CIA seeks probe of White House (Thread Two)

[rabid_nerd]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/937524.asp?0cv=CB10

The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush’s since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned.

Continued from over 100 post-thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=134589

[RainDog]

1. if everyone who reads this thread would go to

msnbc and rate this story very highly, it would encourage the media to tell some truth, maybe.

[arwalden]

2. Excellent Idea...

I'll visit the URL and vote.

[arwalden]

3. Can You Imagine The DEAFENING ROAR We Would Have Heard...

... if this had been Clinton? Or Gore?

[Mandate My Ass]

4. The roar from

the BJ hasn't even stopped yet, only gone down a decibel or two.

I rated the story the highest. THis needs to get out there 'big time.'

[calimary]

17. WE need to create ANOTHER DEAFENING ROAR about this:::

Here's what to do:

Go to www.congress.org and then to the directory. You can find every Senator and Congressmember's phone numbers, locally and in Washington. We NEED, FIRST THING MONDAY MORNING, to call our folks and urge them to throw their weight into this. If they think we are angry about this and want to get to the bottom of it, they'll have more impetus to get behind it.

Also, call MY guy, Henry Waxman, from Los Angeles. He's been on this for WEEKS!

In Washington (202) 225 - 3976

In West L.A. (323) 651 - 1040

Be sure to say you care enough about this that you're calling all the way from ________________ (wherever your state is).

PLEASE FOLKS! It's as important as rating the story, if not more. We have to let our congresspeople know that this is a big deal. Then, they'll turn around and make it one from their end. ESPECIALLY since many of them have recently become emboldened by the Dem candidates speaking out and hitting hard, AND by bush's slumping poll numbers. Time to make that advantage work for us! AGAIN!

[Zhade]

21. Hey! Waxman is MY guy!

:P

[calimary]

22. Waxman ROCKS!

Whenever I call his office locally, there are SO many people there of like mind. They're as disgusted as I am with everything that's going on. Plus, they know about it all - they're very well-informed. Virtually everything I've called about (usually it's three or four things at a time), their response is enthusiastic, and "he's already on it." I like those people. Maxine Waters and Diane Watson have staffs like that, as do George Miller (D-NorCal) and Jim McDermott (D-Washington) and also Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). Refreshing and reaffirming as can be!

[Zhade]

27. He sure does!

NT!

[Zhade]

33. Check your PM :-)

NT!

[RainDog]

34. Yes, contacting Congress is MUCH, MUCH MORE IMPORTANT

And I am going to CALL, not email, my senators and rep and let them know how disgusting I think it is that the White House is playing games with our ability to search for WMD via Plame.

First, they HAVE NO weapons of mass destruction yet go into Iraq based upon cooked intel.

THEN, they compromise the REAL hunt for weapons of mass destruction for political vengence??????

Yes, whoever did this deserves some time in prison with John Lindh.

[RainDog]

36. Who would know about a covert op?

How low down the food chain in the administration does such information go?

I know that Josh Marshall has said earlier that those who regularly report on the White House KNOW that when another reporter says "White House Administration has said" that means it's very high up in the food chain.

I just wonder how many levels below Bush, Cheney, et al this goes...or would, say, Rove have to tell someone who shouldn't know to leak this if it wasn't done by Rove himself?

[alcuno]

42. Use the 800 number for Congress

1-800-839-5276. It's the Capitol Switchboard; they'll connect you to your representatives.

[oldcoot]

16. Done!

This story is very significant. I hope that all those people who vote Republican because they are concerned about security get a chance to read this story and think about the implications.

[Perdita_Durango]

45. Another news service - Dow Jones Online ran the story

http://news.nasdaq.com/news/newsStory.aspx?&cpath=20030927\ACQDJON200309270102DOWJONESDJONLINE000002.htm

CIA Asks Justice To Look Into Naming Of Operative - NBC



NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The Central Intelligence Agency has asked the Justice Dept. to investigate whether the White House was responsible for identifying one of its covert employees, NBC News reported Friday, according to a report on the MSNBC web site.

