Posts

DOJ’s Attempt to Shield Obstruction of Justice

/54 Comments/in /by

I agree with bmaz. This letter from DOJ refusing to turn over the Bush and Cheney interview reports is a load of crap (h/t WO, who’s doing all the heavy lifting today). I’ve gotta go to a meeting, so check back later for (I hope) some real smack-down of DOJ’s crap. But here are the key passages.

In seeking to accommodate the Committee’s requests, however, we must take into account core Executive Branch confidentiality interests and fundamental separation of powers principles, and we must avoid taking steps that could compromise the effectiveness of future criminal investigations involving White House personnel. Consequently, as we have informed the Committee, we are not prepared to provide or make available any reports of interviews with the President or the Vice President fiom the leak investigation. To do so would allow Congress to obtain through access to Justice Department investigative files information that it otherwise could not gather through its own inquiry because of separation of powers.

Your various letters on this matter have explained that the Committee’s legislative purpose for its inquiry concerns the review of White House procedures for handling classified information. We have attempted to accommodate this interest by permitting the Committee to review the reports of interviews of senior White House staff, which contain some information relevant to this subject. However, these reports also contain considerable information detailing the internal White House deliberations and communications of senior White House staff concerning how they should respond on behalf of the President to public assertions challenging the accuracy of a statement made in the President’s State of the Union Address. The Executive Branch has important institutional interests in the confidentiality of such White House deliberations and communications, and we therefore accommodated the Committee’s interests by making interview reports of senior White House staff available for review but not copying, with limited redactions of presidential and vice presidential communications and personal information not germane to the leak investigation.

We are not prepared to make the same accommodation for reports of interviews with the President and Vice President because the confidentiality interests relating to those documents are of a greater constitutional magnitude. The President and the Vice President are the two nationally elected constitutional officers under our Government. Read more →

Fitzgerald’s Successful Argument to Keep the Bush and Cheney Reports Out of Discovery

/16 Comments/in /by

Back in the discovery period leading up to Scooter Libby’s trial, Ted Wells made a valiant attempt–based on Fitzgerald’s notice that he was going to include reference to the insta-declassification of the NIE–to get Bush and Cheney’s interview reports in discovery. But, as far as I can tell from the available record, Wells failed. Fitzgerald argued that, so long as he was willing to stipulate that the leak of the NIE on July 8 was not illegal, then any discovery of the Bush and Cheney reports would count as Jencks, and therefore he would only be obligated to turn them over if the government called Bush or Cheney to testify.

Given the fact that Mukasey appears to have claimed he can’t reveal the reports for some crazy reason, I thought I’d lay out this argument. Nowhere does Fitzgerald explain that he couldn’t turn over the reports–only that he doesn’t think he has to, unless Judge Walton orders him to do so.

MR. WELLS: Your Honor, with respect to the issue of the NIE, as Your Honor knows, Mr. Libby testified that he had discussions with Ms. Miller concerning the NIE based on expressed instructions from the vice president and with the understanding that President Bush had declassified the document. This is a case that concerns unauthorized disclosure of classified material. To the extent that Mr. Fitzgerald is in possession of documents or grand jury material or interviews that establish that, in fact, the vice president and the president were aware that those documents had been declassified, he should turn them over because I do not want to be in a position during this trial that there is some question that Mr. Libby, in disclosing that material to Ms. Miller, did anything wrong.

THE COURT: But the government is not alleging any violation of the law regarding that.

[snip]

THE COURT: You are not challenging whether there was a declassification of that information at the time it was produced?

MR. FITZGERALD: We’re not challenging the declassification authority as of July 8. What he is asking now is Jencks. And that’s what we kept writing in our briefs, we don’t turn over Jencks material before trial. Now we’re asking for grand jury testimony. It is not an issue. The NIE is not mentioned in the indictment. Read more →

The Barnacle Branch Still Evading Oversight

/44 Comments/in , /by

I’ll have several things to say about Sy Hersh’s latest. For the moment, though, I just wanted to lay out his central argument: that Dick Cheney is abusing the structure of command and Congressional oversight to launch a covert campaign against Iran.

Hersh reports that President Bush signed a Finding authorizing broad actions against Iran. Here’s how Andrew Cockburn described the finding, in a piece cited by Hersh:

Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, "unprecedented in its scope."

Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.

Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or "army of god," the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan – just across the Afghan border — whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother in law’s throat.

