Beyond Rove: Special prosecutor said to be investigating Ari Fleischer, Scooter Libby

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Beyond Rove: Special prosecutor said to be investigating Ari Fleischer, Scooter Libby and others; also probing possible post-leak coverup

WASHINGTON - The special prosecutor probing the outing of a CIA spy is looking beyond who leaked Valerie Plame's identity, seeking whether White House aides tried to cover their tracks after her name went public, sources told the Daily News.

Along with Bush political guru Karl Rove, the grand jury is investigating what role, if any, ex-White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer may have played in the revelation that the former covert operative Plame was married to former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

"Ari's name keeps popping up," said one source familiar with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's probe.

Another source close to the probe added there is renewed interest in Fleischer, "based on Fitzgerald's questions."

A State Department memo that included background on Wilson - and who in the White House had access to it - appears to be a key to revealing who gave conservative columnist Robert Novak Plame's name, both sources said.

Another person of interest in the case is Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby, who was described as "totally obsessed with Wilson," the sources said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_r...p-280454c.html

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Maybe an "accountability moment" for Team Thug is finally coming.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

John W. Dean: 'It appears that Karl Rove is in serious trouble'

Newsweek has reported that Matt Cooper, in an email to his bureau chief at Time magazine, wrote that he had spoken "to Rove on double super secret background for about two min[ute]s before he went on vacation ..." In that conversation, Rove gave Cooper "big warning" that Time should not "get too far out on Wilson." Rove was referring, of course, to former Ambassador Joe Wilson's acknowledgment of his trip to Africa, where he discovered that Niger had not, in fact, provided uranium to Iraq that might be part of a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. Cooper's email indicates that Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney; rather, Rove claimed, "it was … [W]ilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on [WMD] issues who authorized the trip." (Rove was wrong about the authorization.)

Only the Special Counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, and his staff have all the facts on their investigation at this point, but there is increasing evidence that Rove (and others) may have violated one or more federal laws.

Continued...http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20050715.html

[Crushaholic]

The leak went back further than that...in fact on a tiny island where fantasies come true. At least once a week, a small man would announce to the host "Da Plame! Da Plame!"

[clarker]

Originally Posted by Crushaholic

The leak went back further than that...in fact on a tiny island where fantasies come true. At least once a week, a small man would announce to the host "Da Plame! Da Plame!"

Classic.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

"Come to Fantasy Island, where Iraqis greet you with flowers, GeeDubya is a great leader, the economy is booming, we found the WMD, and Karl Rove has done nothing wrong."

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Top 10 Reasons Dorothy was greeted as a liberator...and Bush wasn't

10. The Wicked Witch of the East actually HAD weapons of mass destruction.

9. Local contracts awarded to Lullaby League and Lollipop Guild, not Halliburton.

8. Dorothy apologized.

7. Evil oppressor legally verified as "really most sincerely dead" rather than "maybe dead."

6. Dorothy got it that she wasn't in Kansas any more.

5. Dorothy did not install Toto as interim governor of Munchkinland.

4. Dorothy didn't jail Muchkins and make them blow each other for a camera.

3. Dorothy had no interest in stealing the Munchkin's oil.

2. Dorothy wasn't taking orders from the one with no brain.

1. Dorothy didn't kill 140,000 civilian Munchkins.

[W*GS]

Maybe LABF will die from his orgasm if Rove goes away.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Rove signed a nondisclosure agreement

Friday 15 July 2005

A fact sheet released today by Rep. Waxman explains that the nondisclosure agreement signed by Karl Rove prohibited Mr. Rove from confirming the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Wilson to reporters. Under the nondisclosure agreement and the applicable executive order, even "negligent" disclosures to reporters are grounds for revocation of a security clearance or dismissal.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071505Q.shtml

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

"What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern."