The employee, Valerie Plame, is the wife of former Iraqi envoy Joseph Wilson, who was dispatched by the Bush administration to Niger in 2002 to investigate British claims that Iraq was seeking uranium there. Although Wilson's report eventually discounted those allegations, President George W. Bush included the British claim in his State of the Union address.


- snip -

[are_we_united_yet]

5. Guys

This could be the big one. If this is true, * is toast.

[Mandate My Ass]

7. nah

they'll sacrifice cheney if, and that is a big if, this gets reported and doesn't slide down the memory hole like so many other scandals before it. He's sort of on the ropes with the lies about his financial stake in Halliburton. My only hope is that they messed with the wrong people when they messed with the CIA.

[rocktivity]

9. Suddenly, Cheney is very "good to go"

I don't think it's an accident that he's been "misbehaving" so much lately (his Meet The Press debacle; his getting caught in a blatantly obvious lie about his financial ties to Halliburton). If they can pin the CIA leak on him, he can be "forced to resign," take all the blame for "misleading" poor widdle Georgie on the Iraqi invasion with him, make Georgie look strong and incorruptable enough to be elected, and join Karl Rove in ruling from behind the throne.


rocknation

[Rose Siding]

11. Wilson fingered Rove, not Cheney

and he has talked with all the reporters involved.

[Oilwellian]

19. Not exactly

He told Josh Marshall in a recent interview that he used Karl Rove's name as a metaphor for the White House. He didn't specifically finger Rove as the one who committed the crime.

See the bottom of page 20 in this interview:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/wilson.interview.pdf

[FauxNewsBlues]

28. Means, motive, opportunity

Who in the White House had the knowledge of the CIA's secret asset, who had the means to do it, and who had the feeling of invulnerability plus the motive to allow them to leak this info.

This limits the amount of suspects quite drastically.

[snippy]

39. Considering WHIG, I think a lot of people could qualify.

But it stinks to high heaven of Turd Blossom Rove.

[Oilwellian]

20. I don't see Cheney taking the blame here

IF he wasn't the one who committed this violation of the Intelligence Agents Identification Act of 1982 which is a felony. Whoever did this is going to prison.

[TacticalPeek]

24. Don't forget about conspiracy to commit X, our old Watergate friend.

:evilgrin:

[Corgigal]

6. Maybe its time

for the CIA to leak some info about Bush. Doing coke, being arrested, getting minors pregnant. Is Bush drinking again?
Only Rove would think pissing off the CIA wouldn't come back to bite them in the behinds and an election year is coming up.

[TacticalPeek]

12. I think the CIA is actually doing just fine with this

and their other 'in the clear' steps. Better they leave the dirt digging to investigative reporters and oppo research folks. Clean hands and all.

OK, I know their hands aren't that clean and almost every investigative reporter is pretending to be a struggling novelist or something, but this is still the way to go. aWol is now their enemy, so they should not risk arming him further against them.

[truthisfreedom]

8. ahh, i love the smell of investigations in the morning.

smells like victory.

[peterh]

10. Simply amazing….

Nahhh…not really…
A check of news items related to the MSNBC item, which was over 15 hrs ago, reveals just one other report, that being from Capital Hill Blue:

<http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_3138.shtml>

My assumption is, that if the WH chooses not to comment on it, then by golly, neither will the media. <shaking head>

[Eddie Current]

26. It will get picked up... just wait

from what I have been reading in the blogs MSNBC/NBC has an "exclusive" and any other news service that picks it up will have to credit NBC. So CNN etc will wait. The CIA picked when and how to release this not the White House. So they may have owed an exsclusive to whomever(Andrea Mitchell?) broke it for some reason and decided to release it on Friday for a reason.

this is the CIA releasing this not some reporter, pundit, another politician or Wilson himself. something is up. something's stirring in the bowells of the guv-mint.

let's wait and see it could start hitting newspapers tomorrow, what about the Sunday talkies? on CNN and the nightly news? we can hope.

I'm either on to something or I'm on something.

[FauxNewsBlues]

29. Josh Marshall baffled too

He just did a google news check, and not one wire has picked it up after 15 hours.

