posted May 08, 2006 01:44 PM            

But Wilson also lied to the American people in an op-ed he wrote for the NY Times...a fitting place for one to read lies. Wilson said there was no evidence Saddam had sought uranium from Niger and the President lied about it to lead America into war. What he told the CIA in his verbal report lead the CIA to believe just the opposite. Further, the President never said Saddam sought uranium from Niger. The President said the British had said Saddam had done so....and the British still to this day say so.

Further, we have learned that Saddam sent one of the people in his nuclear weapons program to Niger to open talks about trade with Iraq. The Niger government blew Saddam's representative off...knowing Iraq was under an embargo for any materials which had a military application.

Of course, attempting to purchase Uranium was a direct violation of Saddam's signed cease-fire agreement.

Monday, May 8, 2006 12:51 p.m. EDT
Lawyer: Five Witnesses Say Joe Wilson Outed Valerie Plame

In a development that got no media play over the weekend, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby's defense lawyer announced on Friday that he has located five witnesses who will testify that Joe Wilson outed his wife Valerie Plame as a CIA employee before Robert Novak did so in his July 2003 column.

According to the NationalReviewOnline's Byron York, Libby's lawyer Ted Wells told the court that his witnesses "will say under oath that Mr. Wilson told them his wife worked for the CIA."

Wells said that he expects Leakgate Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to call Wilson to testify in a bid to salvage his case.

Reacting to the news on Friday, Wilson declined to deny the allegation, suggesting instead that it no longer mattered who first outed his wife.

posted May 08, 2006 06:52 PM              

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm sorry?

Q If you're hanging on the British report, you believe that that British report was true, you have no reason to believe --

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm sorry, I see what David is asking. Let me back up on that and explain the President's statement again, or the answer to it.

The President's statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake from Niger. The President made a broad statement. So given the fact that the report on the yellow cake did not turn out to be accurate, that is reflective of the President's broader statement, David. So, yes, the President' broader statement was based and predicated on the yellow cake from Niger.

Q So it was wrong?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's what we've acknowledged with the information on --

Q The President's statement at the State of the Union was incorrect?

MR. FLEISCHER: Because it was based on the yellow cake from Niger.

Q Well, wait a minute, but the explanation we've gotten before was it was based on Niger and the other African nations that have been named in the national intelligence --

posted May 08, 2006 07:10 PM            

Further, it was true.

Now Petron, can you tell me what your comment has to do with Wilson outing his wife as a CIA employee?

July 12, 2004, 11:05 a.m.
Our Man in Niger
Exposed and discredited, Joe Wilson might consider going back.

Joe Wilson's cover has been blown. For the past year, he has claimed to be a truth-teller, a whistleblower, the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy — and most of the media have lapped it up and cheered him on.

After a whirl of TV and radio appearances during which he received high-fives and hearty hugs from producers and hosts (I was in some green rooms with him so this is eyewitness reporting), and a wet-kiss profile in Vanity Fair, he gave birth to a quickie book sporting his dapper self on the cover, and verbosely entitled The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir.

The book jacket talks of his "fearless insight" (whatever that's supposed to mean) and "disarming candor" (which does not extend to telling readers for whom he has been working since retiring early from the Foreign Service).

The biographical blurb describes him as a "political centrist" who received a prize for "Truth-Telling," though a careful reader might notice that the award came in part from a group associated with The Nation magazine — which only Michael Moore would consider a centrist publication.

But now Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV — he of the Hermes ties and Jaguar convertibles — has been thoroughly discredited. Last week's bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report concluded that it is he who has been telling lies.

For starters, he has insisted that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, was not the one who came up with the brilliant idea that the agency send him to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had been attempting to acquire uranium. "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson says in his book. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip." In fact, the Senate panel found, she was the one who got him that assignment. The panel even found a memo by her. (She should have thought to use disappearing ink.)

Wilson spent a total of eight days in Niger "drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people," as he put it. On the basis of this "investigation" he confidently concluded that there was no way Saddam sought uranium from Africa. Oddly, Wilson didn't bother to write a report saying this. Instead he gave an oral briefing to a CIA official.

Oddly, too, as an investigator on assignment for the CIA he was not required to keep his mission and its conclusions confidential. And for the New York Times, he was happy to put pen to paper, to write an op-ed charging the Bush administration with "twisting," "manipulating" and "exaggerating" intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs "to justify an invasion."