- Paul Krugman, who, presumably, has never even met W*GS

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/op...15krugman.html

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

- Jack Krugman, who, presumably, has never even met W*GS

Either you mean Paul Krugman, partisan hack extraordinaire, or actor Jack Klugman, whom I was not aware wrote in the NYT.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

More insight into the crime family whose flank W*GS continues to cover:

Bush family tradition: Ducking scandal

If there is one trait that has followed the Bush family through generations of privilege, it is the ability to escape scandal - a skill that will be put to the test again over the leaking of the identity of an undercover CIA officer, apparently to get back at her husband for criticizing George W. Bush's case for invading Iraq.

Excerpt:

Neocon Strategy

The "talking point" memo also is a classic example of how the neoconservatives have used rhetorical games since the early 1980s when they rose to power under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

When people have come up with information that can cause the neocons trouble, the neocons have applied an approach called "controversializing" the accuser.

The process works whether that person is a federal prosecutor (as in the case of Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh), a member of Congress (as with Rep. Henry Gonzalez and his probe of George H.W. Bush's secret aid to Iraq); a journalist (as with New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner, who wrote about Central American death squads in the early 1980s); or a private citizen (like Wilson was when he questioned Bush's use of the yellowcake allegations).

In 1991-92, for instance, Walsh - a lifelong Republican - closed in on the obstruction of justice that had surrounded the Iran-Contra scandal for five years. Walsh's investigation broke through the White House cover-up when his staff discovered hidden notes belonging to former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.

The notes made clear that there was widespread knowledge of the 1985 illegal arms shipments to Iran and that George Bush Sr. had been lying when he claimed that he was "not in the loop" on the covert Iranian shipments.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

(Continued)

Walsh Bashing

The belated discovery led to indictments against senior CIA officials and Weinberger. In retaliation, the conservative Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal's editorial page fired near-daily barrages at Walsh often over trivial matters, such as his first-class air fare or room-service meals.

Congressional Republicans also denounced Walsh and called for an end to his investigation. Key mainstream columnists and editorial writers for the Washington Post and the New York Times - along with many TV pundits - joined in the Walsh bashings. Walsh was mocked as a modern-day Captain Ahab, the character from Moby Dick.

In his memoir, Firewall, Walsh compared his trying experience to another maritime classic, Ernest Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. In that story, an aging fisherman hooks a giant marlin and, after a long battle, secures the fish to side of his boat. On the way back to port, the marlin is attacked by sharks that devour its flesh and deny the fisherman his prize.

"As the independent counsel, I sometimes felt like the old man," Walsh wrote, "more often, I felt like the marlin."

The congressional and media attacks limited Walsh's ability to pursue other false statements by senior Reagan-Bush officials. Those perjury inquiries could have unraveled a variety of national-security mysteries of the 1980s and helped correct the history of the era. But Walsh could not overcome the pack-like hostility of official Washington.

Rep. Gonzalez, D-Texas, encountered similar ridicule in 1991-92 when he revealed that George H.W. Bush and other senior Republicans had followed an ill-fated covert policy of coddling Saddam Hussein in the 1980s.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

(Continued)


Nazi Investments

The Bush family's success in brushing aside scandals dates back even further to when Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's grandfather, escaped disgrace despite his role in helping to finance the Nazi war machine in the years before World War II.

By the mid-1930s, Prescott Bush was a managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman, which handled a variety of sensitive investments in Germany. When Germany and Japan went to war against the United States in 1941, these holdings became political liabilities.

The U.S. government seized the property of the Hamburg-Amerika line under the Trading with the Enemy Act in August 1942. The government also moved against affiliates of the Union Banking Corporation where Nazi financial backer Fritz Thyssen had placed money. UBC was run by Brown Brothers Harriman, and Prescott Bush was a UBC director.

For many public figures, allegations of trading with the enemy would have been a political kiss of death, but the disclosures barely left a lipstick smudge on Prescott Bush, Averell Harriman and others implicated in the Nazi business dealings.

"Politically, the significance of these dealings - the great surprise - is that none of it seemed to matter much over the next decade or so," wrote Kevin Phillips in American Dynasty. "A few questions would be raised, but Democrat Averell Harriman would not be stopped from becoming federal mutual security administrator in 1951 or winning election as governor of New York in 1954. ...