Honestly folks, if the CIA wanted Janet Reno to investigate some of Clinton's aides for treasonously leaking the names of secret CIA assets and NBC did a story on it, does anybody genuinely believe that for 15 hours nobody would pick the story up?

[snippy]

37. I think you are on to something. But maybe I'm on something.

I really do think you are on to something, but I also think the White House probably is trying to kill this story by warning other reporters off of it. I do not think such a tactic by the White House will succeed though because I think the career people at CIA won't give up on this.

[DrBB]

13. Currently rated #2 in MSNBC top 10

...with a 6.28 out of 7.

Good. Damn good. Hope it stays there until Rove is led out in handcuffs.

[TacticalPeek]

15. I'm with Wilson. I vote for frog-marching.

One entry found for frog-march.
Main Entry: frog-march
Pronunciation: -"märch
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1923
: to seize from behind roughly and forcefully propel forward <frog-marched him out the door>

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=frog-marched

:evilgrin:

With handcuffs is ok too, I think federal SOP requires handcuffs for ALL arrests.

[Pale_Rider]

23. Frog-marched into Gitmo shankled to Novak ...

Novak: Hey Karl, want my bagel?
Rove: Shuttup Bob!

[Must_B_Free]

18. #1 now!

[Wickerman]

48. now number 1

CIA seeks probe of White House
6.3
4014
News

I just love the ring of that title. CIA seeks probe of WH. Bush might just see a lotta "probbing" if he goes where he beongs

[DrBB]

14. To clarify: this means CIA has ALREADY determined

by their own internal investigation that there is sufficient evidence for FBI to undertake criminal investigations.

Josh Marshall's useful account of how this goes:

The way this works is that the CIA does its own investigation to determine whether there is reason to believe laws were broken. But the CIA has no law enforcement powers itself. So it makes a referral to the Justice Department, which obviously does have law enforcement powers. If the folks at Justice concur in the Agency's determination that there is reason to believe that laws were broken, they then task the FBI with mounting a formal criminal investigation.

. . . .
On its face, this news tonight almost certainly means that the CIA's internal investigation concluded that laws were broken or that there was sufficient evidence of wrong-doing for a criminal investigation to be undertaken.

[NashVegas]

30. Is It Time for an Independent Prosecuter?

Call up Ken Starr!

[TacticalPeek]

25. WOO-HOO! Dean kicks the thread!

Governor Dean Calls For Accountability

BURLINGTON -- In response to news that the CIA has asked for a Justice Department investigation into allegations that the White House revealed the identity of one of its undercover employees in violation of federal law and in retaliation against the woman's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, Governor Howard Dean issued the following statement:

"I applaud the CIA's request that the Justice Department investigate the Plame affair. I urge the Justice Department to investigate the matter swiftly and objectively, without the taint of partisan politics that have so plagued this Administration's conduct of foreign policy.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=417560

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[TahitiNut]

31. I'd guess this MADministration's attempt to bury the story ...

... by releasing the information on a Friday night has not been as successful as they might've wished. It seems obvious to me that the Friday evening timing can be little other than such an attempt, missing the last weekday evening news cycle and relegating the story to the cable news -- a far less viewed venue. John and Jane Q. Public aren't as likely to be evening news watchers on the weekends, seemingly preferring instead the magazine format shows. By Monday, they'd probably have hoped this would be old news. Dean did good. Let's hope the other visible Dems (candidates and others) are able to keep the story 'hot' enough to spread public awareness and hopefully, as well, offer Ashcroft a foretaste of the temperature in Hell.

[snippy]

38. Excellent.

[Nottingham]

32. Its pretty amazing when the CIA wants Justice?

I wonder if THEY will get it!

We will see HOW Powerful the Cabal is!

:bounce:

[sattahipdeep]

40. Korndoggie asking A$$crack to investigate the puppet master

He'll FIX it but it will be more of a coverup than a fix.

[Starpass]

35. you know what I love, love, love, love about this??

(maybe the CIA has been reading my posts when I asked them if they were just going to sit there and keep being this bastards scape goat; but maybe they would like to take all that juicy stuff they know about Georgie and start leaking). Anyway, I like the fact that they are going after him on this because it does say to me that just maybe they are not going to play his patsy any longer as he blames everything on our "horrible intelligence communtiy".....and maybe they have some good beans to spill about the crime family along the way!!!!

