Recently in Plamegate Category

"'I have a really, really insane take on how to tell it. It's so outrageous,' Liman said. 'Ultimately, I'd be doing something no one has ever done before. Therefore it's automatically appealing to me. I'm just starting to explore whether [what I have in mind] is even possible to do.'" Doug Liman, director of The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and the upcoming Jumper, promotes his next project, a Valerie Plame biopic starring Nicole Kidman. Maybe he can get Josh Brolin to pull double duty as Dubya.

"Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' to use the constitutional standard." Not to be lost in the New Hampshire shuffle: Former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern makes the case anew for Dubya's impeachment.

"The process 'would last even beyond the two years of supervised release, cost millions of dollars more than the fine he has already paid, and entail many more hundreds of hours preparing for an all-consuming appeal and retrial,' Wells said." Cheney consigliere and convicted felon Scooter Libby files a motion to dismiss his appeal of the Plamegate verdict. Said Libby's lawyer, Theodore Wells: "[T]he burden on Mr. Libby and his young family of continuing to pursue his complete vindication are too great to ask them to bear." (Let's remember: According to Dubya last July, the burden of jail time for perjury was apparently too much to bear as well.)

"With respect to the U.S. Attorneys, there has been, I think, a bit of a witch hunt on Capitol Hill as they keep rolling over rocks hoping they can find something," In an interview with Larry King, Cheney calls the persecuted prosecutor probe a "witch hunt," and defends loyal capo Alberto Gonzales as "a good man, a good friend, on a difficult assignment." (In another interview yesterday, he also claimed the Libby jury was wrong.) I doubt anyone really needs a credibility check at this point, but just in case: Cheney is also the guy who told us "we'd be greeted as liberators," the Iraq insurgency "is in the last throes," that "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction" and is amassing them to use against" us, that the administration is learning "more and more" about pre-9/11 connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that the evidence of said connections is "overwhelming." Simply put, Dick Cheney is an inveterate teller of untruths, and I wouldn't trust him to walk Berkeley at this point, much less run the country. Impeach him already. (Cheney pic via this post.)

"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive...The Constitution gives the president the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power.." So, once again, we see what "restoring honor and dignity to the White House" means to these jokers. As y'all know, the main bit of news this past week, the 231st anniversary of our independence from the perversity of monarchical prerogatives, was that Dubya the decider chose to commute White House consigliere Scooter Libby's sentence of 30 months in prison for lying to the American people. (Said prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald of the decision: "It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals." For their part, the GOP are crying Marc Rich.) To be honest, I'm not sure what's worse: the fact that, in flagrant defiance of both our judicial process and the public's very real ethical concerns about this administration, Dubya actually let his guy off the hook...or that, given all we've seen from this gang over the past seven years, his shameless decision ultimately wasn't all that surprising.

It's not just Karl. Newly released information finds that as many as 88 officials in the Dubya White House have been (illegally) using RNC e-mail addresses as a back-door way to discuss official business off the record. "'As a result of these policies, potentially hundreds of thousands of White House e-mails have been destroyed, many of which may be presidential records,' the report said."

"I think public officials need to know if they are going to step over the line, there are going to be consequences...[What Libby did] causes people to think our government does not work for them." A sadly necessary Capitol corruption update: As you no doubt heard, earlier in the week Scooter Libby was sentenced to thirty months in jail for his lies and evasions in the Valerie Plame case. (Libby has asked for a delay of the sentence, which probably won't happen. And E.J. Dionne evaluates GOP sentiment for a pardon here -- for now, the White House remains mum on the subject.) Meanwhile, on our side of the aisle, pretty obviously corrupt Democratic rep William Jefferson, he with the thousands of dollars stashed in the freezer, is indicted on 16 counts of racketeering, money laundering, and obstruction of justice, mostly involving bribes offered and taken from West African business and political officials. Jefferson is fighting the charges, but the House -- wisely -- has already moved against him, opening an ethics inquiry into him and setting the stage for his expulsion.

"Renzi -- now, was that the guy with the skeezy land deal? Or the woman Paul Wolfowitz promoted?" To help keep track of them all, Slate offers a handy illustrated guide to GOP scandals.

"All administrations produce unhappy people in the second term...What has changed at this point, though, 'is that it feels like it's every man for himself,' says one former senior administration official." Slate's John Dickerson takes a gander at the sinking ship mentality currently pervading the Dubya White House.

