Oh dear
This looks like some bad ju-ju:
Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff told prosecutors in the CIA leak case that President Bush authorized disclosure of intelligence information on Iraq, according to a new court filing.
19 Responses to “Oh dear”
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April 6th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Hmmm…..Cheney may have to step down and Bush might be impeached/resign…gonna be interesting. Denis Hastert as president perhaps?…hahahahaha
April 6th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
This makes me want to do a childish I TOLD YOU SO Snoopy dance. (Not to you, of course.)
But I won’t. Not until I get home. 🙂
April 6th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Sounds like Scooter has been taking lessons from the John Dean School of Butt-Covering….
April 6th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Color me confused. If Bush authorized it, how is it a leak. Not to mention that conveying the Valerie Plame information itself is not a crime, as she was not a covert agent. The lawyer who wrote the statute has even said there was no violation.
They are going after Libby for lying to investigators about something that wasn’t illegal. It’s the same thing they got Martha Stewart on.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
At this point, from what “we know” I would say this…
1. As Ravenwood pointed out, de-classifying info is totally within the realm of the Prez’s authority.
2. This declassifying of information on Iraq was done to help justify the war, by giving specific cause and effect. It was done to journalists, for Gods sake. Telephone, telegraph, tell-a-journalist.
3. Placing Bush in a “chain of events” that led to anything, by putting him that far “up” the chain from the end result is a bit broad. I suppose the Wright Brothers are responsible for 9/11 now.
Lets see where it ends up before we assume too much.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Before Brittney does her happy dance, there’s still nothing in this about Valerie Plame, which is what all the lead-ins to this story want you to believe.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Yeah, there is no way they are connected. *snort*
April 6th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
They can be connected but that doesn’t make both necessarily illegal.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
True. This is war time. If the domestic wiretapping ivestigation is any indication, the Prez can do whatever he wants when he wants–and claim executive privilege.
That’s what happens in a post 9/11 world, I guess.
Still, my Snoopy dance is warranted. More indictments are coming.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
So the President now has the inherent authority (in theory, according to comments here) to declassify an undercover agent’s identity even while that agent is still undercover and potentially at risk? Plame aside, that doesn’t sound right.
And when are we going to stop hearing the weak “Plame wasn’t really covert” nonsense? It never ceases to amaze me what Bush’s supporters are willing to rationalize…
April 6th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
It certainly doesn’t sound right in Plame’s case, as she had not been undercover for years. It probably IS right as a matter of law, though. Information isn’t “classified” by God, only by the federal government, so it stands to reason that some part of the federal government, presumably the executive branch, might have something to say about it.
In any event, from what I gather no one is contending that Cheney and Bush authorized Libby to disclose Plame’s identity. Presumably, if they did, none of the information disclosed by Libby would have been classified, and the entire case against him would have gone up in smoke, just like that (assuming, of course, that Patrick Fitzgerald believed the testimony). Am I missing something?
April 6th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Oh, I dunno – maybe when youse guys stop pretending she was?
April 6th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
Isn’t Plam e the one that everyone in her neighborhood knew her as “that lady who works for the CIA?”
April 6th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Tell me something: If Plame was not undercover, why is there an investigation underway to discovered who leaked her identity?
Forget what you think he neighbor may have said–why would there be an investigation if no operative’s cover was blown?
April 6th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11179719/site/newsweek/
April 7th, 2006 at 12:29 am
Whether Valerie Plame was or wasn’t covert isn’t remotely relevant to today’s happenings. Nothing in Fitzgerald’s filing indicates any connection between Plame’s alleged outing and any leaking authorized by President Bush. In fact, Fitzgerald’s own statement makes it clear that the two are not related.
April 7th, 2006 at 9:22 am
brittney,
You seem to be setting yourself up for a huge disappointment. You understand neither the circumstance surrounding the investigation, nor the legal statute that you are alleging was violated.
When reality smacks you in the face and you realize that this is all media-created political fodder, you’re in for a big let down.
April 11th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
brittney:
why would there be an investigation if no operative’s cover was blown?
It’s part of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, you see. The party that can’t manage to win free tickets to see Basic Instict 2 (never mind an election) because they’re too damned disorganized and incompetent, is also somehow simultaneously organized and competent enough to pull off a giant scam of convincing everyone — up to and including the federal government — that an agent who was not undercover actually was.
See, if they’d just redirect this wonderful manipulative skill toward their own election campaigns…
April 11th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Dave:
Whether Valerie Plame was or wasn’t covert isn’t remotely relevant to today’s happenings.
Yep, that was my bad. Had I actually read, I would have known that what was
leakeder, declassified was not anything about Plame’s identity, but rather those portions of an NIE that helped bolster the case for war, while those parts of the same NIE that cast doubt on the case for war remained classified. Totally different. As Xrlq points out, because Plame’s identity wasn’t confidential (despite the fact that the virtually entire federal government seems to think that it was), there wouldn’t be a scandal here.