The Libby Trial: A Farce and An Outrage

[maineman]

testy today. again, try decaf or try sticking pins in your GWB doll

again...try swallowing the barrel...it would reduce the misery for both of us.

 

[red states rule]

again...try swallowing the barrel...it would reduce the misery for both of us.

Na, you libs are the experts at swallowing

Monica gave great lessons and gave us Bills legacy at the same time

 

[insein]

no... much different. the fact is civil contempt is not a crime...it is not criminal... it is "civil".... do you understand the difference? or are you just being intentionally obtuse as a debating ploy?

Clinton lied under oath in a case where he was being accused of sexual harrasment including unwanted sexual advances on a person that was pushed to the point of physical harm. An alleged crime had been committed.

What is libby being accused of? Outing Valerie Plame? ITs been proven he didnt since Armitage was the one that Admitted outing Plame who wasn't really under cover. So libby, who wasnt accused of a crime, and in a case where its been proven now that no crime has occured is going to goto prison for slipping up once on a question that he had answered 3000 times in a matter of 2 years.

So with that line of logic for some of you, we can arrest anyone with any made up charges we want. We can then question a person for as long as we want on said charges. Then if they answer slightly different in one instance, we can charge the person with perjury. Thats where we are headed as a legal system according to some of you?

 

[red states rule]

Clinton lied under oath in a case where he was being accused of sexual harrasment including unwanted sexual advances on a person that was pushed to the point of physical harm. An alleged crime had been committed.

What is libby being accused of? Outing Valerie Plame? ITs been proven he didnt since Armitage was the one that Admitted outing Plame who wasn't really under cover. So libby, who wasnt accused of a crime, and in a case where its been proven now that no crime has occured is going to goto prison for slipping up once on a question that he had answered 3000 times in a matter of 2 years.

So with that line of logic for some of you, we can arrest anyone with any made up charges we want. We can then question a person for as long as we want on said charges. Then if they answer slightly different in one instance, we can charge the person with perjury. Thats where we are headed as a legal system according to some of you?

Remember the Clinton thought process:

He was never alone with Monica - there were other people in the White House

it depends on what your definition of "is" is

 

[boedicca]

Q) How many Interns does it take to satisfy Bill Clinton?

A) It takes A Village.

 

[insein]

Remember the Clinton thought process:

He was never alone with Monica - there were other people in the White House

it depends on what your definition of "is" is

And truthfully, the republicans did screw up in that situation. All the shit clinton did, they had to go after him for that. Come on. Whitewater. Selling secrets to China and nukes to North Korea. All the stuff they could have done to nail him and they went after the sex scandal. It was a mistake on republicans parts. They could have bent him over and passed anything they wanted to in the 90's. Instead they wasted time on that. All politics.

 

[red states rule]

Q) How many Interns does it take to satisfy Bill Clinton?

A) It takes A Village.

A little boy wanted $100 very badly, so he prayed every night for two weeks but nothing happened.
Then he decided he would just write the Lord a letter and ask him directly for the $100.
When the post office received the letter addressed to "GOD, U.S.A.," they decided to forward it to President Clinton. The President was so touched and impressed with the boy's nerve that he showed it to Hillary. She said, "This could be good P.R., Bill. Go ahead and send the kid some money." The President told his secretary to send the boy $5.00. He thought this would seem like a lot of money to the little boy.
The little boy was delighted with the $5.00 and sat right down to write a thank you letter to God. It read as follows:
Dear God,
Thank you for sending me the money I rquested. However, I see you send the money through Washington, D.C. and, as usual, that bastard Clinton took 95% of it.

 

[red states rule]

Back to the topic............


February 10, 2007
Libby Trial:The NBC Connection
By Clarice Feldman


The prosecution has rested in the Libby Trial, and like a fish left out in warm weather, a strange and unpleasant odor is becoming more and more apparent as the sun shines on case. NBC News, which has recently taken a turn to the left, plays a particularly prominent role in the prosecution's case. Yet Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is fighting hard to make sure reporter Andrea Mitchell's testimony is not heard, and is asking the jury to buy some highly implausible notions about a key FBI interview with NBC's Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert.