In particular he said that President Bush was lying when, in his 2003 State of the Union address, he pronounced these words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

We now know for certain that Wilson was wrong and that Bush's statement was entirely accurate.

The British have consistently stood by that conclusion. In September 2003, an independent British parliamentary committee looked into the matter and determined that the claim made by British intelligence was "reasonable" (the media forgot to cover that one too). Indeed, Britain's spies stand by their claim to this day. Interestingly, French intelligence also reported an Iraqi attempt to procure uranium from Niger.

Yes, there were fake documents relating to Niger-Iraq sales. But no, those forgeries were not the evidence that convinced British intelligence that Saddam may have been shopping for "yellowcake" uranium. On the contrary, according to some intelligence sources, the forgery was planted in order to be discovered — as a ruse to discredit the story of a Niger-Iraq link, to persuade people there were no grounds for the charge. If that was the plan, it worked like a charm.

But that's not all. The Butler report, yet another British government inquiry, also is expected to conclude this week that British intelligence was correct to say that Saddam sought uranium from Niger.
***Note***That's what the Butler report concluded too.

And in recent days, the Financial Times has reported that illicit sales of uranium from Niger were indeed being negotiated with Iraq, as well as with four other states.

According to the FT: "European intelligence officers have now revealed that three years before the fake documents became public, human and electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger. One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq."

There's still more: As Susan Schmidt reported — back on page A9 of Saturday's Washington Post: "Contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence."

The Senate report says fairly bluntly that Wilson lied to the media. Schmidt notes that the panel found that, "Wilson provided misleading information to the Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on a document that had clearly been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'"

The problem is Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel discovered. Schmidt notes: "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."

Ironically, Senate investigators found that at least some of what Wilson told his CIA briefer not only failed to persuade the agency that there was nothing to reports of Niger-Iraq link — his information actually created additional suspicion.

A former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, told Wilson that in June 1999, a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations." Mayaki, knowing how few commodities for export are produced by impoverished Niger, interpreted that to mean that Saddam was seeking uranium.

Another former government official told Wilson that Iran had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998. That's the same year that Saddam forced the weapons inspectors to leave Iraq. Could the former official have meant Iraq rather than Iran? If someone were to try to connect those dots, what picture might emerge?

Schmidt adds that the Senate panel was alarmed to find that the CIA never "fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin."

I was the first to suggest, here on National Review Online a year ago ("Scandal!" and "No Yellowcake Walk"), that Wilson should not have been given this assignment, that he had no training or demonstrated competence as an investigator, that his inquiry had been obviously superficial and that, far from being a "centrist," he was a partisan with an ax to grind.

But my complaint was really less with Wilson than it was with the CIA for sending him, rather than an experienced spy or investigator, to check out such an important and sensitive matter as whether one of the world's most vicious killers had been trying to buy the stuff that nuclear weapons are made of.

For this, I received a couple of dishonorable mentions in Wilson's memoir. He has a chapter called "What I Didn't Find in Africa," which might be used as a case study for CIA trainees and others who need to understand the fundamental principle of logic that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." In other words, Wilson fails to grasp that because he didn't find proof that Saddam was seeking African uranium does not mean that proof was not there to be found.

In reaction to his "fearless candor" and "disarming insight" about the "sixteen-word lie," Wilson writes that "right-wing hatchet men were being wheeled out to attack me. More ominously, plots were being hatched in the White House that would betray America's national security.

He writes: "Clifford May was first off the mark, spewing uninformed vitriol in a piece in National Review Online blindly operating on the principle that facts, those pesky facts, just do not matter."

Well, facts, those pesky facts do matter and a bipartisan Senate investigative committee has now established that Wilson has had very few in his possession. And, for the record, I was never advised anything about Wilson by anyone serving in the White House, the administration, or the Republican party. I never even had a discussion about him with such folks.

There is much more that could be said about the Wilson affair, and certainly many questions that ought to be both asked and answered. But in the interest of time and space, let me leave you with just one: Now that we know that Mrs. Wilson did recommend Mr. Wilson for the Niger assignment, can we not infer that she was working at CIA headquarters in Langley rather than as an undercover operative in some front business or organization somewhere?

