CIA Leak Case Archives - Page 12 of 21

Cheney Interview: Pay2PlayPo Losing Its Ability to Report, Too

The WaPay2PlayPo’s Jeffrey Smith is usually a much better reporter than this. In his report on DOJ’s latest attempt to keep the materials from Cheney’s Fitzgerald interview secret–published right under a link to all the evidence released in the trial–Smith "reports,"

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration’s public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.

Which, if you take "new evidence" to mean "a new list summarizing many of the events described in evidence introduced two years ago at the Libby trial," would be factually correct.

But this isn’t.

Barron also listed as exempt from disclosure Cheney’s account of his requests for information from the CIA about the purported purchase; Cheney’s discussions with top officials about the controversy over Bush’s mention of the uranium allegations in his 2003 State of the Union speech; and Cheney’s discussions with deputy I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, press spokesman Ari Fleischer, and Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. "regarding the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure" of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity. [my emphasis]

Smith gets that last bit from this language in the filing.

Vice President’s recollection of discussions with Lewis Libby, the White House Communications Director, and the White House Chief of Staff regarding the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a CIA employee.

Now, the language used there–"the source of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity"–ought to be a pretty big clue to Smith that this conversation happened after Plame’s identity was actually made public. That is, after July 14, 2003, which happened to be Ari Fleischer’s last day, meaning it’s pretty clear that Ari Fleischer (who was White House Spokesperson, not Communications Director) isn’t the guy referenced here. But you don’t really need clues like that to figure out that Smith is wrong here. Had Smith only clicked that link above his article and actually looked at the evidence released at trial, he would have seen the famous "meat grinder note," a note Cheney used as a talking point document for conversations with Andy Card (correctly identified by Smith as Chief of Staff) and Dan Bartlett (in his role as "White House Communications Director," the position listed in the filing) in early October 2003 to get them to force Scottie McClellan to exonerate Scooter Libby publicly.

Has to happen today.

Call out to key press saying same thing about Scooter as Karl.

Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy ~~the Pres~~ that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.

Cheney Interview: The New Jon Stewart-Worthy Excuses

July 2, 2009/in CIA Leak Case /by emptywheel

As I mentioned, DOJ did one crappy-ass job of trying to give Emmet Sullivan a better reason they can’t turn over Dick Cheney’s interview materials than that Jon Stewart would embarrass poor Dick. They trot out the same canard about needing cooperation from high level officials in the future. But there two big problems with their argument.

The Release of a Late-Investigation Interview of the Target of that Investigation Will Hurt Early Investigative Cooperation

First, they’re basically forced to argue that they won’t be able to get information early in an investigation if VPs and the like worry that their interviews with Special Counsels will eventually be made public.

For example, obtaining information through interviews early in an investigation “often assists law enforcement agents in obtaining important background information,” “help[s] law enforcement investigators determine where to concentrate or focus the investigation,” and may “obviate the need to convene a grand jury at all or circumscribe the focus of the grand jury’s inquiry.” Breuer Decl. ¶ 6. “A law enforcement investigation based upon interviews subject to an expectation of confidentiality also benefits from senior officials more inclined to provide identifiable leads, name percipient witnesses, offer credibility assessments of the accuser or other witnesses, and even articulate inferences, insight or hunches that can be invaluable to a law enforcement investigator.”

But of course this interview wasn’t about "obtaining important background information" about "where to concentrate or focus the investigation" that might "obviate the need to convene a grand jury." Neither Bush nor Cheney gave an interview at that early stage of the process. Rather, this was an interview conducted while there was an active grand jury, at a time when all major witnesses save journalists had already been interviewed.

This was an interview of the ultimate target of the investigation, not a mere bystander.

Meanwhile, the DOJ wants to pretend that a grand jury investigation of top White House officials might thwart an investigation.

Additionally, if a senior White House official were to require the investigators to go through the grand jury process, “[s]uch a decision could impose considerable practical difficulties and burdens upon investigators and prosecutors that at best could prolong investigations and at worst thwart investigations.”

Tell that to Karl Rove and his five grand jury appearances. Turdblossom couldn’t get enough of the grand jury (and he’s been before a grand jury since). Read more →

The Contents of the Fitzgerald-Cheney Interview

July 2, 2009/in CIA Leak Case /by emptywheel

Mary pointed me to DOJ’s latest attempt to prevent CREW from accessing the materials relating to Cheney’s interview with Fitzgerald and the FBI. I’ll get into what a load of crap the DOJ argument is later. But first, I want to lay out what the FOIA declarations say about the Cheney interview itself.