"Novak may choose to regret or not regret that he blew the cover of an undercover CIA employee; he would hardly be the first journalist to do so. But for Novak to continue pretending he did no such thing is just weird." Slate's Tim Noah explains why Bob Novak is guilty of outing Valerie Plame, even if the DoL tends to suggest otherwise.

How you like them aspens? Scooter Libby is found guilty on 4 of 5 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame case. Sentencing is currently set for June 5th, with a max (although unlikely) penalty of roughly 25 years. Update: "'We're not saying that we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of,' said the juror, Denis Collins. 'But it seemed like he was . . . the fall guy." One of the jurors argues that Libby seemed like a patsy for higher-ups in the Dubya administration. and prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald seems to agree...is it time for another "accountability moment"?

Grounds for a mistrial? Let's hope not. One of the jurors in the Scooter Libby case gets kicked off the jury. "U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the juror removed, saying 'what she had exposure to obviously disqualifies her.' The judge declined to say what information the juror had seen. Walton said the remaining jurors had not been tainted. He said he would allow deliberations to continue with 11 jurors rather than calling on one of two alternate jurors."

"'This is something important, something he was focused on, something he was angry about,' Fitzgerald said. 'He had a motive to lie, and...he stole the truth from the justice system.'" The Scooter Libby case goes to the jury, and his flailing defense team doesn't sound too confident: "'If you're not sure, that's not guilty,' said attorney Theodore Wells Jr. 'It's impossible to say with any degree of certainty that Mr. Libby is engaged in intentional lying.'"

As Scooter Libby's defense begins in Washington, a slew of reporters -- including Bob Woodward, Bob Novak, and Evan Thomas -- testify that Libby was not their source in the Plamegate fiasco, with Novak pinning the onus on Karl Rove (and the previously-outed Richard Armitage.) Hmm. Good to know, but whether Libby was the only White House official throwing around Wilson's name or merely one of a team of Dubya flaks doing the same seems incidental to the question of whether he perjured himself.

"The defense has two ways to negate Russert's powerful testimony: 1) They can say his memory's bad. They've tried, with mixed results. 2) They can say he's lying. But then they need to show a motive to lie. If fear of embarrassment is the best they've come up with, I think they're in trouble." The prosecution rests in the Scooter Libby trial, after a two-day appearance by -- and defense grilling of -- NBC's Tim Russert.

"Who is this tiny, tiny fellow? Not more than 5-foot-7, to my eye. Sleek and slight like a kitten. Wears a digital watch with a Velcro band. Also wears a little beaded bracelet around his wrist. And writes semiperverted novels set in 1903 Japan. I admit it: You fascinate me, sir." While GitM has been on hiatus this week, the aspens have been turning in Washington over at the Scooter Libby trial, and old friend Seth Stevenson, among others, has a ringside seat for Slate.

"'It's a very candid assessment,' one intelligence official said yesterday of the estimate, the first formal examination of global terrorist trends written by the National Intelligence Council since the March 2003 invasion. 'It's stating the obvious.'" A new classified report written by US intelligence agencies and unearthed by the NYT declares that Dubya's Iraq sideshow has made us weaker in the War on Terror. Gee, you think?

"First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he 'thought' might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson." In his column this week, DoL Robert Novak finally comes clean about the Plamegate leak, and his version suggests leaker Richard Armitage knew exactly what he was doing when he told Novak about Valerie Plame.

"'I feel terrible,' Armitage said. 'Every day, I think, I let down the president. I let down the secretary of state. I let down my department, my family, and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.'" Speaking of coming clean, Dick Armitage admits he was the Plame leaker (after having been outed by Mike Isikoff and David Corn last week.)

"He was basically beside himself that he was the guy that f---ed up. My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat." A new book by Newsweek's Mike Isikoff and The Nation's David Corn outs former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a moderate by Dubya administration standards, as the man who leaked Valerie Plame's name to Bobs Novak and Woodward. (Woodward's former boss, Ben Bradlee, telegraphed as much in March.) "Armitage, a well-known gossip who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters, apparently hadn't thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame's identity. 'I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused this whole thing,' he later told Carl Ford Jr., State's intelligence chief."

"I and my former colleagues trusted the government to protect us in our jobs." Plamegate enters a new phase as Valerie Plame files a lawsuit against Cheney, Rove, and Libby for "leaking Plame's identity to 'discredit, punish and seek revenge against the plaintiffs.'" And for all the rabid right-wingers out there cheering on Paula Jones back in the day, it looks like the chickens have come home to roost: "Cheney and others might be compelled to turn over documents to the Wilsons, as well as give sworn depositions, as President Bill Clinton eventually had to do when Paula Jones sued him for sexual harrassment."

