Bush and Cheney Discussed Plame Prior to Leak

[Barrett808]

Bush and Cheney Discussed Plame Prior to Leak
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Monday 10 April 2006

In early June 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney met with President Bush and told him that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger to check out reports about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from the African country, according to current and former White House officials and attorneys close to the investigation to determine who revealed Plame-Wilson's undercover status to the media.

Other White House officials who also attended the meeting with Cheney and President Bush included former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, her former deputy Stephen Hadley, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

This information was provided to this reporter by attorneys and US officials who have remained close to the case. Investigators working with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald compiled the information after interviewing 36 Bush administration officials over the past two and a half years.

The revelation puts a new wrinkle into Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's two-year-old criminal probe into the leak and suggests for the first time that President Bush knew from early on that the vice president and senior officials on his staff were involved in a coordinated effort to attack Wilson's credibility by leaking his wife's classified CIA status.

(more)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041006Z.shtml

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. I thinks it's time to break out

my high waders, the shit is getting deep around here.

[Lasher]

2. Wow, this is good!

Looks like this must have been a meeting of the White House Iraq Group. I can't wait to see members of the WHIG forced to testify under oath. That will happen after we retake control of Congress this fall.

[wake.up.america]

3. Bush is one sick puppy. I hope Republicans finally wake up!!!!

November's elections are basically a referendum on the state of Bush's sanity.

[UpInArms]

4. Long Live Irony! Irony is Dead!

http://web.archive.org/web/20031011164149/http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1982/62382a.htm

Remarks on Signing the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982

June 23, 1982
Director Bill and Members of the Congress, distinguished guests who are here, and you ladies and gentlemen, all distinguished:

I bring you greetings from a former Director of this Agency, Vice President George Bush, who couldn't be here with us this morning. And I want to give him credit, because I'm going to tell a story of his. And it's always dangerous telling a trade joke to members of the trade, because the chances are too good that they've heard it. But I'm going to take the chance anyway. It's one of the few stories that I can tell now since ethnic jokes are a no-no. This one is an Irish joke, and my name is Reagan, so I can tell the story. But it has to do something with the occasion and with your line of work.

<snip>

As I've said, the enactment of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act is clear evidence of the value this nation places on its intelligence agencies and their personnel. It's a vote of confidence in you by the American people through their elected representatives. It's also a tribute to the strength of our democracy.

The Congress has carefully drafted this bill so that it focuses only on those who would transgress the bounds of decency; not those who would exercise their legitimate right of dissent. This carefully drawn act recognizes that the revelation of the names of secret agents adds nothing to legitimate public debate over intelligence policy. It is also a signal to the world that while we in this democratic nation remain tolerant and flexible, we also retain our good sense and our resolve to protect our own security and that of the brave men and women who serve us in difficult and dangerous intelligence assignments.

During the debate over this bill, some have suggested that our focus should be not on protecting our own intelligence agencies, but on the real or imagined abuses of the past. Well, I'm glad that counsel was rejected, for the days of such abuses are behind us. The Congress now shares the responsibility of guarding against any transgression, and I have named a new Intelligence Oversight Board and Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to assist me in ensuring that the rule of law is maintained in areas which must remain secret and out of the normal realm of public scrutiny.

<snip>

Note: The President spoke at 11:32 a.m. outside the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters building in Langley, Va. Prior to his remarks, he was given a tour of the building at which time he spoke to a small group of CIA employees.

As enacted, H.R. 4 is Public Law 97 - 200, approved June 23.

[MGKrebs]

5. We don't know how you guys are doing it over there Jason,

BUT WE ARE GLAD YOU ARE!

Truthout indeed. :yourock:

[Kagemusha]

6. "suggests it" but proves absolutely nothing in and of itself.

Just to make that clear...

The problem for Fitzgerald is that the fact the President is at the top of the chain here basically gives him very little wiggle room to bring his investigation to the top. Because he, by himself, can't touch the President. He can, all the same, go after Cheney all he likes, if he has the goods; Libby has prevented him from having the goods, to condemn or, if warranted, exonorate Cheney. All Bush needs to do to save Cheney is to say Bush authorized everything Cheney did. Bush's 'Senior Administration Officials' aren't doing that. But it's not like Fitz or Congress could do anything to him if he simply fessed up and took full responsibility.

Edit: I think Greg Palast made this point. The real crime here, from a public rather than personal point of view, is Bush having wasted 33 months of a prosecutor's time - remember, Fitz is a very busy man - to investigate a possible crime on the express assumption that the underlying actions, whether illegal or not, were NOT on the express authorization of the President, and were not subject to the argument that because the President did it, it is legal. (If only because of the argument that the President's propaganda actions were deemed by him to be important to national security i.e. leading the nation into a war in Iraq, which is damn sleazy, but probably not illegal unless Congress is outraged to the point of impeachment and conviction and removal from office, which is unprecedented in American history.)

So point being, if Bush really did make all this happen on his authority as President, he's been presiding over the farce of an Executive Branch employee investigating the actions of the sitting President for which, short of impeachment, he cannot be held accountable for, anyway, because what he's done was exercised in his capacity as President, regardless of the letter of the criminal statutes, because of the protection provided to him by the Constitution and the separation of powers doctrine. The only reason for this farce would then be that the President concealed his role for selfish political purposes. Again, good luck punishing him for it legally, but very sleazy considering the supposed high standards of the office of the President.

[Roland99]

7. Leaker-in-Chief = Liar-in-Chief

[SoCalDem]

8. Don't forget that long plane ride to Africa

There were probabl;y many discussions onboard ...about the "leak"...and HOW to do it, and which "reporters" to contact about it..


http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=3&q=http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0330nj1.htm&e=9797

http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=9&q=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3056873.stm&e=9797