Vice President lied as White House sought to defuse leak inquiry

[cynatnite]

snip:
Friday’s grand jury indictment sheds new light on a pattern of strategic deception by the Vice President and the White House to defuse an inquiry into who leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to the press. Months after Plame’s identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, Cheney continued to hide the fact that he and his aides were intimately involved in disseminating classified information about her to journalists.

The indictment against Cheney’s Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, clearly states that Cheney and Libby discussed Plame’s undercover CIA status and the fact that her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, traveled to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake uranium from the African country in early June of 2003.

Yet the following month, Cheney and then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer asserted that the vice president was unaware of Wilson’s Niger trip, who the ambassador was, or a classified report Wilson wrote about his findings prior to the ambassador’s July 6, 2003 op-ed in the New York Times.

We now know, courtesy of the 22-page Libby indictment, that Cheney wasn’t being truthful. Cheney did see the report; he knew full well who Wilson was. He also knew that the CIA arranged for Wilson to travel to Niger, and he personally sought out information about Wilson’s trip to Niger, was briefed about the fact-finding mission, and even obtained classified information about Plame’s covert CIA status. He also came to know one other important nugget: that Plame may have recommended her husband for the trip.

more at:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Vice_President_lied_as_White_House_1031.html

[DistressedAmerican]

1. Glad Someone Is Finally Tackling This. It Was My First Thought.

Lying Dick!

Nominated!

[Junkdrawer]

7. IMHO, it's the biggest central lie of TreasonGate...

To wit: No one in the White House heard of Wilson's early 2002 Niger report until May/June of 2003.

Expose that, and a whole new round of perjury charges comes into play...right up to Cheney and many cabinet heads. And you expose the real motive for outing Plame and destroying Brewster-Jennings.

See my musings here:

The Niger / Cheney / Plame / Brewster-Jennings connection

[ryan_cats]

2. Cheney lied, hard to believe, NOT!

Cheney lied, hard to believe, NOT! This is one reason I wasn't disappointed by Fitzmas. As far as I'm concerned, this fight has just begun. Now with the pressure on Scooter (nice nickname for an adult), I along with a lot of other people expect him to sing like a canary!

I expect, Rove and Cheney are persons of interest in Fitz mind right now. Cheney will be the next Spiro Agnew. Enjoy your second term Mr President, we will. Hopefully there will be a new "Presidential Wing" at Leavenworth.

[Stephanie]

3. So is Raw Story vindicated now?

They were correct about the indictments, were they not? It seems to me they took a beating for reporting news we didn't want to hear.

[Lexingtonian]

4. if you look at all of Cheney's TV appearances

I doubt there's one, now that the facts are known on most of their policies, where he doesn't lie about something major. Energy policy, Iraq, Terror and Al Qaeda, Halliburton, his daughter, WMDs, Enron, taxes, Social Security, DeLay, Kerry, whatever. It's friggin' atrocious.

[Loonman]

5. "we know now, that Saddam has reconstituted nuclear weapons"

Should nail Dick for that whopper.

[HereSince1628]

6. Lying is a virture to Straussian based Neoconservatism.

They see lying as an essential tool in directing public sentiment toward policy. Google Neoconservatism & Leo Stauss and you'll get the picture.

[bigbrother05]

8. It's called A Nobel Lie.

[HereSince1628]

10. Yes a standard performance in modern leadership

[LunaC]

11. PNAC "Statement of Principles"

"It's important to shape circumstances..."

[yellowcanine]

9. "Were his lips moving?" If the answer is yes, then he lied. No more

evidence is necessary.