Gagging Mitchell


The prosecution is still trying hard to keep Andrea Mitchell from being called as a defense witness. In a pleading Friday, the defense is trying just as hard to get court permission to call her. The prosecution argues that the defense cannot call a witness just to impeach her, and the defense says that is not their only reason to call her, that she has other evidence to provide, and that a fair trial cannot be had without her being called and questioned by the defense.


In the period leading up to the disclosure of her status in the Novak case, Mitchell published a series of leaks (clearly from Department of State sources and just as clearly part of the CIA-State Department interagency war) aimed at the CIA's intelligence gathering. Among the interesting points in her stories:
- On July 14, 2003, just as Novak's article hit the newsstands, Mitchell made clear she was having a spat with Armitage (the first to leak), indicating the he wasn't returning her phone calls any longer and that he had chosen an appearance on Fox instead of NBC.


- On October 3, 2003, the very day that Armitage made his secret admission to the FBI that he was Novak's source, Andrea Mitchell publicly said that everyone knew about Plame, something she twice has tried unpersuasively to minimize once NBC became involved in this case and the knowledge of her boss, Tim Russert, became an issue.
(You would be hard pressed to find many regular Plame obsessives at Just One Minute who do not believe that Armitage leaked some details of the story to Mitchell as he did with Woodward and Novak.)


The prosecution has offered up a representation by NBC counsel in effect saying that Mitchell has no evidence to offer the Court-that she did not know Plame's identity before July 14, 2003 and never conveyed that information to Russert.


Aside from the fact that it seems ridiculous to regard this offer as the equivalent of the opportunity to confront Mitchell in court, we must remember that this representation is being made by NBC counsel, which had previously submitted a misleading and false affidavit from Russert, hiding his cooperation with the FBI, to Judge Hogan's court when the issue of reporter privilege came up. The same prosecutor now proclaiming Mitchell has nothing to add knew the Russert affidavit was false and did nothing to correct the record in that case.


I do not see how the trial court can deny the defense motion to call Andrea Mitchell as its witness.


The Eckenrode telephone interview


But the really eyebrow-raising aspect of NBC's and Russert's behavior seems to have whizzed right past the heads of most media observers: At the heart of the Russert testimony is an implausible scenario which suggests improprieties in obtaining his testimony and which raise questions about its veracity


Prior to Russert's appearance, the defense had sought all evidence relating to the accommodations the prosecution had made to obtain Russert's testimony. In the "Government's Memorandum in Opposition to Defendant's Request for Disclosure of Information Related to Accommodations Provided to Media Witness Tim Russert," Fitzgerald responded
"[FBI] notes taken during this interview [with Russert] have not been located, despite a diligent search."
This was a tiny detail many overlooked.


On the stand, Russert told a story so intrinsically implausible I had to review it twice before writing about it.


According to him, he was home on a Sunday when a man called and said that he was FBI agent Eckenrode, that he'd met Russert earlier when his church group had toured the NBC Washington headquarters. The man who identified himself as the agent then related to Russert what Libby had told the FBI about a conversation the two men had had on July 10 or 11 of that year. Russert said he gave his recollection of the statements to the man who'd identified himself as Eckenrode.


Defense counsel read to Russert Eckenrode's later written summary of the conversation - which suggested that Russert has been far less positive that he hadn't told Libby anything related to Wilson's wife. Russert claimed on the stand that he didn't recall the conversation as the summary described it. But, as the original notes by Eckenrode which contain more necessary detail "have not been located, despite a diligent search" not much more could be done to refresh Russert's recollection of that conversation.


Make no mistake: this Eckenrode conversation is at the very heart of the prosecution's Rube Goldberg case. For it is Libby's statement that he'd forgotten that Wilson's wife worked in counter proliferation and that something Russert said (in that conversation he initiated to complain of NBC's coverage of the Wilson flap) reminded him of it, which constitutes the basis of the perjury charge.