"For nearly the entire time of his investigation, Fitzgerald knew -- independent of me -- the identity of the sources I used in my column of July 14, 2003...I have promised to discuss my role in the investigation when permitted by the prosecution, and I do so now." In a column published today, DoL Robert Novak finally comes clean -- sort of -- about his sources in Plamegate. In the piece, Novak names Karl Rove (big surprise) and CIA spokesman Bill Harlow as his two confirmers of Plame's identity, but still refuses to out the "senior Bush administration official" who served as his initial source (although he does say that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald is well aware of that person's identity.)

Fitzmas is cancelled? Lawyer Robert Luskin announces that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has told him he "does not anticipate seeking charges" against Karl Rove for his alleged role in Plamegate, partly because Rove apparently told the truth about his involvement to the FBI: "It's now known that Rove had discussed Plame's CIA employment with conservative columnist Robert Novak, who exposed her identity less than a week later...Rove's truth-telling to the FBI saved him from indictment."

For their part, Karl and the GOP are now strutting about in vindication mode and the Dubya White House is breathing a sigh of relief, but Salon's Walter Shapiro says don't fret, Dems: "Rove was not exactly doing hard time on a federal rock pile when Bush's popularity plunged to around 35 percent. It was Rove's handiwork to make Social Security privatization the signature issue of Bush's second term. The disastrous fate of that political gambit, combined with the Iraq war, turned Bush into a lame-duck president before his time. As a political strategist, Rove runs the gamut of issues from A (national security) to B (tax cuts). Six years into his tenure in the White House, Rove may be running on empty, just like the president whom he serves."

"Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an amb to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?" A new court filing by Patrick Fitzgerald finds Dick Cheney fretting over Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame in his handwritten notes on Wilson's article, further substantiating that the felonious leak likely emanated from the veep's office...if not ordered by the vice-president himself. "Fitzgerald's filing states that Libby learned of Plame's name from Cheney, in the course of discussions by the vice president's office about how to respond to a June 2003 inquiry from Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus about Wilson's trip to Niger. Fitzgerald asserts that those conversations -- and earlier ones sparked by a May 2003 column about the trip in the Times -- help demonstrate that Libby's 'disclosures to the press concerning Mr. Wilson's wife were not casual disclosures.'"

All the t's have been crossed and Novaks have been questioned...Now, according to the Post's Jim Vanderhei, Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's extended investigation of Karl Rove is nearing resolution. "Rove expects to learn as soon as this month if he will be indicted -- or publicly cleared of wrongdoing -- for making false statements in the CIA leak case, according to sources close to the presidential adviser. An indictment would be devastating to a White House already battered by low poll numbers, a staff shake-up and a stalled agenda."

"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." The verdict isn't it yet -- still, it seems Plamegate Judge Reggie Walton is not amused by the Libby defense's recent attempts at graymail.

Fifth time's the charm? Karl Rove returns once more to testify before Patrick Fitzgerald's Plamegate grand jury, mainly to discuss his interactions with TIME reporter Viveca Novak. Will this fifth round of testimony of Dubya's consigliere result in an indictment (and finally make Karl a household name?) Hopefully, we'll know sooner rather than later. Update: Make that 2-3 weeks.

"[Y]ou have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the White House for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in Washington, D.C." Following the recent dismissal of CIA historian and Africa specialist Mary McCarthy for telling the Post about our secret gulags, several Dems, including John Kerry and Rep. Jane Harman, question the Dubya double standard regarding leaks. Update: Was it not McCarthy after all?

Irony of ironies, US District Judge Reggie B. Walston, presiding judge in Scooter Libby's pending trial, threatens both sides with a gag order should information about the Plamegate case continue to make it into the newspapers. But the President told Scooter to call Judy, and maybe even Bob...

"I think that there has to be a detailed explanation precisely as to what Vice President Cheney did, what the president said to him, and an explanation from the president as to what he said so that it can be evaluated." In keeping with a recent pattern of talking tough on the Sunday shows (no doubt to impress his independent-minded Pennsylvania constituents) while pretty much folding like an accordion in Senate committee, Arlen Specter says he want answers from Bush and Cheney regarding the recent Libby leak disclosure. Update: Dubya responds.

