May 06 2006
Wilson’s Folly, Grossman Unmasked
I have had my respect for Libby case Judge Walton begin to rise a lot reading through transcripts. So I am dubious about the reporting from the tunnel-visioned, biased media on the case. The exaggerated reporting for the day is the Judge’s refusal to dig up government documents about Wilson’s lies:
A federal judge dealt a setback to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s defense in the CIA leak case yesterday, telling the former vice presidential aide’s attorneys that he is likely to deny their request for a vast trove of government documents.
At a hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton did not formally deny Libby’s request for all records related to a 2002 trip by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger. But he said the material is not directly relevant to the case and could only distract the jury.
“I’m just not going to let this case turn into a judicial resolution of the legitimacy of the war or the accuracy of the president’s State of the Union address,” Walton said.
Walton has said this many times to both sides, and both sides have concurred. My guess is this cherry-picked comment was not directed at Team Libby. What Team Libby needs to do is demonstrate Joe Wilson has no credibility (or in his case, any basic ability) in telling the truth. When Wilson testifies Team Libby is going to destroy him as a witness. Fitzgerald knows this.
The truth is there is plenty of Wilson’s own words out the to hoist him on his on pitard. Not to mention the Senate Iraq Report.
What is interesting is the mention of Grossman:
Wells also took aim at Marc Grossman, a former undersecretary of state who, according to the indictment against Libby, recalled discussing Plame’s CIA job with Libby in June 2003.
Wells said that he needed documents to cast doubt on the accuracy of any testimony by Grossman, whom he identified as a longtime friend and traveling partner of Wilson’s.
As folks will recall I had posted on all the connections between Wilson and Grossman a while back. Seems Grossman is one of the Wilson’s people on the inside! This should make for some truly interesting revelations. Wonder if Grossman ever ONCE talked to a reporter during this key period and Fiztgerald was unaware (as he was with Bob Woodward).
If anyone gets wind of a transcript going up somewhere please let me know! The idea Grossman and Wilson travelled together is too rich. Did they ever go to Niger together?
So I am dubious about the reporting from the tunnel-visioned, biased media on the case.
Yes, I think this fair, considering as you point out their collective horrid reporting on the Feb. 24 transcript AND, and a big huge AND the very deceptive reporting for years now on the ’03 INR report…the one that contained no Plame or “secret” markings.
I have been going around the net today and came up with some interesting info. We know already Joe Wilson and Marc Grossman were classmates….but another figure came up in my search . She graduated 2 years prior so may have had contact. It is Barbara Bodine Deputy Chief of Mission in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion and occupation in 1990.
After that she was Ambassador to Yemen during the Cole bombing. Glad she left the government after that. What a jinx and what are the odds?
Also Siebel Edwards the FBI whistleblower was doing translation work about the American Turkish Council that Grossman working at The Coen Group along with their lobby partner The Livingston Group. This is supposedly the same American Turkish Council that had a meeting where Joe Wilson met for the first time Valarie….
Update on Barbara Bodine..current position in government
she was appointed coordinator for central Iraq in charge of Baghdad.
Another classmate of this bunch is Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon who sits on the Intelligence Committee that deposed Wilson after the Niger trip.
Snooped around a bit at the website for the American-Turkish Council
http://www.the-atc.org/
Their membership reads like a whose who out of the fortune 500 and known power brokers of global extent, check out the about us and members section.
Also directly related look at
U.S. Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce
http://www.usacc.org/contents.php?cid=97
If your local chamber of commerce could attract such heavyweights it would be amazing. Even noticed that due to his Halliburton past a board member was our current vp.
—Another classmate of this bunch is Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon who sits on the Intelligence Committee that deposed Wilson after the Niger trip.—
Good catch Merlin…hmmm, forgot about Wyden…
Plame’s Identity Marked As Secret
Memo Central to Probe Of Leak Was Written By State Dept. Analyst
By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 21, 2005; Page A01
On July 6, 2003, shortly after Wilson went public on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and in The Post and the New York Times discussing his trip to Niger, the INR director at the time, Carl W. Ford Jr., was asked to explain Wilson’s statements for Powell, according to sources familiar with the events. He went back and reprinted the June 10 memo but changed the addressee from Grossman to Powell.
SBD
Golly Gee…topsecret9 ya are a gonna make me blush…
But thanks btw…ain’t search engines a necessary part of link and learn
General gristmill summary I came away with from all the search and explore I did today is that it seems the Turkish connection is a hub to branch out from to encourage a lot of the buffer states of the soviet union to get a little up in the face of the reinvigorate Putin retro movement which Cheney just commented on. After all we see all the usual moves in South America that look like reruns of 20 to 30 years ago..and the gamesmanship of the Iran sanction condundrum. But gee when even India, who has been buying ballistic subs from Russia is horning in on some of the watchamacallitstans places Putin has to be wondering if he is losing his grip and gravitas (deliberate MSM media slam). You will have to excuse me , but I am well old enough to remember the cold war and the pimples dejuor are striking a basically familiar pattern. After all I’m not really all that old, but I took God’s grandmother to my senior prom.
I have to conclude that all this striving over all the whateveritis stan momentum via the turkish first placement has to do with a strong positioning by the Bush administration that is totally going under the radar of the MSM. Georgie boy mau be catching flack from the MSM and the left but he is outflanking them on the important points. Amazing how ya can bluff yer way thru a hand of Texas Holdum…
Well while Ted (swimmer) kennedy has to be tending to the flock, now would be a good time to slam something thru that he would have heartache with…. interesting times we live in
Very interesting connections.
There are a number of problems with the article that SBD linked, “Plame’s Identity Marked As Secret.” One problem is this:
If Plame had been covert, she would almost certainly have been covert under an identity other than her own, i.e., she would have had a covert identity that was neither Valerie Plame nor Valerie Wilson. Given that fact, it’s hard to argue that the presence of her name in a paragraph preceded by an “(S)” constitutes proof or even evidence that the CIA considered her to be covert and was trying to protect her identity. As others have pointed out, if she had been covert she would not have been commuting to Langley under any name. Moreover, the classification almost certainly referred to the substance of the paragraph, not the name of the CIA WMD analyst that was included, since Plame/Wilson’s identity was not the matter under discussion in that memo. Classification is done by paragraph, not word by word. That’s why, when docs are released under FOIA, individual words or phrases are blacked out within a classified paragraph.
The memo that was released was the one written to Powell, but the original memo was written to Grossman a month earlier.
SBD