Mar 12 2007

Obstructing Justice

Published by at 7:28 am under All General Discussions,Plame Game

Libby vs. Berger as outlined by Michael Barone. If America wants any better indication that our vaulted legal system is NOT about protecting Americans and is now all about making money and political power I can’t think of one. If Sandy Berger can remove documents pertinent to understanding how 3,000 people died on our soil at the hands of al Qaeda and still be walking around free, and Scooter Libby is jailed for NOT leaking about Valerie Plame to reporters, but for not being accurate in his recollections of learning about Plame’s role in the Wilson lies (and let’s be clear here – it was not against the law for Libby to know about her role), then we have a serious, serious problem here. Bill Clinton lied to a judge under oath, and got a slap on the wrist. And he WAS the alleged perpetrator of the acts he was being questioned about. We all know Libby was NOT the man who leaked Plame’s name to the media. I got a hint for centrist dems who want the vote of middle America – make sure Libby is treated like Clinton and Berger. Stand up, be counted and call for and end to the abuse of our legal system by out of control Prosecutors. And call for Fitzgerald’s removal from ‘public’ service.

3 responses so far

3 Responses to “Obstructing Justice”

  1. ivehadit says:
    March 12, 2007 at 8:51 am

    Here, here AJ! Excellent post.

  2. Soothsayer says:
    March 13, 2007 at 11:27 am

    If America wants any better indication that our vaulted legal system is NOT about protecting Americans

    By putting Libby behind bars – where he belongs – and using his imprisonment as leverage to open up the foul den of thieves that is the OVP – it may be possible to make Americans even safer – by removing Bush and Cheney and sending them home for early retirement before they can do any further damage to the Republic.

  3. Soothsayer says:
    March 13, 2007 at 12:56 pm

    Strataspheristas maintain that CIA analyst Valerie Plame was named in order to discredit a column by her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, published on July 6, 2003. But unrefuted testimony and documents at the trial of I. Lewis Libby reveal that administration discussion of Mrs. Wilson, her CIA status and Wilson’s trip began several weeks before Wilson’s column appeared.

    If Wilson’s New York Times op-ed column, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” had set off the chain of events that resulted in exposing Plame, those events would have begun on July 6 of that year.

    Instead the perjury and obstruction trial demonstrated that conspiratorial plans about Mrs. Wilson took place in the administration substantially before Wilson’s column came out:

    * May 29, 2003 – Libby calls then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, according to Grossman’s testimony, asking how and why Joe Wilson was sent on a trip to Niger about uranium.

    * “late May and early June, 2003” — Grossman gives oral interim reports to Libby that Wilson was the ambassador who went to Niger (mentioned but not named in a May 6 New York Times piece by Nicholas Kristof, “Missing in Action: Truth”).

    * June 9, 2003 — Grossman has a conversation with Wilson, who is “upset” that Condoleezza Rice had claimed on “Meet the Press” that the White House was unaware of doubts about the Niger uranium story. (In his book, Wilson says this conversation “elicited the suggestion that I might have to write the story myself”; he got in touch with the New York Times the same day. p.332.)

    * June 9, 2003 – classified documents from CIA are faxed to the Office of the Vice President to Libby and colleague John Hannah, mentioning the Wilson trip but not naming Wilson.

    * June 10, 2003 – a classified State Department memo written by State’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR) gives Grossman the background on Wilson’s Niger trip, names Valerie Wilson as Wilson’s wife and as “a CIA WMD manager.” The memo, like previous memos, also debunks the Niger uranium story.

    * June 11, 2003 – Robert L. Grenier, longtime CIA official and “Iraq mission manager” and “point person for Iraq” in 2002 and 2003, receives a phone call from Libby, then Libby summons him from a meeting with the CIA Director to follow up about Wilson; Grenier tells Libby that Wilson’s wife is in CIA. (Grenier now works for Kroll Associates.)

    * June 11/12, 2003 – Marc Grossman has a “30-second discussion” about Mrs. Wilson with Libby, according to Grossman’s testimony.

    * June 12, 2003 – Libby is informed by Cheney in a phone call that Wilson’s wife is in CIA (handwritten note: “CP: his wife works in that div”). Walter Pincus’ Washington Post article that day mentions the trip but not Wilson by name.

    * June 12, 2003 – David Addington, Cheney’s government lawyer, receives the same notes from Libby’s office mentioning that Wilson’s wife worked in the Counter-Proliferation Division (typed copy).

    * June 13, 2003 – Richard L. Armitage, then Deputy Secretary of State and formerly a PNAC signatory boosting war with Iraq, tells Bob Woodward in a taped interview, with expletives, that Mrs. Wilson works for CIA. Bogus macho-man duet suggests that Mrs. Wilson sent Wilson on the Niger trip.

    * June 14, 2003 – CIA daily briefer Craig Schmall briefs Libby at Libby’s home; notes question about Wilson (“ex-amb”) and the Niger trip; notes Wilson and Valerie Wilson by name.

    * June 23, 2003 – Libby has a discussion with Judith Miller, mentions Wilson’s wife at CIA. (Miller had returned to the U.S. from Iraq on June 8.)

    • July 6, 2003 – Joseph Wilson’s op-ed criticizing the Niger story appears in the New York Times.

    Somebody’s still got some ‘splaining to do!