How likely is it that these Eckenrode notes (there is some indication that there were 2 conversations, not 1 between Eckenrode and Russert, but Russert recalls only one) of the Russert exchange(s) just vanished? Not very likely I think.


Anyone working in a disciplined law enforcement agency on a major case like this one surely keeps the original copies of such materials in a trial evidence file. Anyone working on a case like this makes numerous working copies of the evidence and never touches the originals until time to prepare for trial. We are thus to believe that someone took or misplaced the original and no copies exist.


JOM commenter Azagahl says
I think it is naive to assume that Eckenrode was alone when he made the call to Russert. The Russert interview would have been equally important as the Libby interviews, and would have been tightly scripted--what to say, what to ask, what to avoid, etc., would all have been scripted during extensive discussions between agents and attorneys. I mean, do you really think Fitz whoever was supervising the investigation in the fall of 2003 told Eckenrode, hey Jack, sometime between now and when we close up shop give Russert a buzz and see whether he wants to talk about whatever? Eckenrode assuredly is not the only one who knows what Russert said because, even if the other person(s) present didn't catch everything that was said, there would have been lengthy rehashes immediately after the call terminated and probably contemporaneous note taking while he spoke. For example, Eckenrode could repeat what Russert said (OK, so what you said was...) and some other person(s) is/are scribbling away. But only Eckenrode's official notes would be preserved for the record--well, for a while, anyway.
But there are even more strains on our credulity.


Are we to believe that Tim Russert's home phone number is publicly available? I don't think it's likely he's in the White pages.
Are we to believe that he would take a call from one of the many tourists to the NBC offices and relate such information to someone who merely identified himself over the phone as an FBI agent? (Remember this information was the subject of Russert's affidavit detailing to the Hogan court why he would never give this information up to an investigation.)


An alternative hypothesis


I think this call was prearranged by the FBI and NBC. I do not believe the trial testimony.


Are we to believe that an FBI agent on his own called a public figure like Russert at home? I don't believe this trial testimony. I think Eckenrode cleared this with higher ups at the FBI who arranged this call. Keep in mind that this is Special Agent-In-Charge John C Eckenrode who played such a pivotal role in the development of this high proifile case.
FBI agent Bond acknowledged that her notes of the Libby interviews are inaccurate and that the summary of the second interview prepared by her supervisor Eckenrode is substantially at odds with her notes.


She also said that while Libby said he "couldn't recall" a key conversation, for example, Eckenrode reported that Libby "adamantly denied "it occurred.


Eckenrode appeared prominently at the Fitzgerald press conference announcing the indictment where Fizgerald praised him effusively for his outstanding work in developing this case.


According to Truth Out, a far left online publication which purported to have a great deal of inside information about the case (much of it laughably wrong):
Details about the latest stage of the investigation began to take shape a few weeks ago when the lead FBI investigator on the leak case, John C. Eckenrode, retired from the agency and indicated to several colleagues that the investigation is about to wrap up with indictments handed up by the grand jury against Rove or Hadley or both officials, the sources said.


The Philadelphia-based Eckenrode is finished with his work on the case; however, he is expected to testify as a witness for the prosecution next year against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff who was indicted in October on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators regarding his role in the leak.
Eckenrode's retirement after the indictment but before the trial does not seem plausible either. This was the biggest case of his life. His bio indicates he was not subject to a mandatory retirement because of time in the service, and even if that were the case, given all the circumstances the FBI would surely have extended his employment as it normally does in such situations. He led the investigation (and there is some who believe that he persuaded Ashcroft to recuse himself from overseeing it and to turn it over to his Deputy Comey who appointed Fitzgerald).
And then after playing such a key role in a major case garnering a huge amount of media coverage he just vanishes? Color me very skeptical.
So the notes of the implausible Russert-Eckenrode conversation (or conversations) are missing; there are no copies; the summary of that exchange reflects that Russert did admit he may have told Libby something about Plame; the investigator who led the case through the indictment and took the missing notes is also gone.


I do not believe this story.