While Dubya and the GOP continue to smear and threaten the whistleblowers who exposed this administration's recent egregious violations of civil liberties -- the warrantless wiretaps or the secret gulags, for example -- papers filed by Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald disclose that Scooter Libby was actually told to leak classified information to the press by Dubya and Cheney (although not necessarily the identity of Valerie Plame.) "Libby said he understood that 'he was to tell [Judith] Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium,' Fitzgerald wrote." Replied DNC chair Howard Dean today, "The fact that the president was willing to reveal classified information for political gain and put the interests of his political party ahead of America's security shows that he can no longer be trusted to keep America safe." At the very least, given his own penchant for selective leaking, it means Dubya is being a tremendous hypocrite every time he starts equating whistleblowers with terrorist sympathizers, and that his repeated promise to find the leakers in his administration is roughly equivalent to OJ's hunt for the real killers. Update: ABC's John Cochran and Salon's Farhad Manjoo break down the implications. Update 2: Fitzgerald makes a correction.

"That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption." Former Post editor Ben Bradlee, who claims to know the identity of Bob Woodward's source on the Plame leak, seemed to suggest to Vanity Fair that it was Richard Armitage. When asked about his comments yesterday, Bradlee backtracked: "'I don't think I said it,' Bradlee said. 'I know who his source is, and I don't want to get into it. . . . I have not told a soul who it is.'"

"Any disclosure of the PDB beyond its intended narrow audience -- the President and his most senior advisers -- increases the possibility of damage to the national security.'' The Libby legal team's attempt at graymail receives a highly unwelcome reception from the CIA.

"Scooter Libby has a Web site. He's not running for office, but the site makes it looks like he is. The lead picture on the front page shows him with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Other snapshots portray him in soft focus and at oblique angles, the kinds of images candidates use to make themselves look more huggable." Slate's John Dickinson evaluates the web presence of the Libby Legal Defense Trust (put together by Scooter's big-ticket friends), and what it tells us about Libby's probable defense strategy.

The wagons are a-circlin': "A Who's Who of Republican heavy hitters and Bush administration supporters are lending their names to help raise $5 million for the defense of Vice President Cheney's former top aide in his criminal trial."

"The defendant's effort to make history in this case by seeking 277 PDBs in discovery -- for the sole purpose of showing that he was 'preoccupied' with other matters when he gave testimony to the grand jury -- is a transparent effort at 'greymail.'" Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald -- whose investigation is continuing -- tries to put a stop to Scooter Libby's shady defense tactics. "'Graymailing' -- a tactic used to varying degrees by defendants in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s -- occurs when a government official charged with a crime demands access to large quantities of classified material in an attempt to force prosecutors either to put national security at risk by producing the material or put the prosecution at risk by allowing the defendant to argue that he can't get a fair trial without it."

I forgot to post this during the header hiatus, and was just reminded of it again by Supercres: On the Plamegate front, Scooter Libby testified that his "superiors" authorized the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, meaning -- undoubtedly -- Dick Cheney....and someone else?

"Not since 1994 has the party in power -- in this case the Republicans -- faced such a discouraging landscape in a midterm election...The result is a midterm already headed toward what appears to be an inevitable conclusion: Democrats are poised to gain seats in the House and in the Senate for the first time since 2000. The difference between modest gains (a few seats in the Senate and fewer than 10 in the House) and significant gains (half a dozen in the Senate and well more than a dozen in the House) is where the battle for control of Congress will be fought." The WP previews the midterm electoral landscape. Excellent news...but still, if anyone's shown an amazing capacity to spin gold into straw, it's our current crop of Dems.

In an interview with FOX News's Brit Hume, Dubya backs Boss DeLay, saying he is innocent of money laundering. "It is highly unusual for a president to express an opinion on a pending legal case. Richard M. Nixon, for instance, was widely criticized for declaring Charles Manson 'guilty, directly or indirectly' of murder while Manson's trial was ongoing." Also in the interview, Dubya tried to pin Casino Jack on both parties and gave Rumsfeld the Brownie thumbs up. Update: The backlash begins.

"I'm confident the president knows who the source is. I'd be amazed if he doesn't. So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.'" What did the President know about Plamegate, and when did he know it? Saving his own skin first, as per the norm, Douchebag of Liberty Robert Novak says ask Dubya. Update: Safe once more among his kind, DoL Novak joins FOX News.

"One final note: Luskin is unhappy that I decided to write about our conversation, but I feel that he violated any understanding to keep our talk confidential by unilaterally going to Fitzgerald and telling him what was said." TIME reporter Viveca Novak explains her testimony before the Fitzgerald grand jury. Novak, who may well have tipped Luskin to a hole in Rove's story, is now on a leave of absence with TIME "by mutual agreement."