First, the date. Rather than early June, as previously assumed, the CIA declaration included with this document reveals the documents were dated May 8, 2004–a month earlier in the investigation that we had known (and therefore a month and a half earlier than Bush’s interview).

Otherwise, the declarations reveal the following contents of the interview:

Vice President’s discussion of the substance of a conversation he had with the Director of the CIA concerning the decision to send Ambassador Wilson on a fact-finding mission to Niger in 2002.
Vice President’s discussion of his requests for information from the CIA relating to reported efforts by Iraqi officials to purchase uranium from Niger.
Vice President’s recollection of the substance of his discussions with the National Security Advisor while she was on a trip to Africa.
Vice President’s description of government deliberations, including discussions between the Vice President and the Deputy National Security Advisor, in preparation of a statement by the Director of CIA regarding the accuracy of a statement in the President’s 2003 State of the Union Address.
Vice President’s recollection of discussions with Lewis Libby, the White House Communications Director, and the White House Chief of Staff regarding the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a CIA employee.
Vice President’s description of his role in resolving disputes about whether to declassify certain information.
Vice President’s description of government deliberations involving senior officials regarding whether to declassify portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.
Description of a confidential conversation between the Vice President and the President, and description of an apparent communication between the Vice President and the President.
Names of non-governmental third-parties and details of their extraneous interactions with the Vice President.
Name of a CIA briefer.
Names of FBI agents.
Names of foreign government and liaison services.
The name of a covert CIA employee.
The methods CIA uses to assess and evaluate intelligence and inform policy makers.

Now, as I’ll get into when I discuss what a load of crap this is, almost every single bit of this was already revealed at trial. Read more →

Wilson Suit Denied Cert

June 22, 2009/47 Comments/in CIA Leak Case /by emptywheel

As BayStateLibrul pointed out in threads, SCOTUS denied the Wilsons cert today in their lawsuit against Dick Cheney and his band of leakers. As bmaz points out, the news is unsurprising.

The die was cast by John Bates’ exploitation (and to some extent contortion) of glaring and gaping holes in the pleading by Plame/Wilson. It is a shame, but especially in light of the subsequent Iqbal decision, there is no way to credibly call this a cover up. This case was over when it started.

But, as RawStory points out, it means Valerie Wilson will never get her day in court against the men who deliberately ruined her career in government service because she and her colleagues had proof of the Administration’s lies.

So unless Bob Novak has an illness-induced desire to come clean about what really happened in the leak–including the real details of the long-hidden conversation Novak had with Scooter Libby on July 9, 2003 (probably including Plame’s name and exact role in Counter-Proliferation, as well as still-classified details from Joe Wilson’s report to the CIA), or unless Scooter Libby gets tired of being a quiet felon, the only way we’ll find out the rest of the details of the case will be if Judge Sullivan orders Cheney’s FBI interview materials released. And even then, I think they won’t surprise any long-time reader of this site, though they might surprise the traditional press.

In that, the CIA Leak case feels like the rest of the Bush-Cheney tenure: it left the country far less safe, but no one will ever be held accountable for it.

Look on the bright side, though. Scooter Libby hasn’t gotten his inevitable Republican-as-felon radio show, yet.

Hadley’s Email

June 20, 2009/118 Comments/in CIA Leak Case /by emptywheel

Okay, now for the Hadley weirdness revealed in the White House email searches revealed in a document turned over to CREW.

On the morning of October 15, Karl Rove testified before the Plame grand jury for appearance number 3. He justified testifying to Fitzgerald by handing over the email Rove purportedly sent Hadley on July 11, 2003, just after he leaked Plame’s identity to Matt Cooper.

Either that day (the file searches appear to be dated October 15) or the next, someone did a series of searches, apparently looking for Hadley’s emails; these searches appear on pages 47-49. Here are the searches in the order of which they were last opened (here’s the spreadsheet if you want to play along).

