"The indictment does not explain what Cheney was up to or why."

[dajoki]

The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=32370

Posted 10/28/2005 @ 8:03pm
A Grave Indictment, but Grave Questions Remain



If a senior White House official leaks classified information that identifies an undercover CIA officer to reporters in order to undermine a critic of the administration, he is not entitled to lie about it to FBI agents and a grand jury charged with the task of determining if such a leak violated the law. That was special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's message, as he held a dramatic press conference at the Justice Department to explain the five-count indictment his grand jury issued against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. "This is a very serious matter," he insisted.

<<snip>>

But, according to the indictment, Libby had actively gathered information on Joseph Wilson and his wife after newspaper stories appeared about a trip that Joseph Wilson had taken to Niger for the CIA in February 2002, during which he had concluded that the allegation that Iraq had been shopping there for weapon-grade uranium was highly dubious. In May 2003, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, using Wilson as a source, wrote about this trip without naming Wilson. The Washington Post did the same the following month. And on July 6, 2003, Wilson published an op-ed piece in the Times describing his mission to Niger and his findings, which undercut the Bush administration's use of the Niger allegation in making a case for war.

In late May 2003--after the first Kristof column and before Wilson went public with his op-ed--Libby asked Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman for information on the unnamed ambassador's trip to Niger. Grossman ordered the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research to prepare a report on the ambassador and the trip and subsequently told Libby that Wilson had been the ambassador. On June 9, 2003, according to the indictment, classified CIA documents that covered Wilson and the Niger trip (without mentioning Wilson by name) were faxed from the CIA to Libby. Two or three days later, Grossman told Libby, the indictment says, that "Wilson's wife worked at the CIA." About that time, Libby spoke with a senior CIA officer, who also informed Libby that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Also about the time, the indictment states, Cheney told Libby that Wilson's wife was employed at the CIA in the counterproliferation division. This is an intriguing fact. Usually in Washington, principles ask their subordinates to dig up information for them. Apparently, Cheney was doing his own fact-finding on the Wilson front. The indictment does not explain what Cheney was up to or why. It notes that "Libby understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA." Cheney had a back-channel behind his back-channel (Libby).

<<snip>>

Libby, as depicted in the indictment, was aware of the sensitive nature of the material he had collected on the Wilsons. When an assistant asked if information on Wilson's trip could be shared with the press to rebut the charge that Cheney had sent Wilson to Niger (an allegation never made by Wilson, who had said that his trip was a response to a request that had come to the CIA from Cheney's office), Libby told his aide that he could not talk about this topic on a nonsecure telephone line.

[applegrove]

1. Fitz was clear... the crime they were investigating was talk between

a reporter (many) and a WH official who gave up the identity of CIA officer purposely. That is what they were originally investigation. Cheney is allowed to talk about Plame to Libby till the cows come home. Unless he was "plotting" with Libby to publically reveal her identity. But nobody has testified to that.

[zanne]

2. And, further down in the article....

Is anyone else? Fitzgerald's grand jury expired on Friday. But he has asked the presiding judge to keep a grand jury available for him because he has not completed his investigation. His probe, he said at the press conference, is "not quite done." Then he quickly added, "But I don't want to add to a feverish pitch. It's very, very routine that you keep a grand jury available for what you might need." He noted that the "substantial bulk of the work" has been completed. But he said, "Let's let the process take place.
This is an article in The Nation, a renowned political magazine. David Corn is the author and here, he is quoting Fitzgerald. You'll notice he did not say "new" grand jury. You also notice he said that "A substantial bulk of the work" has been completed. That, to me, just doesn't sound like a great big, wide open investigation that is going to continue. So forgive this "GLOOM AND DOOMER", but obviously the Nation magazine doesn't think so, either.

[dajoki]

3. correct...

and neither do I. and it pisses me off.