Oct 24 2005
Miller Again Implicates Someone Else
The open fighting go on in the journalism world between those freaky fanatics who are anti-war, anti-Bush and Judith Miller is starting to provide some more details. For example, Editor & Publisher (a true liberal rag) has this round of exchanges and an insightful Miller email:
[Miller] You chose to believe Jill Abramson when she asserted that I had never asked her to pursue the tip I had gotten about Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger and his wife’s employment at the C.I.A. Now I ask you: Why would I – the supposedly pushiest, most competitive reporter on the planet — not have pushed to pursue a tantalizing tip like this? Soon after my breakfast meeting with Libby in July, I did so. I remember asking the editor to let me explore whether what my source had said was true, or whether it was a potential smear of a whistleblower. I don’t recall naming the source of the tip. But I specifically remember saying that because Joe Wilson’s op-ed column had appeared in our paper, we had a particular obligation to pursue this. I never identified the editor to the grand jury or publicly, since it involved internal New York Times decision-making. But since you did, yes, the editor was Jill Abramson.
Big stuff here. Jill Abramson is now in the open as someone who has not been to the grand jury and who has key information. In this post I concluded that Miller had implicated Kristof as one source for the Valerie Wilson background, and now we have Abramson brought into the ring of deceit as well.
But what is also telling in this passage is the clear indication that Miller’s source is not Libby, and that she knew about Valerie when she had the interview and came out concluding Libby was trying to ‘smear’ the Wilsons – without naming names. This is crystal clear in her email ‘Soon after my breakfast meeting with Libby in July, I did so.’ and ‘I don’t recall naming the source of the tip’. But she has said it was not Libby.
It is important to remember that Wilson was thought to be a whistle bloower by the gullible press because he had determined the Niger documents were forgeries! That is exactly how he sold it to the press. So in those first three months the press thought they had in Joe Wilson a whistleblower – who turned out to be a liar.
Now if you think the press is going to continue to back Wilson after he duped them, I would argue there are only a few who are that obsessed about Bush to keep up the facade (Corn for one). I have my doubts. I can see Miller has not intentions of her career crashing for Slow Joe.
Miller confirms another one of my assumptions: The NY Times knew, and knows, who the sources for the Kristof article were. The process is the same and here is Judy’s statement on how stories are vetted:
From the start, the legal team that the Times provided me knew who my source was and had access to my notes.
And they also knew Kristof’ by extension. The truth is, we do not need to violate the attorney-client privilege to understand that Kristof had to had the Wilsons as his source, and therefore the source of Valerie’s CIA employment could be outside Libby and Rove and in the press. Which means indictments without clear evidence the leaks could only be from Rove or Libby would be idiotic.
Hat Tip: Drudge
UPDATE:
Check out Tom Maguire’s latest here on the ‘waiting game’ (my words).
Aj
I took this a little bit different (or maybe not, just not well thought out as you)…But I sensed that Miller indicated she got a “tip” after her meeting with Libby (her source) and the ‘tip’ ultimately in this became a source too.
Miller meets with Libby in late June…the subject of Niger is discussed by as a defense of the Vice Pres. He is explaining the VP had no involvement in the trip, the CIA independently conducted this trip, apparently with a “clandestine guy”, and subsequently there was no report,no briefing, no sirens …(turns out there didn’t even need to be any sirens because the report does not support the envoy)…
then Judy receives a ‘tip’ (outside WH source) of a attack campaign on Wilson. Millers angle, her story-line she wants to explore…based on what Libby has already said…is to look into the veracity this…is her source lying.
At this point, Millers idea of the attack campaign has nothing to do with identity of Wilson’s wife, but rather the narrative…did CIA (via “a” wife) send an envoy independently? or is the VP COS lying to cover VP’s butt?
At that point (which I think you stated) the press was a giddy with the idea VP requested a CIA operation and then subsequently didn’t like the results (so ignored them)…
Not as eloquent as you…tell me if I have something off
one of the reasons I think this AJ is….
Responding to Keller’s criticism, Miller told the newspaper,“I was unaware that there was a deliberate, concerted disinformation campaign to discredit Wilson and that if there had been, I did not think I was a target of it.”
“As for your reference to my ‘entanglement’ with Mr. Libby, I had no personal, social or other relationship with him except as a source,” Miller said.
See I don’t think Miller came away from her initial Libby meeting with any sense of an attack campaign against Wilson…she came away with information she was going to verify (she trusted her source) as a story. Like Paul Harvey, Miller was going to get to the rest of the story.
She is crafty today to use the word “tip”… aka source, but it isn’t until she receives a ‘tip” (of a war out on Wilson) that she becomes interested in squaring the too. Was Libby telling me falsehoods to discredit Wilson, and protect VP from a mistake?
Mary Mapes,
The problem is Miller’s notes of the Libby meeting include references to Wilson (and I believe WINPAC). I may be wrong here, I read her words in her NYTimes piece to show she had written Wilson’s name in her notes at this meeting in June. So she knew ahead of time.
Oh no, you are right. I fully agree that she knew he was ahead of time. I just do not think that she felt it was a “disinformation” campaign that Libby was initiating…
this to me is why the NY-Times is so pissed. The only reason they went so far with Miller is that she protected Kristof. They of course knew Miller met with Libby. I just don’t think the Times knew that Miller had such in-depth discussions with Libby, discussions that would ultimately prove Libby far less liable than Kristof.
Does that make sense?
in otherwords, in hind-sight I bet the Times wishes she would have just stayed in jail