Other elements that will benefit from U.S. largesse and advice include Iranian Kurdish nationalists, as well the Ahwazi arabs of south west Iran. Further afield, operations against Iran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon will be stepped up, along with efforts to destabilize the Syrian regime.

The fans of regime change have managed to implement such a plan while evading oversight in a couple of ways. First, the hawks pushed out Admiral William Fallon on March 11 rather than reading him in on some of the stuff they were doing with Specials Ops forces in the Middle East.

Fallon’s early retirement, however, appears to have been provoked not only by his negative comments about bombing Iran but also by his strong belief in the chain of command and his insistence on being informed about Special Operations in his area of responsibility.

[snip]

“He was charged with coming up with an over-all coherent strategy for Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and, by law, the combatant commander is responsible for all military operations within his A.O.”—area of operations. “That was not happening,” [Marine General Jack] Sheehan said. Read more →

Are Cheney and Bush in a Lover’s Quarrel?

/76 Comments/in /by

Via TP, the Telegraph reports that Cheney’s in a snit over North Korea being taken off the Axis of Evil list.

Vice President Dick Cheney fought furiously to block efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to strike a controversial US compromise deal with North Korea over the communist state’s nuclear programme, the Telegraph has learned.

"The exchanges between Cheney’s office and Rice’s people at State got very testy. But ultimately Condi had the President’s ear and persuaded him that his legacy would be stronger if they reached a deal with Pyongyang," said a Pentagon adviser who was briefed on the battle.

Mr Cheney’s office is believed to have played a key role in the release two months ago of documents and photographs linking North Korea to a suspected nuclear site in Syria that was bombed by Israeli jets last year.

[snip]

Mr Cheney was so angry about the decision to remove North Korea from the terrorism blacklist and lift some sanctions that he abruptly curtailed a meeting with visiting US foreign experts when asked about it in the White House last week, according to the New York Times "I’m not going to be the one to announce this decision. You need to address your interest in this to the State Department," he reportedly said before leaving the room.

I’m not surprised that Cheney’s pissed, mind you. One of the reasons he planted John Bolton at State, after all, was to scuttle any attempts at diplomacy with North Korea. Rather, I’m interested that Condi, not Dick, won this battle to influence the President. While Bush has allowed Condi some leeway in the Middle East, he has not backed Condi’s diplomacy over Dick’s belligerence on such a big issue thus far (though, you might consider the fact that we haven’t nuked Iran yet to be a sign of Condi’s influence).

It made me think of two details about Addington’s testimony the other day. Read more →

Scott McClellan Testimony: Rove Is a Liar and Cheney an Oil-Hungry War-Monger

/30 Comments/in /by

picture-27.png

I confess to being underwhelmed with the work HJC did with Scott McClellan’s appearance before the committee today. I’ll do a post later (once I’ve recovered from a terrible day for Democracy) on what I think was missed. But I’ll start with the positive–what I consider the highlights of the hearing.

Conyers started the hearing right, IMO, by introducing the meat-grinder note, showing that as Cheney was pressuring Bush to have Libby exonerated, Cheney was thinking of Bush’s order that Libby "put his neck in the meat-grinder." Conyers also made the case–which I made here–that Mukasey should turn over the reports from the Bush and Cheney interviews (doing anything else is really cooperating the ongoing attempts to cover-up the Libby case). Of course, HJC could have made a more compelling case that it needs the reports had they don’t a better job of explaining why the reports would be the only way to answer urgent questions about the leaks. But, aside from Chairman Conyers, no one on the committee made a concerted effort to present the abundant evidence that Cheney and Bush were involved in the leak of Plame’s identity. For example, when Jerrold Nadler asked McClellan whether Bush and Cheney had any knowledge of Libby’s involvement in the leak, he didn’t introduce that evidence that Cheney, at least, did, and Bush may have as well.

NADLER: Do you know when the president gave instruction to cover Libby’s rear end, did he know about Libby’s involvement? Scott didn’t know that.

Perhaps the best use of the hearing time came from (unsurprisingly–he usually excels in hearings) Artur Davis. Davis, who is from Don Siegelman’s state, got McClellan to admit that Rove not only would–but has–lied to protect himself from legal jeopardy and political embarrassment.

Artur Davis Let me circle around a person, Rove. You stated Rove encouraged you to repeat a lie. Indicated you’ve known him for some time. Committee extended invitation to Rove. I’m willing to talk, only if no oath, no cameras, no notes. Based on what you know does it surprise you that Rove wants limitations on circumstances.

SM An effort to stonewall the whole process.

Davis Would you trust Rove to tell the truth if not under oath.