Search	File	Last opened	Time	File size
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 16, 2004_MA.pst	10/16/04	2:12p	1753302016
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 16, 2004_MA(2).pst	10/16/04	3:26p	1751270400
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 16, 2004_MA(3).pst	10/16/04	4:51p	1751270400
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 16, 2004_MA(4).pst	10/16/04	6:17p	1751270400
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 16, 2004_MA(5).pst	10/16/04	7:07p	1751270400
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 16, 2004_MA(6).pst	10/16/04	8:15p	1751270400
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 16, 2004_MA(7).pst	10/16/04	8:22p	270222336
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 23, 2004_MA(2).pst	10/23/04	2:18a	1865040896
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 23, 2004_MA(3).pst	10/23/04	4:01a	1751270400
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 23, 2004_MA(4).pst	10/23/04	5:13a	1751270400
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 23, 2004_MA(5).pst	10/23/04	5:51a	958940160
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Saturday, October 23, 2004_MA.pst	11/4/04	12:46p	1751270400
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Friday, October 22, 2004_MA(2).pst	3/9/05	5:34p	488177664
10-1504 HadleyInitial Search	1st Hadley Results.pst	3/9/05	5:34p	38944768
10-1504 Hadley	NSC_2004_Friday, October 22, 2004_MA.pst	3/9/05	5:34p	1754644480
10-1504 HadleyInitial Search	Hadley Final.pst	3/10/05	3:00a	39166978

So here’s what appears to have happened.

Either the same day Rove testified or the next day, someone started doing searches for Hadley’s email. On that day they appear to have run the search at least 7 times, from 2:12 PM to 8:22 PM, until the file size had been shrunk significantly. That Friday, October 22, 2004, at 5:34 PM, someone did two more searches. Then, in the middle of the night that night (that is, from 2 AM to almost 5 AM on a Friday-Saturday night), someone did five more searches; the first one of these was opened again on November 4. The last of these searches–like the last of the searches saved on October 16, 2004, was significantly smaller than the rest of the searches done that day.

Then, finally, someone did a search under a slightly new name: HadleyInitial Search. We don’t know when this search was saved–the two runs of the search are titled simply 1st Hadley Results and Hadley Final. These files were both much smaller than any of the earlier searches.

On October 28, 2004 someone appears to have done a whole slew of searches in the NSC files, many of them date-specific (these aren’t in the spreadsheet, but appear in the PDF). Read more →

Who Accessed the Rove Email Search on July 26, 2005?

June 20, 2009/30 Comments/in CIA Leak Case /by emptywheel

As I explained in my last post, one of the documents turned over to CREW shows evidence of email searches done in 2004, presumably as part of the Plame investigation (and kudos, again, to WO for noticing these searches). Pages 44 through 46 show a search conducted on November 9, 2004 for Cooper and Rove and NSC emails. This search is almost certainly in response to a Fitzgerald request after Rove turned over his email to Hadley before he testified on October 15, 2004. Presumably, after Fitz got an email that hadn’t been turned over as evidence, he asked the White House to redo the search, which they got around to doing after making sure Bush won the election.

Interestingly, it appears there were almost no results for NSC files on July 14, 2003, the day Novak’s column came out.

There are two more interesting details about this search.

On the bottom of page 45, in the last column, it shows three files were last opened on different dates than others.

Two files named WHO_2003_0309_26272829.pst and WHO_2003_930+923.pst were both last opened on July 28, 2004. This was a search for email mentioning Matt Cooper, apparently.

And a file named Rove Final.pst was opened on July 26, 2005.

Now, as to the first two searches last opened in July 2004, they may have been searches done in response to Judge Hogan’s decision that Matt Cooper would have to testify. Or, just as likely, they might be searches in response to Colin Powell’s testimony on July 16; recall the story of a Principals meeting in late September at which the leak was discussed. But both of those stories would be weird: if the files were in preparation for Cooper’s testimony, then why search on September 23 and 30, specifically–particularly since both of those dates come after Cooper’s welfare article (for which Rove was a source) was published earlier in September? Alternately, if the search was a response to Powell’s testimony, then why focus on Cooper in particular? And were those files just renamed later that year when the more expansive searches were done?

Then there’s the other file: a search for Rove’s emails completed in November 2004, but last opened on July 26, 2005. That says the search was done, but someone went back to see what the search was. The file was opened a few weeks after Matt Cooper testified about the leak from Rove. It was also just days before Rove aides Susan Ralston and Israel Hernandez testified and was in the same month that Robert Luskin offered to have Rove testify again (for what would be the fourth time). Read more →

Why Was the White House Searching for Plame-Wilson-Novak Emails Dated May 1, 2003?

