Nov 27 2005
Fitzgerald’s Wild Ride
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is running amok, wasting time and money. Apparently, since there was no crime by the WH is the Wilson/Plame debacle (though there were plenty of leaks of classified intelligence by Wilson – something that has escaped the blind prosecutor) he has now decided to investigate totally irrelevant discussion between a client’s attorney and the press two years after the focus of his investigation.
Viveca Novak, a reporter in Time’s Washington bureau, is cooperating with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity in 2003, the magazine reported in its Dec. 5 issue.
Novak specifically has been asked to testify under oath about conversations she had with Rove attorney Robert Luskin starting in May 2004, the magazine reported.
Novak, part of a team tracking the CIA case for Time, has written or contributed to articles in which Luskin characterized the nature of what was said between Rove and Matthew Cooper, the first Time reporter who testified in the case.
This is way outside his mandate and smacks of prosecutorial malpractice. The bumbling prosecutor seems to be hoping a desperate liberal press will save his tarnished reputation. It is time the judges in this case reign this loser in.
What is interesting is Viveca Novak has partnered on articles with Mathew Cooper’s co-writer on his infamous Time article that sent Cooper to the grand jury. That would be reporter John Dickerson, who with Novak seemed to have lots of details on the supposedly secret grand jury hearings.
Sources with knowledge of the case tell TIME that behind closed doors at the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse, nearby the Capitol, a grand jury began hearing testimony Wednesday in the investigation of who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak and other journalists.
Prosecutors are believed to be starting with third-party witnesses, people who were not directly involved in the leak of Plame’s identity. Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, claims that the leak was an act of retaliation against him for undercutting Bush’s weapons-of-mass-destruction rationale for going to war in Iraq. Soon enough, witnesses with more direct knowledge will be called to testify, and a decision to subpoena journalists for their testimony will also be made. In December, the FBI asked some administration staffers to sign a waiver releasing reporters from confidentiality agreements in connection with any conversations they had about the Wilson affair.
So much for being secret. Did Fitzgerald leak to Novak?
I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this article, but did not know where else to put it. Maybe everything in this article is the usual regarding real estate in the Washington DC area, but the names and their ties are worth looking into.
Moroccan Ambassador Moves to Bethesda Washingtonian March, 1997
Washington Magazine, Inc.
Washingtonian
March, 1997
SECTION: LUXURY HOMES; Pg. 150
LENGTH: 461 words
HEADLINE: Moroccan Ambassador Moves to Bethesda
BYLINE: JAYNE O’DONNELL AND KATE GUYTON; Some sales information provided by real-estate broker David Gilbert of the District.
BODY:
IN THE DISTRICT: Ayman El-Mohandes, a George Washington University Hospital neonatologist, bought David Gries’s home on Dexter Street in Berkeley for $ 880,000. Gries is a former Central Intelligence Agency historian and past director of its Center for the Study of Intelligence. The home was once owned by Tony Lake, President Clinton’s nominee to head the CIA. Benjamin Tessler of W.C. & A.N. Miller listed it for $ 920,000.
Edwin and Eve Hoffman sold their Colonial home on Georgetown’s 31st Street for $ 900,000 to Michael and Connie Broomfield, who moved from London for Michael’s new job as a director at Giant Food. Edwin Hoffman is a former chair of the late Woodward & Lothrop department-store chain. The home, which has an elevator and gardens, was listed by Pardoe Real Estate’s Carol Harris for $ 995,000.
IN MARYLAND: Steven Jones and Sandra Swain bought a contemporary home on Eagle Ridge Drive in Bethesda’s Avenel area from David Loring and his wife for $ 1 million. Until recently, Swain was with the Comprehensive Breast Center at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Cancer Center. The one-year-old custom-built home listed for $ 1,150,000.
Mohammad and Shiva Ghafoorian bought on Woodland Drive in Massachusetts Avenue Heights from the Republic of Senegal for $ 850,000. Ghafoorian is an architect. The home, previously used as an embassy, listed for $ 998,000.
Michael and Sue Nash sold their home on Clewerwall Drive in Bethesda for $ 1,975,000 to anonymous buyers calling themselves the Clewerwall Corporation. Listed for $ 2.5 million, the property sits on nearly four acres and has a separate two-bedroom staff apartment. The new buyers have rented it to the Moroccan government to be the residence of its ambassador, Mohamed Benaissa, and his wife, Laila. Selling agents were Pardoe Real Estate’s Allison LaLand and Hugh Oates.
Joseph and Ann Guiffre sold their 196-year-old Colonial house in Old Town Alexandria to Richard and Mary Simmons for $ 1,450,000. Guiffre owns Guiffre Distributors and the Alexandria Trade Center; the couple moved into another of their Old Town residences. Richard Simmons has been president of Dun & Bradstreet, chief operating officer of the Washington Post Company, and president of the International Herald Tribune. The home, which has seven fireplaces and a pool, was listed by McEnearney Associates’ Susan Hebbel for $ 1,595,000.
IN VIRGINIA: Richard Ziegler, a suburban shopping-center developer, sold his nearly nine-acre estate on Patowmack Drive in Great Falls for $ 2,250,000 to buyers using the name Rock Creek Corporation. The property — which has three pools and a lavish doghouse with its own pool — first listed for $ 2,790,000.
(PLEASE REFER TO ORIGINAL SOURCE FOR CHART)
LOAD-DATE: March 07, 1997
SBD
[…] What did Viveca tell Rove? Did she spill the beans on her fellow journalists? As I noted here, there is a connection between Novak and Mathew Cooper: John Dickerson. Dickerson co-wrote the infamous Time article that got Cooper in the prosecutor’s cross hairs. Want to bet Dickerson talked to Novak when they teamed up on their later articles? Want to bet that discussion supports Rove’s version of events? […]