Whatever happened to THIS?

[XNASA]

[madinmaryland]

1. We should know something in 24 hours or so.

business hours??

:hide:

[leveymg]

3. Smack to the forehead -

"24 business hours" - why didn't you would say that?

[LSK]

12. dont make me post a certain joke

:hi:

[madinmaryland]

18. What are you talking about?

Robert Gates is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

[leveymg]

2. He's still making his list, checking it twice.

He knows who's been naughty or nice.

[evilgenius602]

6. yes but who has been criminally negligent?

[leveymg]

8. The entire Bush-Cheney national security team.

Why, do you have someone else in mind? ;-)

[Ganja Ninja]

4. We need to get his picture on a milk carton. n/t

[MADem]

5. Well, he IS in the news again, FWIW, as is JUDY MILLER, but unrelated to Libby

WASHINGTON, November 28: The Supreme Court refused on Monday to shield The New York Times and two of its reporters from a prosecutor’s probe into who leaked word of planned raids on two Muslim charities five years ago, clearing the the way for federal prosecutors to review the phone records of the two reporters for several weeks in the fall of 2001. The prosecutor, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago, says the records will help point to the source of the leak.

NYT maintains it has a First Amendment right to protect the confidentiality of its sources. Floyd Abrams, the lawyer for the paper, said, “There has been no claim of wrongdoing against the Times reporters. The only thing at issue here is a leak investigation in which the government seeks to obtain information on who spoke to the journalists.’’

Two years ago, lawyers for the newspaper went before a federal judge in New York and won an order that barred the prosecutor from examining the phone records. But in August, the US appeals court in Manhattan reversed that order in a 2-1 decision. The prosecutor has a “compelling interest’’ in learning who tipped off the reporters to the planned raids, thereby “endangering federal agents’’ and permitting the “targets to spirit away incriminating information,’’ Judge Ralph Winter said in the appeals court.

“We see no danger to the free press in so holding,’’ he added. “Learning of imminent law enforcement asset freezes or searches and informing targets of them is not an activity essential, or even common, to journalism.’’

The Supreme Court never has squarely ruled that the news media have a First Amendment right to protect their confidential sources. http://www.indianexpress.com/story/17497.html
---------------------------

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=industryNews&storyID=2006-11-28T110043Z_01_N28194224_RTRIDST_0_INDUSTRY-TIMES-SOURCES-DC.XML&WTmodLoc=EntNewsIndustry_C1_%5BFeed%5D-1
.....In a one-sentence order, the Supreme Court rejected a request from the Times to stay a lower court's decision while the paper attempted to persuade the justices to review the case, the paper reported.

The grand jury, in Chicago, is looking into who told the reporters, Judith Miller and Philip Shenon, about actions the government was planning to take in December 2001 against two Islamic charities in Illinois and Texas, the paper said.

The disclosures to reporters, government lawyers wrote on Friday, may have amounted to obstruction of justice, it said.

Yesterday's order effectively allows the United States attorney in Chicago, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, to begin reviewing the records, which he has already obtained from phone companies, as early as this week, the Times reported.


© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

[leveymg]

7. Maybe it is related to Libby?

Who tipped-off Judy so she could drop a dime that the Feds were coming after Grover's pals? Scooter? Rover? Hadley? (Insert your guess here)

[MADem]

9. Nope. This case predates Libby. It's a Feebie investigation leak kinda thing.

We already know what Scooter told Judy, pretty much, and what and who they talked about (Valerie 'FLAME!!').

This case was about an investigation at the start of the decade, just after nine wun wun.

[leveymg]

15. Wasn't Libby Cheney's COS in Dec. '01?

Why do you assume it's not him? Who do you think it was?:hi:

[MADem]

16. Why would he be leaking info about Muslim charities to Judy and some other clown?

Ya gotta ask yourself, cui bono? Sure, he'd leak with the best of 'em, but show me how his leaking FBI info about an investigation of that nature HELPS the White House? It just makes the Feebs and by extension the Executive Branch look like incompetent bastards who can't protect us from 'terrists.' It doesn't benefit...nor does it take someone like Joe Wilson out.

