Leakgate Prosecutor, News Media Running Amok
Jim Kouri, CPP
November 21, 2005
There are reports -- reliable reports -- of Al-Qaeda members crossing the US-Mexican border. Sheriffs and congressmen are trying to alert the American people to narco-terrorist training camps operating within a few miles of the porous US border. The president of Iran is screeching on a daily basis about annihilating Jews and "Anglos" and thumbing his nose at anyone who suggests the Iranians stop developing nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, US and United Kingdom intelligence officials are complaining about large numbers of Chinese spies operating in America and Western Europe, while Chinese diplomats and military representatives are seducing political leaders in Latin America and building up relationships in the Western Hemisphere.
Russia is reportedly unable to verify the locations of a number of nuclear weapons and an unstable government in Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons that will fall into the hands of terrorists the moment that weak government crumbles. Hotels are bombed in Jordan. Somali terrorists attack American ocean liners. Muslims riot in France for almost three weeks. Political leaders with access to classified intelligence leak top secret information to reporters about secret CIA prisons holding some of the most dangerous and brutal men on the planet.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, a ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, admits on national television that he snitched out the US war plans to Syria, a nation on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, and yet there's no outcry for an investigation.
And what are the mainstream media covering? Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame-CIA leak case, saying he will continue the investigation with a new grand jury.
For instance, Saturday morning, news readers awoke to this lead in an Associated Press non-news story headlined "Aid Says: Rice Not Woodward's Source":
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was not the senior Bush administration official who told Washington Post editor Bob Woodward that White House critic Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, a Rice aide said Saturday.
"Secretary Rice wasn't Woodward's source," Rice senior adviser Jim Wilkinson said.
Rice was President Bush's White House national security adviser in June 2003, when Woodward says a highly placed official told him of Valerie Plame's CIA connection. Woodward has said the source was someone other than I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and the only person indicted in a federal probe of the leak case.
This is a news story? "Rice Was Not Woodward's Source?" It would be safe to assume others may now feel free to write articles headlined, "Bush's Hairstylist Not Woodward's Source." Or "John Kerry Denies He's Woodward's Source." Afterall, Plame's husband, Joe Wilson worked for the Kerry campaign until they discovered he was lying and they had to remove all traces of Wilson from the Kerry for President website.
This reminds me of the phony headlines I'd make up and send to friends in order to get their goat. For example, I'd write, "FBI Refuses to Investigate John Smith." Readers are left wondering: Why isn't the FBI investigating this man? What did he do? When did he do it? More importantly, who the hell is he? Maybe the FBI should investigate him. What's wrong with the FBI? Good thing my friends picked up on my practical joke or some of them might have telephoned the FBI, congressmen and senators and demanded an investigation of John Smith.
Mr. Fitzgerald's new grand jury reveals something most commentators dismiss: he's all the things the media said about Ken Starr -- the special prosecutor who bird-dogged Bill Clinton -- and then some. Here we have a case that most legal experts -- including the two government attorneys who wrote the statute regarding leaking CIA covert agents' identities -- say is a non-crime. What Fitzgerald is obviously trying to do is to indict more people on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Forget the bogus charge of leaking a covert agent's name to the media. That dog won't hunt anymore.
Fitzgerald's new grand jury will most likely involve the testimony from Bob Woodward that he had been told by a Bush administration official about Valerie Plame working for the CIA. And he says it wasn't Scooter Libby. Sadly, Woodward came forward days ago and only after he finished his book. He knew about Valerie Plame for almost two years, yet only came clean this past week. Just in time to participate in the Leakgate circus. And circus it is. The ringmaster is an angry prosecutor running amok.
Ms. Plame, a CIA operative, is married to Joseph Wilson, a has-been ambassador who accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify its case for war against Iraq. Mr. Wilson alleges his wife's secret identity was leaked to the press to retaliate against Wilson's grandstanding. Of course, this wasn't necessary since Wilson's reports were being picked apart by the few journalists who aren't stooges for the Democrat Party. Quite simply, Joe Wilson was outed as a liar. He even denied the fact that his wife recommended him for the Niger investigation, which was practically ignored by the news media when her memo recommending him for the gig mysteriously appeared.
A federal grand jury in Washington on October 28 indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Dick Cheney, the vice president, on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements during the investigation by Mr. Fitzgerald. The term of that grand jury has expired much to the dismay of the rabid left.
Mr. Fitzgerald intends to have a second bite of the apple with this new grand jury because he's angry. Angry that he has only now discovered he didn't have all the facts. Angry that he's not getting the fawning attention he expected from the elite media. Why should they fawn over him? He didn't deliver Karl Rove's head on a silver platter.
Washington is consumed with this ridiculous story. It's a comedy. Here we have an investigation into who leaked someone's identity with that someone subsequently posing with her disingenuous husband on the cover of Vanity Fair at the behest of an editor who's the wife of NBC's Tim Russert whom Libby claims was his source.
Russert claims he never talked to Libby about reporters having common knowledge of Valerie Plame being a CIA agent. However, NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, who assists the "Meet the Press" host, is seen and heard on a videotape saying on CNBC in October 2003, when asked about Plame, that it was "widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger." Asked recently on the Don Imus MSNBC program about this quote, she said that she had misspoken, but her comments seem to speak for themselves, according to Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media.
The irony during this whole story is that the journalists sound more like politicians and the politicians sound more like journalists. I misspoke? I guess Andrea Mitchell's original statement is -- to coin a term made famous by the Nixon Administration -- inoperable.