As I suggested in another NRO piece (Spy Games), if that is the case — if she was not working undercover and if the CIA was not taking measures to protect her cover — no law was broken by columnist Bob Novak in naming her, or by whoever told Novak that she worked for the CIA.

It is against the law to knowingly name an undercover agent. It is not against the law to name a CIA employee who is not an undercover agent. For example, I know the identity of "Anonymous," the CIA employee who has now written a book trashing the Bush administration for its policies. But since he is not — to the best of my knowledge — a covert operative, I would be committing no crime were I to name him in this piece. Nor, I should add, did he attempt to hide his employment when we sat across a dinner table some months ago.

I don't think Joe Wilson is an evil man. I do think he is an angry partisan and an opportunist. According to my sources, during most of his diplomatic career he specialized in general services and administration, which means he was not the political or economic adviser to the ambassador, rather he was the guy who makes sure the embassy plumbing is working and that the commissary is stocked with Oreos and other products the ambassador prefers.

Just prior to the Gulf War, he did serve in Iraq, a hot spot to be sure, but that was under Ambassador April Glaspie, who failed to make it clear to Saddam that invading Kuwait would elicit a robust response from Washington. I doubt that Wilson advised her to do otherwise. I rather doubt she asked. As he says in his book, she was giving him an "on-the-spot education in Middle Eastern diplomacy. It was a part of the world in which I had no experience."

In 1991, Wilson's book jacket boasts, President George H.W. Bush praised Wilson as "a true American hero," and he was made an ambassador. But for some reason, he was assigned not to Cairo, Paris, or Moscow, places where you put the best and the brightest, nor was he sent to Bermuda or Luxembourg, places you send people you want to reward. Instead, he was sent to Gabon, a diplomatic backwater of the first rank.

After that, he says in his memoir, "I had risen about as high as I could in the Foreign Service and decided it was time to retire." Well, that's not exactly accurate either. He could have been given a more important posting, such as Kenya or South Africa, or he could have been promoted higher in the senior Foreign Service (he made only the first of four grades). Instead, he was evidently (according to my sources) forced into involuntary retirement at 48. (The minimum age for voluntary retirement in the Foreign Service is 50.) After that, he seems to have made quite a bit of money — doing what for whom is unclear and I wish the Senate committee had attempted to find out.

But based on one op-ed declaring 16 words spoken by the president a lie, he transformed himself into an instant celebrity and, for a while, it seemed, a contender for power within the chien-mange-le-chien world of foreign policy. That dream has now probably evaporated. It is hard to see how a President John Kerry would now want Wilson in his inner circle. But if he desired to return to Gabon or Niger I, for one, would not be among those opposing him.

posted May 08, 2006 07:19 PM            

Two intelligence investigations show Bush had plenty of reason to believe what he said in his 2003 State of the Union Address.

July 26, 2004
Modified: August 23, 2004
Summary

The famous “16 words” in President Bush’s Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address turn out to have a basis in fact after all, according to two recently released investigations in the US and Britain.

Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.

posted May 08, 2006 07:31 PM              

quote:

---

Now Petron, can you tell me what your comment has to do with Wilson outing his wife as a CIA employee?--jwhop

---

it doesnt jwhop.....it has to do with the whole paragraph you wrote yourself about uranium/africa/niger......

posted May 08, 2006 07:32 PM              

quote:

---

turns out to have a "basis" in fact after all

---

posted May 08, 2006 11:35 PM            

Nor was the forged yellow cake from Niger document the information Bush relied on to make the statement in the State of the Union address to the nation.

posted May 09, 2006 09:58 PM              

unless you can produce some evidence from a british document refering to some quantity of uranium i will rely on the statements by George Tenet , Condoleeza Rice, and Ari Fleischer, as well as these findings by the u.s. commission bush appointed to investigate intelligence failures that led to the invasion of iraq..........