June 20, 2009/17 Comments/in CIA Leak Case /by emptywheel

William Ockham made a really important discovery. One of the files turned over to CREW has search files from September and November 2004 relating to the Plame investigation. Look at pages 44-46 for Rove and Cooper searches and page 49 for Plame Wilson Novak searches.

Of particular interest, here are the days on which they were apparently searching for Plame Wilson Novak emails dated:

May 1, 2003
May 9, 2003
May 16, 2003
May 27, 2003
June 2, 2003
June 23, 2003
June 30, 2003
July 7, 2003
July 12, 2003
July 24, 2003
August 8, 2003
August 13, 2003
August 27, 2003
August 29, 2003
October 9, 2003

Now, I’m not entirely sure what these dates mean, but my guess is they were a search run overnight on September 23, 2004 for appearances of Plame, Wilson, or Novak on particular dates, and the search results came back the next morning–September 24, 2004. That timing makes sense–it was when Patrick Fitzgerald had strong suspicions that Novak had talked to people in the White House about Plame. And, it was certainly after Fitz developed suspicions he wasn’t getting all the email (he asked Libby about the dearth of email in his name in March 2004).

So that timing makes sense. As do most of the dates searched. On June 2, OVP was panicking about a Walter Pincus article. The June 23 date is when Novak probably set up his meeting with Armitage and its the day Libby first leaked Plame’s name to Judy. July 7, 2003 is the day when OVP decided to more aggressively leak Plame’s name, and also a day when Novak was purportedly reporting on his Frances Fragos Townsend story, almost certainly with OVP. July 12 is when the White House started leaking Plame’s name in anticipation of the Novak article, which was on the wire. The later days are all plausible dates of conversation with Novak. (Though note, they don’t include July 8 or 9, 2003, when we know Novak spoke with Rove and Libby respectively about the Wilsons.

But May 1, 2003?

Before the Nicholas Kristof column came out? The day before Wilson and Kristof first spoke?

Judge Sullivan: Steven Bradbury Not Qualified to Withhold Cheney’s Plame Materials

June 18, 2009/55 Comments/in CIA Leak Case /by emptywheel

Though we may need new rules about linking to the WaPo after they canned Dan Froomkin, not only is this story not an AP story (what with their expansive claims of fair use), but it has a bunch of more interesting details. So here’s the story about Judge Emmet Sullivan, demanding the government allow him to review the Dick Cheney FBI interview materials they’re trying to withhold from FOIA before he’ll allow them to withhold the materials.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan expressed surprise during a hearing here that the Justice Department, in asserting that Cheney’s voluntary statements to U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald were exempt from disclosure, relied on legal claims put forward last October by a Bush administration political appointee, Stephen Bradbury. The department asserted then that the disclosure would make presidents and vice presidents reluctant to cooperate voluntarily with future criminal investigations.

But career civil division lawyer Jeffrey M. Smith, responding to Sullivan’s questions, said Bradbury’s arguments against the disclosure were supported by the department’s current leadership. He told the judge that if Cheney’s remarks were published, then a future vice president asked to provide candid information during a criminal probe might refuse to do so out of concern "that it’s going to get on ‘The Daily Show’ " or somehow be used as a political weapon.

Sullivan said Bradbury, who was the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, was not obviously qualified to make such claims and that they were in any event unsubstantiated. Sullivan said the department needed new evidence, if it hoped to prevail, and said the administration should supply him with a copy of Cheney’s statements so he could directly assess whether the claims are credible.

No word on whether Sullivan believes Bradbury is unqualified because this is not the purview of OLC, or whether he has just read Bradbury’s crappy ass OLC opinions and made the same conclusion the rest of us have: his legal judgment ain’t worth much.

Sullivan appears to be predisposed to accept CREW’s–and frankly, Fitz’s–argument that, since Cheney didn’t have to appear before a grand jury, he (and the government) can’t now claim his interview materials can’t be released because of grand jury secrecy laws.