Clarice Feldman
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2007/02/libby_trialthe_.html

 

[Jennifer.Bush]

A Farce and an Outrage
By Mona Charen
February 02, 2007


"As I was walking up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd stay away."
(Hughes Mearns)

Mearns captures the spirit of Washington, D.C. We are in the midst of a criminal trial concerning the leaking of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame's name to the press. The man on trial did not do the leaking. The man who did the leaking is not on trial. The woman who is the subject of the fictional leak was probably not covert. The person who leaked her name did so in the course of gossip and almost certainly did not, as the law requires, "know that the government had taken affirmative measures to conceal" her identity (because if she wasn't covert, the government would have taken no such steps). Accordingly, there was no crime. And yet, a prosecutor presents evidence, a jury lobs questions and "Scooter" Libby may go to jail for 30 years.

This charade competes with the Duke "rape" case for prosecutorial misconduct, brazen defiance of common sense and unbelievable jeopardy to the innocent.


http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/22500.html

i feel soory for libby, i really do

 

[Jennifer.Bush]

It is a farce of a trial. Libby gets his timeline of when he knew about this CIA paper pusher and he is on trial

Meanwhile we have Sandy Burgkler, who admits he stole and destroyed classified documents, and he is out walking around free

To libs this is justice "fair and balanced"

 

[menton1]

So, let me get this straight. You lie about the reasons for going into a war and getting troops killed. Someone exposes the lie. So you compromise a 20 year network if intelligence gathering and put the lives of several agents at great risk.

Then you leak this to your "transcribers" at the Times. Then you have selective memory loss. And you lie.

This is treason!!! I only feel sorry that Cheney is not in the defendant's seat alongside Libby.

 

[red states rule]

So, let me get this straight. You lie about the reasons for going into a war and getting troops killed. Someone exposes the lie. So you compromise a 20 year network if intelligence gathering and put the lives of several agents at great risk.

Then you leak this to your "transcribers" at the Times. Then you have selective memory loss. And you lie.

This is treason!!! I only feel sorry that Cheney is not in the defendant's seat alongside Libby.

as I have posted before, if Pres Bush lied so did the Dems

“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”—From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998

“This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer- range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.”—From a December 6, 2001 letter signed by Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford, & Tom Lantos among others

“Whereas Iraq has consistently breached its cease-fire agreement between Iraq and the United States, entered into on March 3, 1991, by failing to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program, and refusing to permit monitoring and verification by United Nations inspections; Whereas Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological capabilities, and has made positive progress toward developing nuclear weapons capabilities”—From a joint resolution submitted by Tom Harkin and Arlen Specter on July 18, 2002

“Saddam’s goal … is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.”—Madeline Albright, 1998

“(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983”—National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998

“Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement.”—Barbara Boxer, November 8, 2002

“The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability.”—Robert Byrd, October 2002

“There’s no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat… Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He’s had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001… He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn’t have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we.”—Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002

“The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.”—Bill Clinton in 1998

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.”—Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002

“Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people.”—Tom Daschle in 1998

“Saddam Hussein’s regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal.”—John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002

“The debate over Iraq is not about politics. It is about national security. It should be clear that our national security requires Congress to send a clear message to Iraq and the world: America is united in its determination to eliminate forever the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.”—John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002

“I share the administration’s goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction.”—Dick Gephardt in September of 2002

“Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.”—Al Gore, 2002

“We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction.”—Bob Graham, December 2002

“Saddam Hussein is not the only deranged dictator who is willing to deprive his people in order to acquire weapons of mass destruction.”—Jim Jeffords, October 8, 2002

“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.”—Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002

“There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed.”—Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002

“I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force - if necessary - to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”—John F. Kerry, Oct 2002

“The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation.”—John Kerry, October 9, 2002

“(W)e need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ...And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War.”—John Kerry, Jan 23, 2003

“We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”—Carl Levin, Sept 19, 2002

“Every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States.”—Joe Lieberman, August, 2002

