Author Archive for: emptywheel

Here’s my Guardian column explaining all the involvement of Cheney and Bush in the Plame outing–which explains why Bush didn’t want Libby to lose his ability to refuse to testify.

On June 9, 2003, just one day after his national security advisor,Condoleezza Rice, got beaten up on the Sunday shows for claiming no onein the administration knew that the Niger intelligence was bunk, GeorgeBush expressed concern about the allegations.

Digby’s all over Tim Noah’s latest idiocy.

Clinton was impeached and he faced the music. He was tried and acquittedaccording to the rules of the constitution. Bush, on the other hand,just used his plenary power to commute a sentence to cover his own baddeeds and keep one of his own aides from having to pay the price forhis crimes.

Via email from his spokesperson:

Wefully recognize that the Constitution provides that commutation decisions are a matter of presidential prerogative and we do not comment on the exercise of that prerogative.

We comment only on the statement in which the President termed the sentence imposed by the judge as “excessive.” The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout

Holy Shit. Remember TALON and CIFA? Here’s a description I wrote in April:

It was designed to gather intelligenceon threats to defense installments in the United States–to try tocollect information (in the TALON database) on threatening peoplescoping out domestic bases. But it ended up focusing on peace activists and the lefty blogosphere’s own Jesus’ General.

Once upon a time in a land called Plameology, I was utterly obsessed with the CIA report on Joe Wilson’s trip. As I pointed out some time ago, the trip report, in addition to Valerie’s identity, was classified at the beginning of leak week. And as I pointed out over the weekend, it is crystal clear that Libby, at least, leaked material from this, knowing it was classified, with no claim