White House never being linked to the information. Rove is in big trouble. Cooper's e-mail shows evidence of a conspiracy coordinated in the White House.

[Pithy Cherub]

5. Regarding the "they are sacrificing rove for cheney" question,

that one is really amorphous. This WH has a history of NOT sacrificing anybody for anything regardless of the facts or evidence. Bush said he had his 'accountability" moment from election 2004.

What I really, really want to know is if the prosecutor is narrowly focused or running free like the wind(evidence), wherever it takes him. :shrug:

[Stephanie]

7. Sounds to me like Fitz will go wherever it takes him

The WH would not be spinnning on the "Cheney didn't know" issue if there wasn't some action in that area.

[im10ashus]

8. That's a good point.

"The WH would not be spinning on the "Cheney didn't know" issue if there wasn't some action in that area."

It's like they are subconsciously drawing attention to Cheney. Should be interesting.

:popcorn:

[Pithy Cherub]

9. The best prosecutors don't show their hands early.

Fitz, seems to have been burned before so he will have a super glue gun to make the evidence permanently stick. He also would not show to anyone how wide he is ranging. Smart.

As to Cheney, he's "special". Indictments could be to bring pressure to bear to turn "state's" evidence against him/others from multiple directions. The reporters may actually turn out to be minor players with major pieces of evidence. Now wouldn't that be ironic...

:popcorn: My new favorite poilitical soap...