[berry]

54. Has anyone seen Dana Priest's article in the WP 9-27?

It's about a letter from Goss and Harmon (House Intelligence Cmte) to Tenet criticizing the CIA, sent Thurs. It doesn't make BushCo* look good either, but it is apparently quite hard on the CIA. I just wonder if there's any connection? if only in the timing? This COULD be an excellent thing if the CIA manages to get better/deeper Congressional investigations--especially if it extends to 9-11 and not just Iraq. Just wondering... Anyway, there's other stuff going on. This is quite byzantine.

I really want Rove and henchmen caught in the Plame leak, but I would be deliriously happy to see this blow up into something much bigger, something no one in the WH could escape unscathed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10928-2003Sep27?language=printer

<<Leaders of the House intelligence committee have criticized the U.S. intelligence community for using largely outdated, "circumstantial" and "fragmentary" information with "too many uncertainties" to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda.

Top members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which spent four months combing through 19 volumes of classified material used by the Bush administration to make its case for the war on Iraq, found "significant deficiencies" in the community's ability to collect fresh intelligence on Iraq, and said it had to rely on "past assessments" dating to when U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998 and on "some new 'piecemeal' intelligence," both of which "were not challenged as a routine matter."

"The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist," the two committee members said in a letter Thursday to CIA Director George J. Tenet. The Washington Post obtained a copy this weekend.

The letter constitutes a significant criticism of the U.S. intelligence community from a source that does not take such matters lightly. The committee, like all congressional panels, is controlled by Republicans, and its chairman, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), is a former CIA agent and a longtime supporter of Tenet and the intelligence agencies. Goss and the committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), signed the letter. Neither was available for comment yesterday. The full committee has not voted on the letter's conclusions.

The CIA, through spokesman Bill Harlow, disputed the conclusions and accused the panel of not conducting "a detailed inquiry on this study.">>

[BelgianMadCow]

41. back at #1

CIA seeks probe of White House
6.45
3650
News

E-Bay thief reveals tricks of the trade
6.23
5433
Tech & Science

Stoning sentence for Nigerian mom raises global issues
6.05
3290
News

Do Not Call Registry not dead yet
6.05
3178
Business

[TacticalPeek]

43. Cool.

:toast:

[snippy]

44. Time magazine now has a story online with an administration comment.

The Justice Department has opened a preliminary inquiry into whether a Bush Administration official illegally revealed the identity of a CIA employee whose husband criticized the Administration's handling of intelligence on Iraq, TIME has learned. The probe will determine whether to order a full-fledged FBI investigation.

. . .

CIA and Justice spokespersons declined comment, but an Administration official told TIME that the Justice is conducting a preliminary inquiry to "determine whether or not there should be an investigation" by the FBI.

. . .

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,490646,00.html

[Perdita_Durango]

46. Dow Jones story, try again

http://tinyurl.com/owvd

[TacticalPeek]

47. Beautiful.

:toast:

[snippy]

49. CBS ran it with call for independent investigation.

. . .

Congressional sources say there may also be calls for the appointment of an independent investigation to determine if Bush administration officials blew Plame’s cover.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/27/eveningnews/main575449.shtml
This is a nice addition.

[Flying_Pig]

50. Though CBS headlined it, NBC has nary a peep about it, and that

was on the Western Edition of their nightly news. Typical, that G.E. would want to protect their little buddies in the White House!!

BOYCOTT G.E!!!!!

:grr:
!!!

[TahitiNut]

51. kick

:kick:

[Snazzy]

52. More traction in WaPo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11208-2003Sep27.html

A mod locked someone's unlinked efforts here in LBN to point out that the Washington Post now has a story on this. Presumably an accident there--I mean the mod locking--but maybe I'm unclear on rules.

Just in case, enough of a significant story for me to finally de-lurk, I figure.

(I thought I'd be making an appearance real soon regarding the crazy BBV stuff! What a confluence of heavy duty and tangible scandals at long last.) :toast:

WP seems to offer a bit more depth than the earlier stories, apparently debriefing their own Novak to some degree.

