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Cheney Interview: Pay2PlayPo Losing Its Ability to Report, Too

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picture-113.pngThe 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.

gx53201-libby-sonnet.thumbnail.jpgNow, 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.

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Wilson Suit Denied Cert

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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.

Fitzgerald Subpoenas and Server Crashes

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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.

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Dear W,

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I’m still angry that you did not pardon Scooter. "I don’t think was appropriate," for you to have ordered Libby–on the morning of June 9, 2003, to respond to Joe Wilson’s assertions about our case for war against Iraq, and to have told me it was okay to "get the whole story out," just before Scooter tried to launder this through Judy Miller on July 8, 2003 and then Novak on July 9, 2003, only to let him take the fall for you when Patrick Fitzgerald started investigating who leaked Valerie Wilson’s name.

You asked Scooter to "stick his neck in the meat-grinder" to rebut Joe Wilson’s criticisms, and now you have "in effect left Scooter hanging in the wind" for something you ordered.

Let this be a warning to you. I consider this fair game [oh wait–that’s Rove’s word] for my memoir, which I’m currently shopping.

Love,

Dick

NOW Can We Dismiss the Notion that Toensing Is Independent?

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Toensing

As TPM has reported (and a number of you have emailed) Scooter Libby’s press flack, Barbara Comstock, is running for office. Honestly, given the Democratic tilt of Virginia of late, I had been inclined to keep just half an eye on Comstock. After all, so long as she looks likely to lose, why give her any attention?

But news like this makes me rethink that. After all, what better way to undercut Comstock’s network of purportedly independent resources than to establish that they were on the host committee for Comstock’s earliest fund-raisers?

A who’s who of conservative women showed up at the home of Mildred Webber to register their support. Among them: the Ashcroft Group’s Juleanna Glover, National Review’s Kate O’Bierne and former Homeland Security official Fran Townsend.

Also on the host committee: Victoria Toensing, Jeri Thompson, Cathy Gillespie, Maria Cino and Kellyanne Conway.

Now, I know that there has been no doubt since the Clinton wars that Toensing is a Republican hack. But Toensing was able to attempt jury nullification with articles like this during the Libby trial, all under the claim that she was an independent entity.

And here we come to "find out" she’s one of Comstock’s closest buddies.

The Only Picture on Dick’s Wall

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picture-81.thumbnail.png

I hate to keep harping on Politico’s blowjob for Cheney. But I’ve been obsessing all morning by this picture accompanying the story, showing the sole picture hanging on the wall of Cheney’s office (click to enlarge; the other Politico pictures show a lot of family pictures on furniture, but this appears to be the only one on the wall).

How odd, first of all, that an article trying to redeem the Bush-Cheney failed presidency gives pride of place to an earlier historically unpopular President, Gerald Ford. And how odd that this picture accompanies this statement–highlighted by Peterr. 

Not content to wait for a historical verdict, Cheney said he is set to plunge into his own memoirs, feeling liberated to describe behind-the-scenes roles over several decades in government now that the “statute of limitations has expired” on many of the most sensitive episodes. [my empahsis]

See, I’m interested in Cheney’s focus on statute of limitations and on that picture for several different reasons.

Cheney talks about statutes of limitations going back decades. But of course, the ones that would be expiring now would be those for crimes he committed (he seems to be admitting) during the Bush Administration–those crimes committed about five years ago, in many cases.

A number of smart lawyers have been reminding me via email of late that, while the statute of limitations on things like FISA violations may be expiring in the coming weeks, the statute of limitations on any conspiracy to cover up those crimes would not expire until the conspiracy to cover-up those crimes was over. 

Except.

Except that that is only true for as long as Bush and Cheney tried to hide their crimes from law enforcement. You know–from people over at DOJ like Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft. If, for example, Cheney ordered the future AG to go to then-current AG John Ashcroft and tell him they were going to violate FISA even though Jim Comey told them not to, then they couldn’t very well be accused of covering up the crime from DOJ, could they? Keeping DOJ in the loop at each stage of the process seems to innoculate the White House–to some degree–from this kind of cover-up charge.

Maybe the smart lawyers can explain in comments how this works. Read more →

Crappy Record-Keeping: A Feature, Not a Bug

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Catalog of records the Bush Administration kept in such disorganized fashion that no one could reconstruct WTF BushCo had been doing on that subject:

(What am I missing?)

You see, historically, authoritarians usually happen to be superb record-keepers. That has been their undoing, once historians got to them. One thing the Bush fuckers got right (from their perspective, mind you) was to avoid leaving usable records.

Dick Still Complaining that His Beloved Firewall Didn't Get Pardoned

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Apparently, Dick Cheney doesn’t believe the little scold he sent Bush through Michael Isikoff the other day was sufficiently shrill. He’s out again today, explicitly criticizing Bush for not pardoning his little Scooter.

h/t mikepellegrini

h/t mikepellegrini

George Bush should have pardoned I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney said after stepping down as vice president this week.

