Libby to be charged later today

[paineinthearse]

http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/

posted by murray waas at 7:23 AM Friday, October 28, 2005

Libby to be charged later today

The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case will later today announce a federal grand jury indictment against I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff, and national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, according to attorneys involved in the case. The indictment will focus on charges that Libby mislead federal investigators and the grand jury hearing evidence in the case for the past 22 months, according to the same sources.

Contrary to many news reports that with today's indictment, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has now wrapped up his investigation are incorrect. The prosecutor will still want to hear Libby's later testimony regarding the role of others in the Bush administration in the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Federal prosecutors have long believed that Libby not only mislead the grand jury to protect himself, but perhaps others in the White House who might have played a role in the outing of Plame, and the role to conceal their role, the legal sources said.

Lost in the more significant news of the moment, the vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, last night renewed demands on the White House to turn over materials regarding Libby's role in allegedly distorting intelligence information to make the administration case to go to war with Iraq. Rockefeller was reacting to a report that was posted online yesterday in the National Journal, and which I wrote, disclosing that Vice President Cheney and Libby personally overruled the advice of some political staff and administration attorneys that they cooperate with the committee probe. (see post below for more details.)

Here below is Rockefeller's statement:

"In February 2003 the White House provided input to the CIA during the preparation of Secretary Powell's United Nations speech. During the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq, I believed it was important for the committee to obtain and review the White House drafts.

"On October 31, 2003, I wrote to CIA Director George Tenet requesting this and other White House documents. I repeated that request in writing on two subsequent occasions.

"Despite these and other efforts, the Committee never received the White House documents.

"The fact is that throughout the Iraq investigation any line of questioning that brought us too close to the White House was thwarted.

"For several years, I've called on the Committee and the Congress to get to the bottom of whether this administration misused intelligence in making the case for going to war.

"That question is no less relevant today than it was then."

[Christa]

1. He should resign immediately. nt.

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. Recommended. Let's hope that THIS time the congressional committee

is able to get the documents they requested and that their investigation can go forward too. I imagine the Administration will be eager to pin all the bad acting on Libby, so perhaps they will cough up a subset of documents that relate to him. But the fact is, whether or not the Bushies can limit the criminal charges, all these exposés show how Congress and all of America was lied to in the eager push to war and power grabbing by the WH.

[Emit]

4. Nothing Without Hope

This current news of missing docs reminds me of this old thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1939214#1942621

Your old thread is still an important one, as it relates to what was NOT completed by the committee (i.e., never getting to the bottom of the who forged those docs and who pushed them.)

[Nothing Without Hope]

6. Now that's interesting - looking back on that thread now, it's remarkable

to see Rockefeller FINALLY saying they didn't get the documents. That committee basically did NOTHING to get to the bottom of the whole intelligence lies fiasco. At the time, a few months back, I was urging that Rockefeller be DUed with letters to urge him to get the documents.

Pressures have changed, for hiim to be suddenly talking about this. I'm suspecting the WH is trying to limit the damage and focus the "criminalization" on a few of theirs as possible.

And I'm glad to see that someone did read those threads. Thanks!

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. We should hear about Libby's indictment officially at the 2 PM ET press

conference:

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/press_advisory_1028.pdf

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. Another excellent site for insightful, careful up-to-the-minute updates:

http://www.firedoglake.blogspot.com

There is also often humor interspersed in the news at this great site. Here is a post with links to a well-researched and extremely valuable piece from this site yesterday. It's the best resource I have seen on the functioning and rules of the Fitzgerald grand jury process:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5193743&mesg_id=5193743
Thread title: Great Grand Jury info at Firedoglake.com, the all-Fitz-all-the-time blog

[paineinthearse]

7. thank you nt

[autorank]

8. Value added...most informative post yeat on this.

Thanks