Meanwhile, the investigations continue. This weekend, Time reporter Viveca Novak announced she's cooperating with Plamegate prosecutors, who have been asking her about her conversations with Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's attorney, beginning in 2004. Doesn't sound like Rove is off the hook, does it? Update: Apparently, Novak was Rove's alibi: "'This is what caused [Fitzgerald] to hold off on charging' Rove, the source said. But another person familiar with the conversations said they did not appear to significantly alter the case."

"I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn't work." If it's any consolation, Dubya, we all feel just as trapped. In one of those resounding visual metaphors that capture a presidency and that life occasionally kicks up for all to see (the last one being Dubya's fiddling during Katrina), our leader gets stymied by a locked door while trying to evade a reporter's questions about his China trip (which were pretty softball, given all the things he could've been asking these days.)

In somewhat related news, in the relatively sanguine Post story about the door incident, the following depressing information is included: "In five years in the presidency, Bush has proved a decidedly unadventurous traveler...As he barnstormed through Japan, South Korea and China, with a final stop in Mongolia still to come, Bush visited no museums, tried no restaurants, bought no souvenirs and made no effort to meet ordinary local people...[Laura Bush] once persuaded him to go to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, only to see him burn through the place in 30 minutes. He dispensed with the Kremlin cathedrals in Moscow in seven minutes. He flatly declined an Australian invitation to attend the Rugby World Cup while down under."

"What was striking about Cheney's assault was that while denying critics' charges of manipulation and dishonesty involving prewar intelligence, he resorted to exactly the tactics that inspired the criticism. As he did with the prewar intelligence, Cheney told no outright lies, but he exaggerated the case, picked only evidence he liked, and ignored the caveats." In case it wasn't obvious, Slate's John Dickinson explains how Cheney is still misrepresenting the lead-up to war. (In fact, he did it again today, although at least he didn't join his congressional colleagues in their recent spate of Murtha-bashing.) But, really, can we expect any less from the administration that brought us imaginary WMDs and the phantom Iraq-9/11 connection? Like George Costanza at his worst moments, these jokers have been lying so long they've lost sight of the truth.

Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald re-ups on another grand jury, suggesting anew that the Libby indictment was just the first phase of the investigation. Meanwhile, speculation run rampant on the identity of Bob Woodward's new source: Apparently, it's not Cheney, and spokesmen for Rove, Card, Bartlett, Powell, Armitage, Tenet and McLaughlin have all denied it, too (Not that the word of White House officials means all that much these days.) Stephen Hadley, perhaps?

Washington Post editor Bob Woodward testifies to the Fitzgerald grand jury about a third senior White House official involved in disclosing the identity of Valerie Plame, besides Libby and Rove. (Woodward's statement.) This means Libby likely wasn't the first to leak Plame's identity, but the new info has no bearing on his perjury or obstruction of justice indictments.

For Woodward's part, his statement and public comments about the case alternate between high dudgeon ("It was the first time in 35 years as a reporter that I have been asked to provide information to a grand jury") and open ridicule ("When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great.") Mostly, he just seems cranky that he -- award-winning journalist Bob Woodward! -- was forced to take time away from another puff piece book on Dubya to testify about a felony in the White House. But this isn't news. Frankly, Woodward has been embarrassing his legacy for years...almost any of his talking-head stints on Larry King illustrate that. Since at least the early Clinton years, he's been more desirous of maintaining his high profile and insider status than in promoting good journalism or good government. (And in that, he's reflected the trajectory of many in the newsmedia.) Update: The Post is somewhat irked.

"President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence. Neither assertion is wholly accurate." Update: Slate's Fred Kaplan parses Dubya's speech further.

"Why would an experienced lawyer and government official such as Libby leave himself so exposed to prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald?...To critics, the timing suggests an attempt to obscure Cheney's role, and possibly his legal culpability." The Post suggests anew that, in the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak, Scooter Libby fell on his sword for Cheney. Meanwhile, National Journal's Murray Waas reports that Karl Rove's fate rests on Libby's testimony, meaning it may be some time before "Bush's Brain" is indicted, or in the clear.

As McCain calls for changes in Dubya's Iraq strategy, White House National Security advisor Stephen Hadley inaugurates Dubya's comeback plan, which will get more run in a presidential speech today. Step One: Call the Dems out on their pro-war votes. "'Some of the critics today,' Hadley added, 'believed themselves in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they stated that belief, and they voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein posed a dangerous threat to the American people.'" Well, yes, but if Dems were relying on faulty and doctored intelligence to come to that supposition in 2002, that only brings us back to the $64,000 question: What exactly happened to our prewar intelligence once it reached the White House?