"He was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, and I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon. Obviously, I disagree with President Bush’s decision," Cheney told Stephen F. Hayes of the Weekly Standard, a leading conservative Washington magazine.

[snip]

Hayes said that Cheney had publicly disagreed with Bush only four times in the eight years of the Bush administration.

They were only out of office for a day before the fifth disagreement surfaced.

I wonder whether Cheney is worried that his firewall might not hold tight as Libby faces the rest of his life as a felon? Or perhaps Dick is just aghast that Bush–who after all asked Libby to stick his neck in a meat grinder–didn’t return the favor by sacrificing a little of his scarce posterity to thank Libby for his work protecting Bush?

In any case, I do hope Cheney’s mood about Bush remains contentious and sour. There is little I’d like more than to see Bush and Cheney take each other out during their retirement.

Bush Opts for Continued Protection Over Payback

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When Cheney’s people wanted to shore up the cover story for Dick Cheney’s involvement in leaking Valerie Plame’s identity, they went to Michael Isikoff. So I guess it’s not surprising that Isikoff would be the outlet for conservative fury over the news that Bush did not pardon Scooter Libby.

In a move that has keenly disappointed some of his strongest conservative allies, President Bush has decided not to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case, two White House officials said Monday.

[snip]

But the decision not to pardon Libby stunned some longtime Bush backers who had been quietly making the case for the former vice presidential aide in recent weeks. A number of Libby’s allies had raised the issue with White House officials, arguing that as a loyal aide who played a key role in shaping Bush’s foreign policy during the president’s first term, including the decision to invade Iraq, Libby deserved to have the stain of his felony conviction erased from the record. In the only public sign of the lobbying campaign, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial strongly urging Libby’s pardon.

"I’m flabbergasted," said one influential Republican activist, who had raised the issue with White House aides, but who asked not to be identified criticizing the president. Ambassador Richard Carlson, the vice chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a neo-conservative think tank, added that he too was "shocked" at Bush’s denial of a pardon for Libby.

"George Bush has always prided himself on doing the right thing regardless of the polls or the pundits," Carlson said. "Now he is leaving office with a shameful cloud over his head." Carlson, who was among those who recently weighed in on behalf of Libby with the White House and previously raised money for his legal defense fund, said that Libby had taken a "knife in the heart" from critics of the president and deserved to have his conviction erased.

Apparently, none of these conservative wailers understand that pardoning Libby would negate Libby’s ability to invoke the Fifth Amendment if, say, John Conyers ever held a hearing on George Bush’s role in leaking Valerie Plame’s identity. And so Scooter Libby will remain a felon–at least until the time when another Republican lands in the White House and pardons him.

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BushCo: You Can't Have Scooter's and Turdblossom's Emails…

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…and the Court can’t make us give them to you, either (h/t mc).

The Bush administration is aggressively pushing back against a federal court order instructing the most important offices in the White House to preserve all of their e-mail.

In court papers late Friday, the administration argued that a federal court has no authority to impose such a requirement on the offices of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the National Security Council. The administration argued that none of the court’s orders can apply to parts of the White House subject to the Presidential Records Act.

The issue arose Wednesday after U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. directed the White House to issue a notice to all employees to surrender any e-mails from March 2003 to October 2005. Justice Department lawyers argued that the order applied only to White House offices subject to the Federal Records Act, prompting a quick response from U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola. Facciola said that all White House offices must be searched for e-mail. [my emphasis]

We’re seriously in run-out-the-clock time here. BushCo is effectively sticking its fingers in its ears and singing "lalalala-you-can’t-make-me" and assuming Justice Kennedy will either back them up–or not get around to making them–before Tuesday. 

Update: Here’s the appeal. There’s a lot worth reading in it. But for now, you will be amused to know that they’re relying on what might politely be called the "Poppy precedent."

The bounds of the Court’s jurisdiction are restricted, too, by the limitations on review of the recordkeeping practices of components governed by the PRA. The PRA accords the components governed by the PRA “virtually complete control” over their records, and “neither the Archivist, nor the Congress has the authority to veto” the EOP PRA component’s disposal decisions, nor may the courts. Armstrong v. Bush, 924 F.2d 282, 290 (D.C. Cir. 1991).

I’m sure they weren’t planning on making this Poppy precedent their last defense when they deleted all of Scooter’s and Turdblossom’s emails in 2005. Honest.

Two more documents. This statement, which explains where they’re complying. And this declaration from Stephen Everett, the CIO of EOP, explaining that statement.

Update: What BushCo appears to be doing is to retreating to an approch they tried earlier in this case: to argue exclusively with the CREW arguments, which are more limited, and not the NSA arguments. Read more →