SM Can’t say I would

Davis Not under oath.

SM I would hope he would. I’d have concerns about that.

Davis Did testify before GJ under oath. You don’t believe he told the complete truth to the GJ.

SM I don’t know.

Davis Karl only concerned about protecting himself from possible legal action. Do you believe he is capable of lying to protect himself from legal jeopardy.

SM He certainly lied to me.

Davis Do you believe he is capable of lying to protect himself from political embarrassment.

SM he did in my situation, so the answer is yes. [my emphasis]

Read more →

A Response to Dean: The Failure, So Far, Has Been Congress’

/155 Comments/in /by

John Dean thinks Patrick Fitzgerald may have gone soft on the White House.

If McClellan’s testimony suggests that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, for any reason, gave Karl Rove and Dick Cheney a pass when, in fact, there was a conspiracy – which is still ongoing – to obstruct justice, then these hearings could trigger the reopening of the case. But this is a pretty large “If.”

[snip]

As experienced a prosecutor as Fitzgerald is, he was playing in a very different league when investigating the Bush White House. These folks make Nixon’s White House look like Little Leaguers – and based on what is known about the Plame investigation, I have long suspected that Fitzgerald was playing out of his league. (See, for example, here and here.)

I would counter Dean and suggest it was not Fitzgerald, but Congress, which dropped the ball.

Dean suggests that we don’t know what Fitzgerald found.

Yet since no one knows what Fitzgerald learned, except those who cannot speak of what they know, it is not possible to determine whether he might have been outfoxed by the White House.

Um, not quite. While it is true we don’t know the contents of Rove’s grand jury appearances nor those of many other key players, we do know quite a bit beyond the details surrounding Libby’s narrow perjury charge. With the caveat that some of the following can only be supported with circumstantial evidence, here’s what we do know:

  • Dick Cheney declassified Valerie Wilson’s identity (either with Bush’s implicit or explicit approval) and told Libby to leak it to Judy Miller. He may have instructed Libby to leak details about her name and status to Novak during his July 9 conversation as well. But since he declassified Valerie’s identity, the legal status of that leak is–at best–unclear. After that leak, those in the White House who knew about it operated as if it was a legal leak of non-classified information.
  • The stories of Rove, Armitage, Novak, and Libby have significant discrepancies, meaning (in spite of what the Administration’s backers claim) we don’t yet have an adequate explanation for the leak to Novak. Probably, some of Rove’s testimony was perjurious, but there is no credible witness to that fact (since Armitage was himself either lying or a terrible witness), so it would be difficult to charge. Read more →

Scottie and Condi and the Niger Intelligence

/29 Comments/in /by

My posts on Scottie McC’s book have, thus far, treated issues closely connected to the CIA Leak investigation (well, except for the post in which he calls cracking down on deadbeat dads "trivial").

In this post, I want to look at how he deals with the underlying issue–the Niger intelligence and the White House’s response to it. I find his treatment particularly curious. As many of you have pointed out, Scottie McC is fairly critical of Condi Rice.

Over time, I was struck by how deft she is at protecting her reputation. No matter what went wrong, she was somehow able to keep her hands clean, even when the problems related to matters under her direct purview, including the WMD rationale for war in Iraq, the decision to invade Iraq, the sixteen words in the State of the Union address, and postwar planning and implementation of the strategy of Iraq.

But his book, in some key ways, helps her protect her reputation. Now, most of this is–I think–ignorance on the part of Scottie McC, not any attempt to put Condi in a good light. Nevertheless, it is rather telling that he seems to be unaware of some of the key roles that Condi played in precisely these intelligence issues. Which is another way of saying he really misses some of the tensions between NSC and CIA the week of the leak–and therefore some of the underlying skirmishes that contributed to Plame’s outing.

For this post, I’m going to do a timeline–both of the events he covers, and the events he misses.

June 8, 2003: Condi gets beat up by George Stephanopoulos

Scottie McC does not mention this appearance at all, gliding directly from Kristof’s column to Pincus’, and ignoring Condi’s appearance as the decisive factor in leading Joe Wilson to publish his op-ed and, apparently, in getting Bush to tell Libby he was interested in the Kristof allegations:

In early June, while making inquiries about what Kristof wrote, Pincus had contacted Cathie Martin, who oversaw the vice president’s communications office. Martin went to Scooter Libby to discuss what Pincus was sniffing around about. The vice president and Libby were quietly stepping up their efforts to counter the allegations of the anonymous envoy to Niger, and Pincus’s story was one opportunity for them to do just that.