"Nor would Republican Prescott Bush (who was elected senator from Connecticut in 1952) and his presidential descendants be hurt in any of their future elections. It is almost as if these various German embroilments, despite their potential for scandal, were regarded as unfortunate but in essence business as usual."

But the quick dissipation of the Nazi financial scandal was only a portent of the Bush family's future. Unlike politicians of lower classes, the Bushes seemed to operate in a bubble impervious to accusations of impropriety. [For details, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.]

That protective bubble has grown thicker over the decades with the emergence of a strong conservative news media that can be counted on to defend George W. Bush's interests regardless of the merits of his position.

[W*GS]

Yeah, yeah, LABF.

I really don't think anyone here is unaware of your views on the evil history of the "BFEE". Repeating stuff endlessly is your specialty, true, but it does get tiresome.

Why don't you tell us more about the Soros/Carlyle connection, or how the Saudis "donated" millions to the Clinton library. You've got a talent (of sorts) for digging up rumors and innuendo; why not show some objectivity and dig up some dirt on someone besides Bush? We've seen all your material before - try something new.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

"When people have come up with information that can cause the neocons trouble, the neocons have applied an approach called "controversializing" the accuser."

- Robert Parry, who, presumably, has never even met W*GS

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

"When people have come up with information that can cause the neocons trouble, the neocons have applied an approach called "controversializing" the accuser."

- Robert Parry, who, presumably, has never even met W*GS

The irony is rich.

Every time anyone disputes you, LABF, you immediately launch into personal attacks. Like the above.

So stuff it.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

If Rove were a Democrat, he'd be shot

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion...evoy_0716.html

I'm certainly happy that George W. Bush and Karl Rove are not Democrats. If they were, just imagine the mess this country would be in right now, even worse than the mess it is in.

First, there would be cries of "treason" directed at Mr. Rove from the Republican ranks. Some of the more overheated members of Congress would demand that he be taken immediately out back of the Capitol and shot by a firing squad.

After all, he revealed the identity of a covert CIA agent, did he not?

As for his alibi that he never mentioned the name of agent Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak, the Republicans would laugh out loud. What he did tell Mr. Novak was that "the wife" of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson worked for the secret agency. Mr. Wilson had been openly critical of some of President Bush's falsehoods that led us into war in Iraq, and this was the White House's way of getting even.

Names never are mentioned at police lineups, either. The witnesses just point a finger or say the number a certain suspect is holding.

Can you envision the reaction to Mr. Rove's cop-out if he, Mr. Bush and even Mr. Novak happened to be Democrats?

[Rigs11]

Ah the 'liberal" media. So let me get this straight, Dubya stated that he learned about the abuse at Abu Graib from the media. And now they are claiming that Rove learned that Wilsons wife was a CIA operative from the media as well. So this admin gets its info from the media? I mean really this is just silly.


Reporter Says Cheney Aide Was a Source
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The vice president's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, was a source along with the president's chief political adviser for a Time story that identified a CIA officer, the magazine reporter said Sunday, further countering White House claims that neither aide was involved in the leak.

In an effort to quell a chorus of calls to fire deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, Republicans said that Rove originally learned about Valerie Plame's identity from the news media. That exonerates Rove, the Republican Party chairman said, and Democrats should apologize.

But it is not clear that it was a journalist who first revealed the information to Rove.

http://www.comcast.net/news/index.js...17/180677.html

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Rigs11

And now they are claiming that Rove learned that Wilsons wife was a CIA operative from the media as well.

Now these thugs are really digging themselves deeper into a hole, because Novakula told Newsday that he got Plame's name from his sources - not vice versa.

This is on the record.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

A week after Novak wrote this column, he told Newsday that his sources came to him with the information: "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it." Was Novak lying when said that? And before the infamous Matt Cooper email was revealed by Newsweek days ago, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, told Newsweek that Rove "did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." Now, the official pro-Rove line is that he confirmed for Novak that Valerie Wilson worked for the CIA. Was Rove's lawyer lying when he said that?

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capit...bid=3&pid=6799