Dean Says Cheney May Have Broken the Law ( Plame Leak )

[leftchick]

WASHINGTON - Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Monday that Vice President Cheney should resign if he ordered a top aide to leak classified information to the media to defend the invasion of Iraq.


On CNN's "American Morning" program, Dean repeated calls he first made Sunday, saying Cheney may have broken the law if he ordered his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to share secret information with reporters in 2003.

"If Vice President Cheney has, in fact, ordered the leaking of political information — of intelligence information, that means he has to step aside," Dean said on CNN. "We don't know if it's true, but he has been accused of it. If it's true, he has to step aside."

On Sunday, Democratic and Republican senators said Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald should investigate Cheney and others in the CIA leak probe if they authorized Libby to give secret information to reporters.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060213/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak

[stepnw1f]

1. may have?

no... he did break the law!

[leftchick]

3. lots of qualifiers in that article

no had he had a blow job! :eyes:

[stepnw1f]

10. lol... no kidding

I love you guys...

[dysfunctional press]

2. may have?

I wonder how condi will fare as veep?

[dubya_dubya_III]

18. Lawlessness 'R US

[PDittie]

4. LBN?

I heard this yesterday morning on Face Da Nation.

[meganmonkey]

5. May have?

(Yes, I know I am the 3rd person to say that, but really, what else is there to say?)

[applegrove]

6. They know (old news really) that WH leaked pro war intel (by declassifying

what they wanted) to reporters. Remember Judith Miller?

The prosecuter in the Plame affair got that testimony out of Scooter - to show the environment around the WH at the time. He has no testimony that Cheney told Scooter to leak Plame to the press. He has testimony that Cheney mentioned Plame to Scooter (in some "innocuous" manner). But doesn't have testimony that puts the two together.

Why Dean has all the qualifiers. Cause there is not proof linking the two - except that it is obvious to anyone with half a brain. But you still cannot speak it to be true if there is no proof.

And prosecutors have to go on proof.

[BR_Parkway]

7. Most interesting that we need to add (which scandal) after the actual

headline so we can all keep up.

[applegrove]

8. No kidding. No wonder we are exhausted.

[leftchick]

9. exactly why I did it

pretty fucking amazing to have so many scandals and all of them ignored by the M$M. :grr:

[HardWorkingDem]

11. This is bad news for them, because so far just about everything Dean...

has said has turned out to be true....

[Wordie]

12. Wow! K&R!

That's a really big step forward for the Dems. Now let's hope other Dem leaders take up the call!

[savemefromdumbya]

25. Dems need to keep pounding Cheney on this

[calimary]

13. He absolutely should step down - but then again, I thought so

from the very beginning.

Not that doing so will keep his grubby little fingers off the reins of power. He'd operate from double-secret probation. But it would be a lovely thing for the healing and recovery of this country, and it would be RICHLY deserved.

[VirginiaDem]

14. I saw the interview and Dean was pretty firm actually

He stressed several times that the charge has to be proved. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to say; after all, our understanding comes from a report that Fitzgerald said that Libby had testified that it had been cleared by his superiors. We need to wait to hear officially from Fitzgerald or someone else in the know that Libby was given either the okay or an order to go after Wilson by releasing Plame's identity. We don't have that yet.

Beyond that Dean was unequivocal about Cheney needing to go. He wouldn't speculate as to how--resignation v. impeachment v. whatever else. But he was strong.

[Toots]

16. Right and then all we would have is Libby's word against Cheney's

Libby is already going to trial for lying so who are the people going to believe? We can only hope somewhere it is in writing...

[EVDebs]

23. The sequence of questions needed to elicit the testimony needed under oath

shouldn't be too difficult to lay out. This 'Thomas a Becket' scenario isn't that difficult to figure out. BTW, circumstantial evidence and the process of elimination, Watson, can only lead to those higher authorities who gave marching orders to Scooter.

The jig is up.

[worldgonekrazy]

15. Dean out in front again

What a great head of the DNC he has made.

[dubya_dubya_III]

17. These guys have broken more laws than anyone dare mention

[bpilgrim]

19. Cheney put every single American man, woman & child at RISK

we need to get this 'sound-byte' out there... why does NO-ONE point this fact out :shrug:

peace

[babsbunny]

20. May Have?

Please wake me when the trailor trash is gone!!!!

[savemefromdumbya]

21. The end of cheney must be near _ Dean has spoken!

what will we do in the 'post Cheney era'
:party:

[EVDebs]

22. Obstruction of justice in order to cover up treason ?

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=16284

Sounds like 'high crimes and misdemeanors' to me. Outing an honest CIA agent (Joe Wilson's wife Valerie Plame) in order to cover the ass of the dishonest stovepiped disinformation source ('Curveball' and Chalabi) necessary to get the USofA into a war. Sounds pretty clearcut and openshut to me.

Dean is right. Howard Dean AND John Dean. Cheney should resign and this IS worse than Watergate.

[savemefromdumbya]

24. This is a thousand times worse than WATERGATE!