DailyKos.com- "It was Scooter Libby"-Plame case

[realFedUp]

http://www.dailykos.com/

in progress...

from http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/1093362844179800.xml&storylist=

Contempt order lifted in CIA leak case

By CURT ANDERSON
The Associated Press
8/24/2004, 11:47 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — Contempt of court orders against Time magazine and one of its reporters were dismissed after the journalist agreed to give a statement to prosecutors probing the Bush administration leak of a covert CIA officer's identity.

In a statement Tuesday, Time said reporter Matthew Cooper agreed to give a deposition after Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, personally released Cooper from a promise of confidentiality about a conversation the two had last year.

Time and Cooper had been held in contempt earlier this month by U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan for refusing to testify in the leak probe. Hogan rejected their claims, as well as those of "Meet The Press" host Tim Russert, that the First Amendment protected them from having to testify.

Cooper had faced up to 18 months in jail and the magazine could have been forced to pay $1,000 a day under the contempt order, which has now been vacated. Russert avoided the contempt citation by agreeing to an interview with prosecutors earlier this month, again after Libby released him from a confidentiality promise.

continued

[FreakinDJ]

1. question now is

did libby have clearence to have access to that information??????

[realFedUp]

2. hmmmmm.....

maybe he just overheard Dick and George....

[FreakinDJ]

16. Ya right

over heard classified information...

I think Dick and George would still be faulted

[IndianaGreen]

20. No, but Cheney did

Scooter wouldn't do something that his master had not approved of.

[peacetalksforall]

3. What is the hierarchy of the Cheney team?

Is Libby #1?

[realFedUp]

5. A reminder of who I. Lewis Libby is....

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=I._Lewis_Libby

(go to website to click on links)

I. Lewis Scooter Libby
(Redirected from I. Lewis Libby)

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is currently Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to Vice President Richard Bruce Dick Cheney.

"Sometimes called 'Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney,' Libby is an important foreign policy adviser inside the White House and is seen a possible successor to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice." <1>

Libby is among those suspected of leaking Valerie Plame's status as a covert CIA operative, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail.

He is believed to be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is affiliated with the Project for the New American Century, the Center for Strategic and International Studies - Homeland Defense, and he is considered to be a "neo-con" (neo-conservative).

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Before joining the White House staff, "Scooter Libby was most recently managing partner of the Washington office of the international law firm of Dechert, Price & Rhoads. He also served as Legal Advisor to the House of Representatives' Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, commonly known as the Cox Committee. <2>
"He has held a variety of positions at the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Defense. His previous government position was Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. He is a graduate of Yale University and received his J.D. from Columbia." <3>


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After graduating from law school, Libby "went to work as a lawyer in Philadelphia, then got a job offer from his old Yale political science professor, Paul D. Wolfowitz, now the deputy defense secretary. In 1981, Mr. Libby went to work for Mr. Wolfowitz at the State Department, then left in 1985 to go into private practice. Freed from his State Department duties, Mr. Libby was able to research 1903 Japan, which was the slice of time between the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War that he had decided should be the backdrop for his novel. By 1989 he was working again for Mr. Wolfowitz, this time at the Pentagon, and was set aside with few regrets.
"'Shortly after I got there, we had the breakup of the Soviet Union and war with Iraq,' Mr. Libby said. 'So it turned out to be the perfect job.'

"Mr. Libby left the Pentagon when Bill Clinton became president in 1993...." <4>


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Libby has been identified as a...longtime lawyer for Marc Rich per antiwar.com and CNN.

[realFedUp]

7. bet if he's indicted, he gets pardoned like his client Marc Rich...

[HootieMcBoob]

4. Who else was involved?

Is this gonna be Libby only or will Cheney be implicated as well? And where are Rove's fingerprints? They have to be there somewhere. You know Bush knew but I'm sure they've worked in the plausible denyability thing. Bastards.

[Dick_Tuck]

6. Looks like Libby may try to fall on his sword....

The Vice President's Chief of Staff is too smart to do something like this without Cheney pushing him to do it. It'll be interesting whether he's willing to do prison time to protect others.