“Over the years, Iraq has worked to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. During 1991 - 1994, despite Iraq’s denials, United Nations inspectors discovered and dismantled a large network of nuclear facilities that Iraq was using to develop nuclear weapons. Various reports indicate that Iraq is still actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability. There is no reason to think otherwise. Beyond nuclear weapons, Iraq has actively pursued biological and chemical weapons. Inspectors have said that Iraq’s claims about biological weapons is neither credible nor verifiable. In 1986, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran, and later, against its own Kurdish population. While weapons inspections have been successful in the past, there have been no inspections since the end of 1998. There can be no doubt that Iraq has continued to pursue its goal of obtaining weapons of mass destruction.”—Patty Murray, October 9, 2002

“As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”—Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998

“Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production.”—Ex-Un Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter in 1998

“There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. And that may happen sooner if he can obtain access to enriched uranium from foreign sources—something that is not that difficult in the current world. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.”—John Rockefeller, Oct 10, 2002

“Saddam’s existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose a very real threat to America, now. Saddam has used chemical weapons before, both against Iraq’s enemies and against his own people. He is working to develop delivery systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East.”—John Rockefeller, Oct 10, 2002

“Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Administration’s policy towards Iraq, I don’t think there can be any question about Saddam’s conduct. He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do. He lies and cheats; he snubs the mandate and authority of international weapons inspectors; and he games the system to keep buying time against enforcement of the just and legitimate demands of the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States and our allies. Those are simply the facts.”—Henry Waxman, Oct 10, 2002.

And from our favorite Frenchman, this:

“What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad’s regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs.”—Jacques Chirac, October 16, 2002

As the record clearly shows, if George W. Bush lied about WMD, he was joined by a lot of lying Democrats!

 

[menton1]

You can't murder somebody, and then use as a defense that OJ did it, and got away with it!

Besides, your long diatribe did not elicit any examples of the blatant treason that Cheney and Libby exhibited when lying our country into war and putting our loyal intelligence agents at risk of their lives.

And, it also isn't working with the American public. The jig is up.

 

[boedicca]

You haven't proven that anyone lied.

Just sayin'.

 

[red states rule]

You can't murder somebody, and then use as a defense that OJ did it, and got away with it!

Besides, your long diatribe did not elicit any examples of the blatant treason that Cheney and Libby exhibited when lying our country into war and putting our loyal intelligence agents at risk of their lives.

And, it also isn't working with the American public. The jig is up.

a paper pusher at the CIA is not a hero and is not treason

the case is falling apart, and the libs will be in mouth grothing hysteria when the not guilty verdict comes

the Dems said the same thing about Saddam and WMD's as Bush - yet they are not lying?


Libby Wants Andrea Mitchell to Testify, Contradict Russert
Posted by Matthew Sheffield on February 12, 2007 - 10:10.
The defense in the Scooter Libby trial has subpoenaed NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell to speak about her earlier statement that the profession of Valerie Plame Wilson "was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community."

She's since retracted it after her remarks seemingly implicated her NBC colleague Tim Russert. The prosecution also does not want Mitchell to testify as Clarice Feldman notes:

Yet Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is fighting hard to make sure reporter Andrea Mitchell's testimony is not heard, and is asking the jury to buy some highly implausible notions about a key FBI interview with NBC's Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert.

The prosecution is still trying hard to keep Andrea Mitchell from being called as a defense witness. In a pleading Friday, the defense is trying just as hard to get court permission to call her. The prosecution argues that the defense cannot call a witness just to impeach her, and the defense says that is not their only reason to call her, that she has other evidence to provide, and that a fair trial cannot be had without her being called and questioned by the defense.