**********

Uranium from Niger. Although the NIE did not include uranium acquisition in the list of elements bolstering its conclusion about reconstitution, it did note that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" from Africa. 58 This statement was based largely on reporting from a foreign government intelligence service that Niger planned to send up to 500 tons of yellowcake uranium to Iraq. 59 The status of the arrangement was unclear, however, at the time of the coordination of the Estimate and the NIE therefore noted that the Intelligence Community could not confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring the uranium. 60 Iraq's alleged pursuit of uranium from Africa was thus not included among the NIE's Key Judgments. 61 For reasons discussed at length below, several months after the NIE, the reporting that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger was judged to be based on forged documents and was recalled. 62

Nuclear Weapons Finding 4

The Intelligence Community failed to authenticate in a timely fashion transparently forged documents purporting to show that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Niger.

posted May 14, 2006 02:12 AM              

Saturday 13 May 2006

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, did not return a call for comment. Sources said Fitzgerald was in Washington, DC, Friday and met with Luskin for about 15 hours to go over the charges against Rove, which include perjury and lying to investigators about how and when Rove discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative and whether he shared that information with reporters, sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said.

It was still unknown Saturday whether Fitzgerald charged Rove with a more serious obstruction of justice charge. Sources close to the case said Friday that it appeared very likely that an obstruction charge against Rove would be included with charges of perjury and lying to investigators.

An announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week, sources close to the case said. However, the day and time is unknown. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the special prosecutor was unavailable for comment. In the past, Samborn said he could not comment on the case.

The grand jury hearing evidence in the Plame Wilson case met Friday on other matters while Fitzgerald spent the entire day at Luskin's office. The meeting was a closely guarded secret and seems to have taken place without the knowledge of the media.

As TruthOut reported Friday evening, Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House, where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity Friday night, sources confirmed Rove's indictment was imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors."

Rove's announcement to President Bush and Bolten comes more than a month after he alerted the new chief of staff to a meeting his attorney had with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in which Fitzgerald told Luskin that his case against Rove would soon be coming to a close and that he was leaning toward charging Rove with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators, according to sources close to the investigation.

A few weeks after he spoke with Fitzgerald, Luskin arranged for Rove to return to the grand jury for a fifth time to testify in hopes of fending off an indictment related to Rove's role in the CIA leak, sources said.

That meeting was followed almost immediately by an announcement by newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten of changes in the responsibilities of some White House officials, including Rove, who was stripped of his policy duties and would no longer hold the title of deputy White House chief of staff.

The White House said Rove would focus on the November elections and his change in status in no way reflected his fifth appearance before the grand jury or the possibility of an indictment.

But since Rove testified two weeks ago, the White House has been coordinating a response to what is sure to be the biggest political scandal it has faced thus far: the loss of a key political operative who has been instrumental in shaping White House policy on a wide range of domestic issues.

Rove testified that he first found out about Plame Wilson from reading a newspaper report in July 2003 and only after the story was published did he share damaging information about her CIA status with other reporters.

However, evidence has surfaced during the course of the two-year-old investigation that shows Rove spoke with at least two reporters about Plame Wilson prior to the publication of the column.

The explanation Rove provided to the grand jury - that he was dealing with more urgent White House matters and therefore forgot - has not convinced Fitzgerald that Rove has been entirely truthful in his testimony and resulted in the indictment.

Some White House staffers said it's the uncertainty of Rove's status in the leak case that has made it difficult for the administration's domestic policy agenda and that the announcement of an indictment and Rove's subsequent resignation, while serious, would allow the administration to move forward on a wide range of issues.

posted May 15, 2006 09:34 PM              

quote:

---

An announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week, sources close to the case said. However, the day and time is unknown.

---

posted May 20, 2006 08:50 PM              

some would try and turn this into a question of wether or not the story was really true or not....

i think thats sidestepping the real question....

Now, we can all agree that 1) It could still happen, as fitzgerald still has time... 2) rove, as any indicted person, could be spinning the story to look as though he really hasnt been indicted 3) It's a made up story based on little fact.

rather than having a dialogue on the topic, the subject is almost entirely avoided.....

the real question is..how would you feel if rove were indicted......??

what say you?

posted May 25, 2006 10:35 AM              

By TONI LOCY, Associated Press Writer Thu May 25, 2:22 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Vice President
Dick Cheney could be called to testify in the perjury case against his former chief of staff, a special prosecutor said in a court filing Wednesday.
ADVERTISEMENT

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald suggested Cheney would be a logical government witness because he could authenticate notes he jotted on a July 6, 2003, New York Times opinion piece by a former U.S. ambassador critical of the
Iraq war.

In the Times article, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war. In 2002, the CIA sent Wilson to Niger to determine whether Iraq tried to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger to build a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the reports. But the allegation wound up in
President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.