[snip]

In this atmosphere of growing controversy–and with no WMD in sight anywhere in Iraq–Kristof’s anonymous source, Joe Wilson, decided to go public.

Read more →

The Missing Emails and the OVP Coverup

/47 Comments/in /by

mcc-gaggle-email.jpg

The only email introduced at the Scooter Libby trial that was among those that had been lost in the White House email purge loss was an email from Jenny Mayfield (Libby’s Assistant) to Cathie Martin highlighting the part of the October 1 gaggle where Scottie McC refused to exonerate Libby. (You can tell it was reconstructed because it was printed out on February 2, 2006, just days before Fitzgerald received the batch of reconstructed emails; also note it was printed out from David Addington’s account, not Mayfield or Martin’s–both were gone at that point.)

Fitzgerald introduced the email at the trial to prove that Libby had reason to lie in his FBI interviews and, later, his grand jury appearances. Fitzgerald argued that the gaggle transcript, along with other pieces of evidence introduced, showed that Libby was panicking about being a suspect in the Plame leak. Fitzgerald also introduced the October 12, 2003 version of the 1X2X6 article on which someone (presumably Libby) had underlined key passages, including a denial similar to one that had appeared in the Isikoff and Thomas article published on October 6 (though dated October 13). Fitzgerald also entered an October 4, 2003 Pincus and Allen article into evidence, one that had no underlines and–unlike three other Allen articles from that period, no mention of Libby. But it did note that, "FBI agents yesterday began attempts to interview journalists who may have had conversations with government sources about Plame and Wilson."

The defense introduced some of the articles from this period too: An October 27 NRO column, with notations (it’s not clear how this was printed out, but shows as pages 35 and 36 of a packet); an October 1 WSJ editorial, with markings (note, it’s not clear when this was printed out or where); and an October 1 email from Laura Mylroie to Jenny Mayfield sharing Clifford May’s October 1 column, with no markings (printed out October 1, which is presumably why it wasn’t lost). Read more →

Phase II Report Working Thread

/118 Comments/in /by

The SSCI has released (finally) the remaining reports on Iraq intelligence. I’m printing them out and beginning to read. If you want to read, too, use this thread to talk about what you’ve found.

(Update: Go here for text files–thanks tw3k). For a background, here’s McClatchy.

Did Condi Speak with Bush about Rove’s So-Called Innocence? Or about the NIE?

/132 Comments/in /by

I wanted to add one detail to my earlier post about Waxman asking for more materials from Mukasey. They imply that Condi had a conversation with Bush or Cheney about Rove and/or Libby’s so-called innocence.

Waxman’s letter asks for the following:

I am writing now to renew the Committee’s request for the interview reports with President Bush and Vice President Cheney and to request unredacted versions of the interviews with Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Scott McClellan, and Cathie Martin. I also request that the Department provide all other responsive documents that were approved for release to the Committee by Mr. Fitzgerald.

[snip]

I therefore urge you to follow Justice Department precedents and provide the records of the FBI interviews with President Bush and Vice President Cheney to the Committee by June 10. I also ask that you provide to the Committee, at the same time, the unredacted interviews with Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Scott McClellan, and Cathie Martin, as well as the other responsive records requested by the Committee.

In other words, his letter written specifically in response to Scottie McC’s revelations asks for unredacted copies of Scottie’s interview, but also Rove’s, Libby’s, Condi’s, and Cathie Martin’s interviews. Mind you, Waxman has seen redacted copies of these, but Scottie’s revelations lead him to demand unredacted interview reports.

Waxman tells us what is redacted in Scottie’s interview report.

In his FBI interview, Mr. McClellan told the FBI about discussions he had with the President and the Vice President. These passages, however, were redacted from the copies made available to the Committee.

And he implies that that’s what was redacted from the other interviews, as well.

Similar passages were also redacted from other interviews.

There are no sound reasons for you to withhold the interviews with the President and the Vice President from the Committee or to redact passages like Mr. McClellan’s discussions with the President and the Vice President.

From which we might conclude that those redacted passages in the Rove, Libby, Cathie Martin, and Condi interview reports are, at the very least, about conversations with Bush or Cheney, and possibly, discussions specifically about the exoneration of Rove and Libby.

We know Rove could have testified about this–Scottie McC’s book tells us that Rove told Bush directly that he was "innocent." Similarly, we know that Libby had such conversations with Cheney–in fact, passages describing those conversations appear, totally unredacted, in the grand jury testimony.

Read more →