This leak came from someone who was bullshit at the administration, not working from within to screw someone OUTSIDE the administration.

This investigation is entirely separate from Plamegate/Fitzmas. It's a different deal entirely.

[leveymg]

17. The Islamic charities involved were set up by Grover Norquist.

Norquist, and his pal Jack Abramoff, were the crossroads of Saudi money flowing into the GOP by way of the Bushite dirty-tricks wing, with ties to both the Israeli Right and the Saudis. This same network also funneled money to terrorist organizations.

The FBI was running a counter-terrorism sting operation against several of these dirty money conduits, and someone at rhe White House tipped them off through Miller, a trusted BFEE operative. It's as simple (and politically complicated for Fitzgerald) as that.

For details, see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9890-2004Sep9_2.html

Fitzgerald's leak investigation in the Global Relief matter began shortly after NATO troops and U.S. personnel, acting at the direction of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), raided several of the charity's overseas offices on Dec. 14, 2001. At the time, the Chicago U.S. attorney's office was conducting a criminal investigation of the Illinois offices of Benevolence International Foundation and Global Relief Foundation.

An examination of those investigations by the Sept. 11 commission said that Fitzgerald's "original plan did not call for searches or takedowns of the GRF or BIF offices in Illinois." Instead, the commission found, the FBI had planned to listen via wiretap to the charities' reaction to the overseas searches.

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald is seeking reporters' phone records. (Frank Polich -- Reuters)

But, the commission said in findings released after its main report, "this plan went awry when word of the impending action apparently leaked to GRF. FBI personnel learned that some of the targets of the investigations may be destroying documents." Agents then "hastily assembled" a search, the commission reported.

The commission's findings added that "press leaks plagued almost every OFAC blocking action that took place in the United States."

Roger Simmons, an attorney for Global Relief, said documents "weren't being destroyed, but I understand why they thought so." He said the charity's public relations director received a call the evening of Dec. 13, 2001, from a Times reporter. "He said Phil Shenon of the New York Times said one of his colleagues had been told GRF would be frozen the next day," Simmons said. He added: "I think the Times reporter was looking for the first reaction even before the story had broken."

[MADem]

19. I still can't see how leaking from the WH benefits BushCo. If anything, these leaks shine a light

on nefarious BushCo deeds, and bring unwelcomed attention. Assuming the WH wanted evidence shredded so the trail didn't go back to them, the way to do is NOT to tell Judy Miller to print it in the Times, but have a bagman go meet Jack Abramoff or some other involved bums on the street and tip them off that there's trouble brewing and to start getting rid of stuff--not calling Judy and crew so she can print it up in the newspaper.

You've got NATO involved, US Forces, and OFAC in the mix, along with the Feebs. I dunno--I can't see anyone in the WH picking up the phone. They've GOT to be smarter than that. We already learned that Rover met Jacko on the damn street half the time, and that White House switchboard can be a heckuva shield, too.

Something isn't adding up here.

[leveymg]

21. You're right that we're missing a piece of info here.

Here's 3 possibilities: 1) whoever told the person to call Judy believed he was invulnerable (that fits Cheney or Libby); or 2) whoever tipped off the caller who rang up Judy was part of a Fed operation to see what all parties would do with this info. They failed the loyalty test (that M.O. fits a ranking official in counter-intelligence); or 3) Judy's source was a foreign intelligence agency (Mossad or Saudi external intel?)

[MADem]

22. Well, we'll know one way or another IF the search of the phone records yields anything.

But maybe it won't--maybe the info was passed on the street, or at a rodeo before the aspens turned!

[porphyrian]

10. Kick for my own curiosity. - n/t

[Bluebear]

11. You're just ahead of the news cycle. nt

[porphyrian]

13. But I don't wanna wait... - n/t

[leftofthedial]

14. drip drip drip

Fitzmas has turned the corner

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. The Libby Trial is set to start in January

The Wilson's civil suit will start going into high gear after the beginning of the year too.

And don't forget the AIPAC Investigation, KBR/Halliburton and the backwash from the Abramoff Investigation.

I think most of the world is waiting till after the holidays and for the DEMS to be back in control in Congress before we see any real action though.