Cheney wrote on the article, "Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an ambassador to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060525/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak

*************

sooooo then, cheney wrote in his own handwriting virtually the same charge that novak made in his column??

i guess that makes perfectly clear where the leak came from......

posted June 13, 2006 11:46 AM            

Karl Rove will not be indicted and Scooter Libby should not have been.

This case was and still is based on lies.

Lies

Plame was a covert CIA agent

Libby and others in the Bush administration outed Plame to get back at her husband Joe Wilson

The information Libby revealed was damaging to US security and violated US security laws.

The administration did not have the authority to release information from the NIE which proved Wilson lied in public and written accounts of his trip to Niger and his findings.

Now, there was never an underlying violation of US law to support any prosecution. Leftists continue to chant for someone's head to be delivered up to satisfy their blind hatred of everything Bush.

Leftists have speculated Rove would be indicted.

Leftists have speculated Cheney would be indicted or impeached.

Leftists have speculated Bush himself might be impeached.

All this over an overblown production where no underlying crime was ever committed.

Now, most leftists just don't want to talk about it and are ignoring the news that Karl Rove will not be indicted. All this after a failed attempt to place not only Karl Rove but Dick Cheney squarely in the crosshairs of a leftist hate jihad against anything Bush.

One of those, truthout.org, whose name itself twists the English language out of shape, for there is no truth to be found there, broke the story of Rove's indictment..which was dutifully reported here by Petron. This idiot at truthout.org is strangely silent at the news Karl Rove will not be indicted. Figures.

UP THEIRS.

ROVE INDICTMENT PUSHERS ON NET SLOW TO RESPOND

For months it was screams and dreams from left-wing news sites on the internet: Karl Rove is on the verge of being indicted in the CIA leak case!

[This drama also played out last century with endless web warnings of Hillary Clinton indictments.]

Yet when word finally came down this morning that, in fact, Rove was on the verge of being cleared in the case, the fledgling sites somehow lost their way and suddenly struggled to keep up.

Some sites like truthout.org and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann opted for complete omission!

6:37 AM ET -- First Reported by Byron York at NATIONAL REVIEW.COM
6:40 AM -- News breaks on NYTIMES.COM
7:39 AM HUFFINGTON POST.COM [in small mouse type from automated AP feed: 'Rove won't be charged in CIA leak case']
8:21 AM -- RAWSTORY.COM still no splash headline

[At 9:21 AM -- RAW STORY splashes 'DRUDGE FALSIFIES REPORT ON RAW STORY... ROVE OFF HOOK IN CIA LEAK CASE: ATTORNEY']

More than two hours into the news cycle, truthout.org, a site which famously splashed the headline last month, 'Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators,' a headline which ignited a firestorm in the underground, still featured no announcement of Rove NOT being charged.

Truthout.org was still standing by its story.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's page also carried no word on Rove being cleared, despite months of assuring his audience [ON MORE THAN 26 DIFFERENT PROGRAMS, ACCORDING TO NEXIS] how the Bush adviser faced indictment.

Developing...
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2ri.htm

Keith Olbermann is another leftist jihadist idiot who is an embarrassment to his network. But then, his entire network is an embarrassment to the concepts of journalism, news and reporting.

posted June 13, 2006 07:31 PM            

Democrats are distraught over reports that leakgate special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has decided not to indict senior White House adviser Karl Rove.

A sampling of liberal Web sites shortly after the news was announced Tuesday morning featured reaction ranging from disbelief to denial to the desperate hope that Rove has turned states' evidence against Vice President Dick Cheney.

"How could this snake slither away from an indictment?" complained one visitor to the Huffington Post Web site - where bloggers had confidently predicted that Fitzgerald's probe would yield up to 23 White House indictments.

"This man lied to the D.C. Grand Jury and he gets off scot-free? Where's the justice?" the same poster complained.

Another disappointed Huff Post Democrat simply lamented: "There is no God."
Over at the Daily Kos, reaction was even more harsh: "This is appalling, and any D.C. jury, and many main street USA juries, would find them guilty . . . It really, really is a bad precedent to allow a criminal to have free rein in the White House."

Another Daily Kos poster was in abject denial, insisting; "I personally will believe nothing about this until I hear it from Patrick Fitzgerald himself."