In the period leading up to the disclosure of her status in the Novak case, Mitchell published a series of leaks (clearly from Department of State sources and just as clearly part of the CIA-State Department interagency war) aimed at the CIA's intelligence gathering. Among the interesting points in her stories:
- On July 14, 2003, just as Novak's article hit the newsstands, Mitchell made clear she was having a spat with Armitage (the first to leak), indicating the he wasn't returning her phone calls any longer and that he had chosen an appearance on Fox instead of NBC.
- On October 3, 2003, the very day that Armitage made his secret admission to the FBI that he was Novak's source, Andrea Mitchell publicly said that everyone knew about Plame, something she twice has tried unpersuasively to minimize once NBC became involved in this case and the knowledge of her boss, Tim Russert, became an issue.
(You would be hard pressed to find many regular Plame obsessives at Just One Minute who do not believe that Armitage leaked some details of the story to Mitchell as he did with Woodward and Novak.)
The prosecution has offered up a representation by NBC counsel in effect saying that Mitchell has no evidence to offer the Court-that she did not know Plame's identity before July 14, 2003 and never conveyed that information to Russert.
Aside from the fact that it seems ridiculous to regard this offer as the equivalent of the opportunity to confront Mitchell in court, we must remember that this representation is being made by NBC counsel, which had previously submitted a misleading and false affidavit from Russert, hiding his cooperation with the FBI, to Judge Hogan's court when the issue of reporter privilege came up. The same prosecutor now proclaiming Mitchell has nothing to add knew the Russert affidavit was false and did nothing to correct the record in that case.
I do not see how the trial court can deny the defense motion to call Andrea Mitchell as its witness.
Keep reading that post for more on how Tim Russert's testimony has a number of holes. While you're at JustOneMinute, read Tom Maguire's post sketching out a very plausible scenario in which Russert has let a small word parsing (saying he did not know "Valerie Plame" worked for the CIA as opposed to "Joe Wilson's wife") balloon into misleading the jury in his testimony last week.Worth noting: It's possible that both Russert and Libby have lied about their involvement in this whole nasty, partisan affair.

http://newsbusters.org/node/10771
__________________

 

[menton1]

A lot of energy wasted...

So, Tim Russert lied? Nah... Andrea Mitchell? All those 2 really care about is being invited to the cocktail parties. That's their idea of an "insider." They are both elitists.

Treason? Yes! They aided our enemies, they stopped a successful intelligence gathering mission. And why? All because their lies were about to be exposed. 3100 troops dead and counting. A total debacle.

 

[red states rule]

A lot of energy wasted...

So, Tim Russert lied? Nah... Andrea Mitchell? All those 2 really care about is being invited to the cocktail parties. That's their idea of an "insider." They are both elitists.

Treason? Yes! They aided our enemies, they stopped a successful intelligence gathering mission. And why? All because their lies were about to be exposed. 3100 troops dead and counting. A total debacle.

One of the most stunning revelations contained in the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA is that virtually everything Joseph Wilson has said about his trip to Niger, and the report that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, is a lie.

First, contrary to what Wilson has said publicly, his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, did recommend him for the Niger investigation:

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.
Confronted yesterday with the Senate report, Wilson could only offer a non sequitur and a lame denial:

Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: "I don't see it as a recommendation to send me."
Further, the Senate report indicates that Plame and Wilson, from the beginning, had an absurdly biased view of the subject Wilson was supposed to be investigating: "The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA's request to her husband, saying, 'there's this crazy report' about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq."

As has been widely reported, Wilson conducted a half-baked investigation into the uanium report. But here is the most astonishing fact uncovered by the Senate Intelligence Committee: in his book and in countless interviews and op-ed pieces over the past year, Wilson has been lying about the contents of his own report to the CIA!:

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."
"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson's reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.

Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."

According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.


So: what Wilson actually told the CIA, contrary to his own oft-repeated claims, is that he was told by the former mining minister of Niger that in 1998, Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from that country, and that Iraq's overture was renewed the following year. What Wilson reported to the CIA was exactly the same as what President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address: there was evidence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.

Recall Wilson's famous op-ed in the New York Times, published on July 6, 2003, which ignited the whole firestorm over the famous "sixteen words" in Bush's State of the Union speech. In that op-ed, Wilson identified himself as the formerly-unnamed person who had gone to Niger to investigate rumors of a possible uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. Here are the key words in Wilson's article:

n January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa. The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them.
It was this flat-out lie about what Wilson learned in Niger, and what he reported to the CIA upon his return, that fueled the "sixteen words" controversy and led to the publication of Wilson's best-selling account, titled, ironically, The Politics of Truth.