Also note, there are three items responsive to the CREW subpoena, all in some way pertaining to the FBI interview. That means in addition to the interview report, we’ll get notes. Read more →

Fitzgerald Subpoenas and Server Crashes

June 18, 2009/128 Comments/in CIA Leak Case /by emptywheel

CREW reports something that I demonstrated clearly some time ago: materials subpoenaed by Patrick Fitzgerald in his CIA Leak Investigation were lost in the White House’s seemingly intractable problems with email. (h/t Laura Rozen) But CREW’s got new documents proving the case, including this Microsoft Post-Mortem documenting its efforts to conduct an email search in February 2004, in what is almost certainly the series of subpoenas Fitz issued shortly after taking over the investigation (the date referred to in the post-mortem–January 22–is the date Fitz issued his subpoenas). Here’s a summary of the key subpoenaed material:

February 6 was Abu Gonzales’ deadline to turn third batch of documents over to DOJ, including "records on administration contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets." The journalists, with my best take of what the investigators were looking for in brackets, include:

Robert Novak, "Crossfire," "Capital Gang" and the Chicago Sun-Times [duh!]
Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps, Newsday [source for their confirmation of Plame’s status]
Walter Pincus [Libby conversation, July 12 Plame conversation], Richard Leiby {background for profile], Mike Allen [identity of SAO], Dana Priest [identity of SAO] and Glenn Kessler [conversation with Libby], The Washington Post
Matthew Cooper [duh!], John Dickerson [possible additional source, Ari’s "walk-up" conversation], Massimo Calabresi [possible additional source, Wilson interview], Michael Duffy [earlier article] and James Carney [earlier article], Time magazine
Evan Thomas, Newsweek [why Evan Thomas? was he the "they’re coming after you" journalist?]
Andrea Mitchell [see Tom Maguire], "Meet the Press," NBC
Chris Matthews ["your wife is fair game"], "Hardball," MSNBC
Tim Russert [Libby complaint], Campbell Brown [why Campbell Brown?], NBC
Nicholas D. Kristof [Wilson column], David E. Sanger [January 24 document leak] and Judith Miller [duh!], The New York Times
Greg Hitt and Paul Gigot [July 17 NIE leak], The Wall Street Journal
John Solomon, The Associated Press [why John Solomon?]
Jeff Gannon [I knew Plame’s identity from slumber parties at the White House], Talon News

Note two journalists who don’t appear on this list: Clifford May, who in Fall 2003 claimed to have known of Plame’s identity, and David Cloud, who in October 2003 published an article that appeared to be based on a leak of the INR memo. While I presume Cloud may not have been included because his article was outside the scope of the investigation, I assume May was excluded because the FBI determined in Fall 2003 that he was full of shit.

Read more →

Dick Cheney, Torture, Iraq, and Valerie Plame

May 15, 2009/200 Comments/in CIA Leak Case, Torture, Unitary Executive /by emptywheel

I’ve been reluctant to embrace suggestions that torture, Iraq, and Valerie Plame were all going to coalesce into one linked story. After all, it would be too easy for me, of all people, to argue these stories were linked. But I increasingly suspect they are.

First, let me pull together some data points.

Nancy Pelosi and Bob Graham are linking the non-briefings on torture with the Iraq NIE

Now that they are explicitly stating that CIA lied in its September briefings on torture, Nancy Pelosi and Bob Graham are also both linking those lies with the lies they were telling–at precisely the same time–in the Iraq NIE. Here’s Pelosi:

Of all the briefings that I have received at this same time, earlier, they were misinforming the American people there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and it was an imminent threat to the United States. I, to the limit of what I could say to my caucus, told them, the intelligence does not support the imminent threat that this Administration is contending. Whether it’s on the subject of what’s happening in Iraq, whether it’s on the subject of techniques used by the intelligence community on those they are interrogating, every step of the way, the Administration was misleading the Congress.

And that is the issue. And that is why we need a truth commission.

And here’s Graham:

Yes, they’re obligated to tell the full Intelligence Committee, not just the leadership. This was the same time within the same week, in fact, that the CIA was submitting its National Intelligence Estimate on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which proves so erroneous that we went to war, have had thousands of persons killed and injured as a result of misinformation.

Now, it’s quite possible Graham and Pelosi are tying these two lies together just to remind reporters how unreliable the CIA is. Perhaps they’re doing it to remind reporters of how they got burned leading into the Iraq War, trusting the spin of the Administration.

But perhaps they’re trying to say there’s a direct connection, an explicit one, between the NIE and torture. We know Ibn Sheikh al-Libi’s claims appeared in there. Did anything that came out of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation? Or Ramzi bin al-Shibh?

Did CIA not reveal they were torturing detainees to dodge any question about the accuracy of claims about Iraq intelligence?

The proposal to waterboard Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi

Then there’s not just the revelation, by Charles Duelfer, but the timing he describes of OVP proposals to waterboard Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi, a Mukhabarat officer. Read more →

Interesting links

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