Still another Kos poster saw a silver lining in the Rove non-indictment cloud, explaining: "If Rove flipped, then Fitzgerald believes it will give him Cheney. And he may damn well be right."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/13/105610.shtml?s=ic

posted July 12, 2006 02:30 PM            

The dumb ass Joe Wilson outed his own wife...as I said before and as Robert Novak has now confirmed.

True, I was using a different set of facts to arrive at that conclusion...such as the liar Joe Wilson introducing his wife...as "my CIA wife Valerie" to friends and acquaintances but the essential facts remain the same. Wilson did it.

When Novak talked to Karl Rove and others, he was only confirming his information. Neither Libby or Rove volunteered Plame's name to Novak. Neither did they call Novak and introduce her name into the conversation to discredit her lying husband, Joe Wilson.

There appears to be a 3rd party...as yet undisclosed who gave Novak information on the relationship between Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. Anyone want to bet this source is a former or current CIA employee or a person who has ties to the Clinton Administration...and not the Bush Administration?

Robert Novak
My role in the Plame leak probe
July 12, 2006
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

WASHINGTON -- Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed my attorneys that, after 2-1/2 years, his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded. That frees me to reveal my role in the federal inquiry that, at the request of Fitzgerald, I have kept secret.

I have cooperated in the investigation while trying to protect journalistic privileges under the First Amendment and shield sources who have not revealed themselves. I have been subpoenaed by and testified to a federal grand jury. Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue.

For nearly the entire time of his investigation, Fitzgerald knew -- independent of me -- the identity of the sources I used in my column of July 14, 2003. A federal investigation was triggered when I reported that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was employed by the CIA and helped initiate his 2002 mission to Niger. That Fitzgerald did not indict any of these sources may indicate his conclusion that none of them violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

Presidential adviser Karl Rove talks with columnist Robert Novak at a party celebrating the 40th anniversary of Novak’s column in June 2003. Rove’s button reads, “I’m a source, not a target.” (AP)
Some journalists have badgered me to disclose my role in the case, even demanding I reveal my sources -- identified in the column as two senior Bush administration officials and an unspecified CIA source. I have promised to discuss my role in the investigation when permitted by the prosecution, and I do so now.

The news broke Sept. 26, 2003, that the Justice Department was investigating the CIA leak case. I contacted my longtime attorney, Lester Hyman, who brought his partner at Swidler Berlin, James Hamilton, into the case. Hamilton urged me not to comment publicly on the case, and I have followed that advice for the most part.

The FBI soon asked to interview me, prompting my first major decision. My attorneys advised me that I had no certain constitutional basis to refuse cooperation if subpoenaed by a grand jury. To do so would make me subject to imprisonment and inevitably result in court decisions that would diminish press freedom, all at heavy personal legal costs.

Sources signed waivers

I was interrogated at the Swidler Berlin offices on Oct. 7, 2003, by an FBI inspector and two agents. I had not identified my sources to my attorneys, and I told them I would not reveal them to the FBI. I did disclose how Valerie Wilson's role was reported to me, but the FBI did not press me to disclose my sources.

THE TIMELINE

On Dec. 30, 2003, the Justice Department named Fitzgerald as special prosecutor. An appointment was made for Fitzgerald to interview me at Swidler Berlin on Jan. 14, 2004. The problem facing me was that the special prosecutor had obtained signed waivers from every official who might have given me information about Wilson's wife.

That created a dilemma. I did not believe blanket waivers in any way relieved me of my journalistic responsibility to protect a source. Hamilton told me that I was sure to lose a case in the courts at great expense. Nevertheless, I still felt I could not reveal their names.

However, on Jan. 12, two days before my meeting with Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor informed Hamilton that he would be bringing to the Swidler Berlin offices only two waivers. One was by my principal source in the Valerie Wilson column, a source whose name has not yet been revealed. The other was by presidential adviser Karl Rove, whom I interpret as confirming my primary source's information. In other words, the special prosecutor knew the names of my sources.

When Fitzgerald arrived, he had a third waiver in hand -- from Bill Harlow, the CIA public information officer who was my CIA source for the column confirming Mrs. Wilson's identity. I answered questions using the names of Rove, Harlow and my primary source.

Testified before grand jury

I had a second session with Fitzgerald at Swidler Berlin on Feb. 5, 2004, after which I was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury. I testified there at the U.S. courthouse in Washington on Feb. 25.