One can only conclude that Joseph Wilson has perpetrated one of the most astonishing hoaxes in American history. But here is what I really don't get: didn't the administration have access to all of this information about Wilson's report? And if so, why didn't they use it when Wilson was dominating the news cycle with his lies?

UPDATE: The Post reporter apparently misread the Intelligence Committee report; it was Iran, not Iraq, that tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998. The report indicates that Iran was looking for uranium in 1998, and Iraq in 1999.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007135.php

 

[insein]

You can't murder somebody, and then use as a defense that OJ did it, and got away with it!

Besides, your long diatribe did not elicit any examples of the blatant treason that Cheney and Libby exhibited when lying our country into war and putting our loyal intelligence agents at risk of their lives.

And, it also isn't working with the American public. The jig is up.

Lieing to goto war is not the issue here. This is about outing a supposed undercover agent. The facts are now that Valerie Plame was not undercover and her name was leaked not by Scooter Libby but by Richard Armitage. Be up on the facts before chiming in at least. Libby is being tried for perjury for changing the answers slightly that he gave to the special prosecutor in one of his hundreds of testimonials. So he is being tried for not saying the exact same thing the hundreth time that he said the 99 times before it. In either case, no crime was committed to initially start this trial and no crime has been found since. Yet libby is being tried for perjury nonetheless.

On the lieing into war, the reason many Democrats believed the same thing republicans did is because there was no lie. The lie came afterwards when politics was played to somehow say this war is illegal. This war was authorized by Congress and recommended by the very same people who now say they were duped into it. The lie is the one being perpetrated on the American people by the Democrats in this country as we speak.

 

[menton1]

Not an issue for the trial jury but certainly an issue for the American public. This trial is an insight into the sick minds running our country. They decided on the reason for war first, and then looked under every corner to justify that reason. Anyone that got in their way, watch out.

Plame not undercover? Ridiculous. 20 years undercover.

By outing Plame, Cheney also outed the CIA's Counter-Proliferation Division (CPD), a secret unit within the Agency's covert Directorate of Operations. This was to have disastrous effects, including an illegal invasion of Iraq, the detonation of a nuclear device by North Korea, the redoubling of Iran's program, and the destruction of a highly-classified CIA monitoring program that had sabotaged and sidetracked nuclear programs in at least five countries considered to be most threatening to the United States. But, in the end, the Intelligence Community fought back, and Cheney will soon be facing a federal prosecutor.

TREASON!!!!

 

[insein]

Not an issue for the trial jury but certainly an issue for the American public. This trial is an insight into the sick minds running our country. They decided on the reason for war first, and then looked under every corner to justify that reason. Anyone that got in their way, watch out.

Plame not undercover? Ridiculous. 20 years undercover.

By outing Plame, Cheney also outed the CIA's Counter-Proliferation Division (CPD), a secret unit within the Agency's covert Directorate of Operations. This was to have disastrous effects, including an illegal invasion of Iraq, the detonation of a nuclear device by North Korea, the redoubling of Iran's program, and the destruction of a highly-classified CIA monitoring program that had sabotaged and sidetracked nuclear programs in at least five countries considered to be most threatening to the United States. But, in the end, the Intelligence Community fought back, and Cheney will soon be facing a federal prosecutor.

TREASON!!!!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Insight to the partisan hack you are.

Richard Armitage admitted to being the one who told the reporter who Valerie Plame was. Do you know what admitted means? Richard Armitage was the one who told and yet he was not on trial.

Then you DARE go on to declare NK detonating a nuclear device when Clinton was the one who gave North Korea its Nuclear capabilities for a promise that he wouldnt make a bomb. Guess what, a dictator lied. How about we put Clinton on trial for that SNAFU. Hows that for Treason? Selling nuclear capabilities to our enemies in exchange for political contributions.

Bring something to the table other than your partisan fantasies.