NYT: Libby and Rove Were Working on Response to Prewar Intel Critics

[BurtWorm]

"Hey, Scooter. This is too hard. Let's just fuck with Wilson."

(Dramatic recreation above does not appear in the article cited below.)



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/politics/22leak.html?ei=5094&en=67c9b3ba0b4f2f66&hp=&ex=1122091200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

July 22, 2005
For Two Aides in Leak Case, 2nd Issue Rises
By DAVID JOHNSTON

This article was reported by David Johnston, Douglas Jehl and Richard W. Stevenson and was written by Mr. Johnston.


WASHINGTON, July 21 - At the same time in July 2003 that a C.I.A. operative's identity was exposed, two key White House officials who talked to journalists about the officer were also working closely together on a related underlying issue: whether President Bush was correct in suggesting earlier that year that Iraq had been trying to acquire nuclear materials from Africa.

The two issues had become inextricably linked because Joseph C. Wilson IV, the husband of the unmasked C.I.A. officer, had questioned Mr. Bush's assertion, prompting a damage-control effort by the White House that included challenging Mr. Wilson's standing and his credentials. A federal grand jury investigation is under way by a special counsel to determine whether someone illegally leaked the officer's identity and possibly into whether perjury or obstruction of justice occurred during the inquiry.

People who have been briefed on the case said the White House officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, were helping prepare what became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address six months earlier.

They had exchanged e-mail correspondence and drafts of a proposed statement by George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the address. Mr. Rove, the president's political strategist, and Mr. Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their efforts with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, who was in turn consulting with Mr. Tenet.

[BurtWorm]

1. Times article notes possible point of discrepancy between Rove and Cooper

In addition to ferreting out the original leak, the grand jury is examining the truthfulness of its witnesses, comparing each account with previous testimony. One apparent area of interest is the conflicting accounts given by Mr. Rove and Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine correspondent who has said he spoke to Mr. Rove about Ms. Wilson, about why they spoke on July 11, 2003.

Mr. Rove, said a source familiar with his testimony, told prosecutors that the conversation began under the pretext of discussing welfare reform.

But Mr. Cooper said he had no record or memory of actually talking to Mr. Rove about welfare reform, instead only discussing the Wilson case in their brief chat. The grand jury focused on that apparent discrepancy, Mr. Cooper wrote in an account in Time this week.

[oasis]

2. Lying, low life Libby is going down with the rest of the Bushistas.

Rove/Plame is here to stay. There is no getting away from it.

[BurtWorm]

3. So much for the Roberts Distraction!

:eyes:

[oasis]

4. The corporate media sharks smell another Watergate. This will be huge.

:bounce:

[wli]

5. far larger than Watergate

It reveals a vast criminal organization that's taken over the entire federal government (well, an "organization" in the sense of people connected by bribery and complicity in fraud and other crimes to advance the GOP and hence the AEI etc.). It will, of course, be whitewashed.

[oasis]

6. In for the long haul. We'll mine Rovegate until we hit the mother load.

[wli]

7. but how do we prevent it from turning into a minimalistic whitewash

Instead of investigating, indicting, etc. en masse as necessary?

[Skittles]

8. too late for it to be really "whitewashed"

roves's turd blossom stench is covering D.C.

[wli]

9. you know it goes way further than turdblossom

The entire executive branch and a fair number of congressmen, governors, Pentagon officials, thinktank quacks, and so on are all guilty. Nowhere near all of them are going down. Only a few high-level patsies will do time, and the rest will be there for a bit of hatemongering and electoral defeat, but not justice. And the truth of these matters will never be disclosed, just like what happened to Kennedy or 9/11 was never disclosed.

[Skittles]

11. hey wii, tell me what you think of this assessment

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/07/con05252.html

[KharmaTrain]

10. My New Scandal Name: Plamethrower

This is getting better and better by the day

:popcorn:

There's Karl already in the crosshairs, Scooter seems not far off target and Hadley running the phone exchange, things could get very, very interesting.

Didn't Tenet come out with some half-assed Press Conference shortly after the Wilson article and shot it down? That was right before he resign and then was awarded for being such a good lackey.