[realFedUp]

9. Looks like Cooper saved NoFact's butt....

wonder what payment he'll get for falling
on his pensword?

[lancdem]

14. I still think Novak will be subpoenaed

if he hasn't been already. I read in an article after the federal judge ruled against the journalists that Fitzgerald wanted the court ruling in his favor before going after Novak.

I think Libby will be indicted, but so will some others, such as Elliott Abrams. Just because Libby is the only name we read in the papers doesn't mean he's the only one in deep shit.

[realFedUp]

17. What was Elliot Abram's role?

what are the facts please?

[Neecy]

8. hmmm

Sounds like Scooter (a ridiculous nickname for a grown man, BTW) is going to fall on his sword for Crashcart and Bunnypants.

I'd love to see this hit the fan in the middle of their sham convention.

[seabeyond]

10. does it matter. have whitewashed 9/11 commission,

the torture report adn they are going to whitewash this one.

[realFedUp]

11. Column from 2003-Salon

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/libby.html

Suspicion centers on Lewis Libby
Dick Cheney's chief of staff helped hype the Iraq threat and discredit Joe Wilson. But while the White House has denied Karl Rove is the leaker, so far it's left Libby twisting slowly in the wind.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert

Oct. 3, 2003 | Criminal leak investigations are notoriously futile, and the identity of the administration officials who illegally blew the cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame may never be known. But one name keeps coming up, and so far it hasn't provoked a specific, emphatic White House denial: Lewis "Scooter" Libby, assistant to the president and Vice President Dick Cheney's powerful chief of staff.

On Wednesday the New York Daily News reported that "Democratic congressional sources said they would like to hear from Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby." On MSNBC's "Buchanan and Press" on Wednesday, Pat Buchanan asked an administration critic who claims to know the leaker's name point blank if "Scooter Libby" was the culprit (the critic wouldn't answer). And Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska made a veiled reference on CNBC this week, suggesting that President Bush could better manage the current crisis by "sitting down with vice president and asking what he knows about it."

But below the surface there's even more chatter. Says one former senior CIA officer who served under President Bush's father, "Libby is certainly suspect No. 1."

continued-

[realFedUp]

12. Glenn Kessler also released by Libby

Glenn Kessler, a Washington Post reporter, also agreed to an interview in June after Libby agreed to release him from a similar promise.

Gee, just how many journalists did Libby spread
this one to? He had to know he was breaking laws.

[thebigidea]

13. "personally released Cooper from a promise of confidentiality"

how noble of him.

[realFedUp]

15. yeah.....a decent guy....

who put a CIA operative, her contacts and the
cover business she was involved in mortal danger,
but letting a reporter testify gets him a
purple heart....

[fob]

18. IF true this puts bush*s comments about finding the "leaker" in play

I can't recall the specifics but it's gonna be pretty tough to say it was too difficult to find the "leaker" because there were so many possible people when it turns out to be cheney's right-hand-bag-man!

On edit: the dolt only had to connect one dot! Hey Unka Dick, you, uh, have, uh, any, uh...ummmm, idea who done the leakin'?

[realFedUp]

19. and we know he always tells the truth.....

say one thing, do another....sounds
like a flip-flopper to me.

[Trajan]

21. Scooter is going down to protect Cheney ...

The Supreme Master Snarl ....

[realFedUp]

22. kick for dayworkers

[Generator]

23. Only Novak knows

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/washpost/20040825/ts_washpost/a28286_2004aug24&e=1

NBC Washington correspondent Tim Russert and Post reporter Glenn Kessler gave interviews to Fitzgerald under similar circumstances earlier this summer, also with waivers from Libby. Both journalists said they did not have to identify confidential sources and they told Fitzgerald that Libby did not reveal Plame's name to them.


Lawyers and journalists involved in the case say Fitzgerald is going through a methodical process of elimination for all contacts between reporters and senior administration officials last summer, and is waiting until the end to question Novak.


"To go about finding out who Novak's sources are by going after half the journalists in town seems pretty indirect, and a little weird," said Lucy A. Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "I think it's absolutely clear these reporters don't have information that goes to the heart of who the leaker is. "