This is more evidence of the incestuous relationship that exists between the Democrats and the mainstream news media in Washington. If only we could have a special prosecutor to investigate that relationship. It would warm the cockles of my heart to watch the lying ladies and gentlemen of the press indicted for doing what they do on a regular basis -- lie.
Meanwhile, US and United Kingdom intelligence officials are complaining about large numbers of Chinese spies operating in America and Western Europe, while Chinese diplomats and military representatives are seducing political leaders in Latin America and building up relationships in the Western Hemisphere.
Russia is reportedly unable to verify the locations of a number of nuclear weapons and an unstable government in Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons that will fall into the hands of terrorists the moment that weak government crumbles. Hotels are bombed in Jordan. Somali terrorists attack American ocean liners. Muslims riot in France for almost three weeks. Political leaders with access to classified intelligence leak top secret information to reporters about secret CIA prisons holding some of the most dangerous and brutal men on the planet.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, a ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, admits on national television that he snitched out the US war plans to Syria, a nation on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, and yet there's no outcry for an investigation.
And what are the mainstream media covering? Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame-CIA leak case, saying he will continue the investigation with a new grand jury.
For instance, Saturday morning, news readers awoke to this lead in an Associated Press non-news story headlined "Aid Says: Rice Not Woodward's Source":
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was not the senior Bush administration official who told Washington Post editor Bob Woodward that White House critic Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, a Rice aide said Saturday.
"Secretary Rice wasn't Woodward's source," Rice senior adviser Jim Wilkinson said.
Rice was President Bush's White House national security adviser in June 2003, when Woodward says a highly placed official told him of Valerie Plame's CIA connection. Woodward has said the source was someone other than I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and the only person indicted in a federal probe of the leak case.
This is a news story? "Rice Was Not Woodward's Source?" It would be safe to assume others may now feel free to write articles headlined, "Bush's Hairstylist Not Woodward's Source." Or "John Kerry Denies He's Woodward's Source." Afterall, Plame's husband, Joe Wilson worked for the Kerry campaign until they discovered he was lying and they had to remove all traces of Wilson from the Kerry for President website.
This reminds me of the phony headlines I'd make up and send to friends in order to get their goat. For example, I'd write, "FBI Refuses to Investigate John Smith." Readers are left wondering: Why isn't the FBI investigating this man? What did he do? When did he do it? More importantly, who the hell is he? Maybe the FBI should investigate him. What's wrong with the FBI? Good thing my friends picked up on my practical joke or some of them might have telephoned the FBI, congressmen and senators and demanded an investigation of John Smith.
Mr. Fitzgerald's new grand jury reveals something most commentators dismiss: he's all the things the media said about Ken Starr -- the special prosecutor who bird-dogged Bill Clinton -- and then some. Here we have a case that most legal experts -- including the two government attorneys who wrote the statute regarding leaking CIA covert agents' identities -- say is a non-crime. What Fitzgerald is obviously trying to do is to indict more people on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Forget the bogus charge of leaking a covert agent's name to the media. That dog won't hunt anymore.
Fitzgerald's new grand jury will most likely involve the testimony from Bob Woodward that he had been told by a Bush administration official about Valerie Plame working for the CIA. And he says it wasn't Scooter Libby. Sadly, Woodward came forward days ago and only after he finished his book. He knew about Valerie Plame for almost two years, yet only came clean this past week. Just in time to participate in the Leakgate circus. And circus it is. The ringmaster is an angry prosecutor running amok.
Ms. Plame, a CIA operative, is married to Joseph Wilson, a has-been ambassador who accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify its case for war against Iraq. Mr. Wilson alleges his wife's secret identity was leaked to the press to retaliate against Wilson's grandstanding. Of course, this wasn't necessary since Wilson's reports were being picked apart by the few journalists who aren't stooges for the Democrat Party. Quite simply, Joe Wilson was outed as a liar. He even denied the fact that his wife recommended him for the Niger investigation, which was practically ignored by the news media when her memo recommending him for the gig mysteriously appeared.
A federal grand jury in Washington on October 28 indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Dick Cheney, the vice president, on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements during the investigation by Mr. Fitzgerald. The term of that grand jury has expired much to the dismay of the rabid left.
Mr. Fitzgerald intends to have a second bite of the apple with this new grand jury because he's angry. Angry that he has only now discovered he didn't have all the facts. Angry that he's not getting the fawning attention he expected from the elite media. Why should they fawn over him? He didn't deliver Karl Rove's head on a silver platter.
Washington is consumed with this ridiculous story. It's a comedy. Here we have an investigation into who leaked someone's identity with that someone subsequently posing with her disingenuous husband on the cover of Vanity Fair at the behest of an editor who's the wife of NBC's Tim Russert whom Libby claims was his source.
Russert claims he never talked to Libby about reporters having common knowledge of Valerie Plame being a CIA agent. However, NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, who assists the "Meet the Press" host, is seen and heard on a videotape saying on CNBC in October 2003, when asked about Plame, that it was "widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger." Asked recently on the Don Imus MSNBC program about this quote, she said that she had misspoken, but her comments seem to speak for themselves, according to Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media.
The irony during this whole story is that the journalists sound more like politicians and the politicians sound more like journalists. I misspoke? I guess Andrea Mitchell's original statement is -- to coin a term made famous by the Nixon Administration -- inoperable.
This is more evidence of the incestuous relationship that exists between the Democrats and the mainstream news media in Washington. If only we could have a special prosecutor to investigate that relationship. It would warm the cockles of my heart to watch the lying ladies and gentlemen of the press indicted for doing what they do on a regular basis -- lie.
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