Friday, April 07, 2006

Another Jason Leopold/Truthout update:

Bush at Center of Intelligence Leak:

"According to four attorneys who over the past two days have read a transcript of the President Bush's interview with investigators, Bush did not disclose to either investigators or the special counsel that he had authorized Cheney or any other administration official to leak portions of the NIE to Woodward and Miller or any other reporter. Rather, these people said the president said he frowned upon 'selective leaks.'

Bush also said during the interview two years ago that he had no prior knowledge that anyone on his staff had been involved in a campaign to discredit Wilson or that individuals retaliated against the former ambassador by leaking his wife's undercover identity to reporters.

The 39-page court document Fitzgerald filed late Wednesday included previously unreported testimony given to a grand jury by Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby. Libby was indicted in October on five-counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators about how he discovered Plame Wilson's identity.

Libby testified that Cheney had received explicit instruction from President Bush to declassify a portion of the October 2002 NIE that said Iraq tried to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium ore from Niger and share that information with reporters like Miller and Woodward, whose previous work proved to be sympathetic to the administration and would help to discredit Wilson, according to the court document and attorneys and current and former administration officials close to the investigation."

2 comments:

post tot discrimina rerum said...

Of course, neither Bush nor Cheney were under oath in these interviews. It can all still be denied. But, this whole thing still works with the Cheney will bite the bullet theory. Libby's claim is just that Cheney told him that Bush authorized the leak, that is, it wasn't a leak of classified info becuase the president can unilaterally declassify info. But remember, I think it was on some Meet the Press, Cheney claimed that he could declassify info unilaterally as well. So, whatever the case, the buck can still stop with Cheney.

post festum said...

The last thing Cheney has left, if pressure continues to be applied, is the basic defense: I was simply playing hardball politics. Sure its not typical to declassify on the spot like that to rebut a specific critic. But boy this guy was a real ass and trying to play hardball with us writing Op-Eds in big city newspapers and, shucks, I've go the authority to do it anyone. So criminalizing my behavor is criminaling politics itself. Call this, following the WP editorial this morning, the "Good Leak" defense.

That's it. Nothing more stands in the way of him and abuse of power charges. And today's A1 story in the Post begins picking the first holes in THAT defense. Jesus the WP must be fucking crazy right now.

The A1 story continues to make the case that the NIE stuff included in the State of the Union was already known to be questionable, but even more that the stuff Scooter was tapped to selectively leak had been even further discreditied within intelligence departments by the time he got around to sharing it to rebut Wilson's public charges.

But of course Bush knew nothing beyond "Get it done," so he has the plausible denial. I'm hearing a lot of "He's the CEO President" so somebody at the White House is singing that song. The Cheney's, on the other hand, have that beautiful new place they were scouting during Katrina.