Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
Al Kamen chronicles the latest joy-ridden interaction between Alberto Gonzales and Patrick Fitzgerald.
In the Justice Department’s Great Hall (the very room where giant, blue drapes covered the underdressed statuary during John Ashcroft’s tenure as attorney general), an array of prosecutors, securities regulators and FBI honchos gathered yesterday to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the President’s Corporate Fraud Task Force.
Chicago U.S.
I’m still reading the November 2005 affidavit on Cunningham’s bribery. It has a previously unknown level of detail on the CIFA-related pork Cunningham made possible. I think some of those details provide new insight into why the Director and Deputy Director of CIFA resigned (speaking of “trepidation”) in August 2006, when the Cunningham investigation was focusing closely on CIFA.
The affidavit provides details of the involvement of the top management of CIFA
I’m working my way through this November 2005 affidavit relating to the Cunningham scandal (hat tip Kentucky Jelly). But this paragraph and footnote jumped out at me, especially in light of Democratic refusal to declassify the complete report on Cunningham’s House Intelligence Committee contracting.
On a page entitled “Election Impact on Congressional Mandates,” Wade listed a number of politicians, starting with Cunningham, all of whom won reelection in November 2002.
The DOJ’s refusal to let John Tanner testify before the House Judiciary Committee reeks of desperation. After all, Brad Schlozman and Hans Von Spakovsky have already testified before Congress. Alberto Gonzales has testified repeatedly. What possible excuse can DOJ make not to allow Tanner to testify, ostensibly a career employee?
The absence of any good reason to refuse the request for his testimony suggests DOJ–and the Administration–is particularly worried about what he
As predicted, Tom Maguire links to the two affidavits I made available yesterday without pointing out what those affidavits say: that in Fall 2004, Fitzgerald was still actively investigating Armitage and Novak and Rove and Libby on the Novak leak–because their stories all contradicted what the others were saying. Let me help you out, Tom, by quoting the entire passage on Armitage and the Novak column:
A brief discussion is in order
Reuters reports that the EU report on secret prisons got much of its information from anonymous US intelligence officers.
Dissident U.S. intelligence officers angry at former DefenseSecretary Donald Rumsfeld helped a European probe uncover details ofsecret CIA prisons in Europe, the top investigator said on Tuesday.
SwissSenator Dick Marty, author of a Council of Europe report on the jails,said senior CIA officials disapproved of Rumsfeld’s methods in huntingdown terrorist suspects,
This is a follow-up to my post speculating that Cheney got his talking point about DOD and State being interested in the Iraq intell from the documents Valerie Wilson wrote before Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger. This post will do something very simple: show where that talking point shows up, and where it doesn’t.
In an effort to make these affidavits available as soon as possible so the wingnuts can start admitting they were wrong about Fitzgerald being a runaway prosecutor, I thought I’d catalog some of the things Fitzgerald didn’t appear to know by August 27, 2004 and September 27, 2004.
As of August 2004, Fitzgerald did not yet know that:Rove may have talked to Novak on July 8, not July 9There was a second
This is the post I’ve been promising for weeks, in which I will speculate wildly as to the source of Cheney’s knowledge about Plame’s role at CPD and in her husband’s trip. Here’s the argument, in brief:Cheney learns during the week of June 9 that “Defense and State expressed a strong interestin the Niger intelligence”At a time when Cheney presumably already knew that information, he tried to get CIA to repeat
During the book salon chat on The Wrong Stuff yesterday, we discussed the House Intelligence Committee report on how Duke Cunningham managed to scam so much money for his friends. Lo and behold, the LAT has a long article on it today (hat tip Kentucky Jelly). The report, though, is pretty disappointing.