In these four appearances with federal authorities, I declined to answer when the questioning touched on matters beyond the CIA leak case. Neither the FBI nor the special prosecutor pressed me.

Primary source not revealed

I have revealed Rove's name because his attorney has divulged the substance of our conversation, though in a form different from my recollection. I have revealed Harlow's name because he has publicly disclosed his version of our conversation, which also differs from my recollection. My primary source has not come forward to identify himself.

When I testified before the grand jury, I was permitted to read a statement that I had written expressing my discomfort at disclosing confidential conversations with news sources. It should be remembered that the special prosecutor knew their identities and did not learn them from me.

In my sworn testimony, I said what I have contended in my columns and on television: Joe Wilson's wife's role in instituting her husband's mission was revealed to me in the middle of a long interview with an official who I have previously said was not a political gunslinger. After the federal investigation was announced, he told me through a third party that the disclosure was inadvertent on his part.

Following my interview with the primary source, I sought out the second administration official and the CIA spokesman for confirmation.

I learned Valerie Plame's name from Joe Wilson's entry in Who's Who in America.

I considered his wife's role in initiating Wilson's mission, later confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, to be a previously undisclosed part of an important news story. I reported it on that basis.

posted July 13, 2006 12:07 PM            

Columnist Robert Novak said Wednesday that a conversation with White House aide Karl Rove that became an important part of the Valerie Plame affair lasted about 20 seconds.

Novak gave his first extended interview about his role in the CIA leak probe, telling Fox News that Rove was a confirming source for Novak's column that outed Plame's CIA identity.

The Novak-Rove conversation became a focus of the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald into who leaked Plame's identity to the news media. A month ago, the prosecutor said he doesn't anticipate seeking criminal charges against Rove.

Novak said he called Rove in July 2003 to talk about a CIA-sponsored mission to Africa by Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson pertaining to an alleged Iraqi deal to acquire yellowcake uranium from the government of Niger. Wilson, who is Plame's husband, had accused the Bush administration a few days earlier of manipulating prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.

Regarding Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip, Novak said he told Rove, "I understand that his wife works at the CIA and she initiated the mission." The columnist said Rove replied, "Oh, you know that, too."

"I took that as a confirmation that she worked with the CIA and initiated" her husband's mission to Africa, Novak said. "I really distinctly remember him saying, 'You know that, too.'"

"We talked about Joe Wilson's wife for about maybe 20 seconds," Novak said.

According to Rove's legal team, the White House political adviser recalls the conversation regarding Wilson's wife differently, saying that he replied to Novak that "I've heard that, too" rather than "You know that, too."

Novak refused to identify his main source for his column revealing Plame's CIA identity. Novak said the source was a senior administration official who revealed the CIA employment of Wilson's wife after the columnist asked why the CIA would have sent Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador who had never worked at the CIA, on such a mission.

"I don't believe that it was a conscious leak," Novak said of the source.

posted July 13, 2006 09:31 PM              

quote:

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The dumb ass Joe Wilson outed his own wife...as I said before and as Robert Novak has now confirmed.

There appears to be a 3rd party...as yet undisclosed who gave Novak information on the relationship between Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. Anyone want to bet this source is a former or current CIA employee or a person who has ties to the Clinton Administration...and not the Bush Administration?--jwhop

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jwhop, you couldnt have gotten more confused if you had read a newsmax farticle about it.....or are you a newsmax staffer yourself trying to confuse others?

novak has made it quite clear about his sources.......

two senior bush administration officials (one unnamed official who was his first, primary source and karl rove) and the cia spokesman bill harlowe

quote:

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Novak refused to identify his main source for his column revealing Plame's CIA identity.Novak said the source was a senior administration official

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the unnamed primary source, a senior bush administration official told novak that wilsons wife was a cia agent

if he did not tell novak her name.......so what? at that point she was identified...all novak had to do was look up her name......the who's who entry does not identify her as a cia agent.....it simply lists her name along with the names of their children.......

karl rove confirmed that "wilsons wife" (again no need to spell her name for novak) was a cia agent

she "recommended" joe wilson for the job of checking into the niger story for cheney.....who was the one who requested a report from the cia.....

finally, novak asked bill harlow, cia spokesman, who specifically told novak not to name her.......