Keep fighting the good fight!

--Snazzy B-)

EDIT: Ah, I see the CBS, and Time Mag threads are locked too. My bad. So it's whomever breaks it, that's the thread (which makes good sense). Cheers! Hopefully there's about 500 media outlets in here come Monday.

[grasswire]

53. welcome to DU, Snazzy

It looks to me as if this story is proliferating in a way that is hard for mods to keep up with what's new and what isn't.

I came here to this thread central to post the musings of Jack Gillis, a contributor to bartcop who is slumming on freerepublic tonight:

"Let's not get confused here.

ONE "senior adminstration official" leaked an allegation to the Washington Post about TWO "top White House officials" leaking the name of a covered CIA official.

In the original controversy, CIA and State were roughly on one side against Defense and the NSC.

So the source of this present story is probably State, since the WashPost probably would not single-source a CIA leak when the CIA is so intimately involved. Therefore, the senior official is at State. Since Kissinger insisted that the Sec-o-State always be a "Very senior official," I'd say today's story came from one of Colin Powell's top deputies. Richard Armitage?

The "top White House officials" have to be NSC because DoD isn't in the WH and (Wilson's charge against Rove notwithstanding) the risk/reward ratio for Rove and by extension Bush would be ridiculously bad if a political operator leaked a foreign-affairs secret. Therefore, the two "top officials" are Condi Rice and her chief deputy, Steven Hadley.

Are all set now?"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/990830/posts

[SaintLouisBlues]

55. Friday newshole strategy failing miserably

Sunday morning, and the story is on the front page of the Washington Post and Russert asks Condi about this on Meet The Press.

[TahitiNut]

56. Their next tactic will be to quash "further developments" IMHO.

The story's "legs" will depend, not just on opinions from Democrats and liberal 'observers', but on further leaks and disclosures. If the White House can keep the "legs" short (gag orders), they'll be able to manufacture a distraction (arms caches? another in the deck of cards?) and take/keep this story off the weekday evening network news (where most people look for 'news').

[snippy]

59. I do not think the career CIA people will let it die.

I think they have problems with the Whistle Ass administration that go beyond the Wilson matter. Specifically, the administration's attempt to influence and manipulate CIA intelligence for political purposes and the decision not only to ignore intel that did not suit their purpose but also to fabricate intel that did. Plus the administration's attempt to blame the CIA for Whistle Ass's lies and fuck ups (although I think the CIA could live with this if it was the only problem.) I think the CIA chose the Wilson matter as a tool to draw the line and reassert its independent role.

[Patriot_Spear]

57. What did she say about it?

n/t

[Padraig18]

58. Interesting

This is *not* a dupe thread, but the breaking news that Bob Novak is being targeted independently (ABC radio News at 9:30 a.m. Sunday ) IS! How's that again? :eyes:

[sattahipdeep]

60. Hey you guys (Portage)

Krongard was promoted to CIA Executive Director by Bush.

Tenet, Krongard Alter CIA Power Structure

The heads of those entities will join the CIA's Executive
Board, where they will be on a par with the leaders of the
agency's three primary power centers, the Directorates of
Operations, Intelligence, and Science & Technology.

Krongard, former head of Alex. Brown & Co., a Baltimore-based
investment bank, devised the reorganization after embarking on a
30-day review following his appointment as executive director in
mid-March.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25386-2001Apr30?language=printer

Krongard described his role as that of a chief operating officer
and vowed to keep everyone focused. "If you ask me, 'What is your
one biggest priority?' it would be to do everything I can to
support our two basic missions here, operations and
intelligence," he said.

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16570-2001Mar16.html

Like i said Korndoggie asking A$$crack to investigate the (puppet master?)

[BloodyWilliam]

61. Shit, meet fan. I'm doing all I can.

I sent an email tip to the Syracuse papers and I'm trying to get a story into Blueprint, the campus progressive magazine.

-Will

[SaintLouisBlues]

62. Kickin' it

n/t

[MoonAndSun]

63. this needs to stay

:kick:

this subject is more important then the candidate bashing threads.