Libby Commutation

Since Robert Novak was highly involved in Plamegate and the prosecutorial abuse case against I. Scooter Libby, I am going to post an excerpt form the email list of Evans-Novak Political Report sent out on July fifth. The excerpt deals with Libby’s Sentence Commutation and the responses from Democrats and Republicans.

Personally I was in the boat that President Bush should provide a FULL PARDON to Libby but I have since rethought that position. I was just so outraged that Fitzgerald would pursue such a minor indictment based on memory equated as perjury when Fitzgerald’s commission as Special Prosecutor was to nail those involved in outing Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA agent. At best Plame managed a pencil pushing network, maybe someone at Office Max had his identity exposed as a result of outing Plame – I don’t know.

Currently I am of the opinion that Libby will utilize the system to expose Fitzgerald as the vindictive creepy Prosecutor that he is. I am confident Libby will win on Appeals even if it goes to the Supreme Court.

Read Robert Novak’s thoughts.

Scooter Libby Case Could Expose CIA to Scrutiny

If you have visited this website before you are aware I hold the strong belief that Scooter Libby was railroaded only for American Leftist venom for the American Conservative Right.

I have advocated a full pardon for Libby; however I have found a person who gives good reasons for Libby to receive a complete exoneration via the Appeals Process. Roger Aronoff believes a pardon will stain Libby with the stigma of expunged guilt. On the other hand vindication by the Appeals process will not only demonstrate Libby’s innocence but expose in Technicolor the heinous agenda of a lying Left.

JRH
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Scooter Libby Case Could Expose CIA to Scrutiny

By Roger Aronoff

Jun 11, 2007

The National Ledger

It is understandable that many in the conservative media have called for President Bush to pardon Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, because of his conviction in the so-called CIA leak case. Libby should never have been put on trial; indeed, new evidence suggests that his alleged target, former CIA analyst Valerie Plame, is the one who should be investigated for allegedly lying under oath before Congress about her role in this affair.

Plame’s backers in the agency would have great reason to fear such a probe. It might shed light on who in the CIA was actively trying to sabotage the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy and who may be continuing to do so today.

AIM Editor Cliff Kincaid and I have detailed in a series of columns how in fact this case should never have been brought, and that exoneration, not a pardon, would better serve Libby, history and justice. The underlying theory about the Bush administration seeking retaliation against Joseph Wilson for writing a column in the New York Times accusing the Bush Administration of “twisting” evidence to justify going to war against Iraq was false, and it was Wilson who played fast and loose with the truth. And it is well known that it was Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State under Colin Powell, not anyone from the White House, nor a supporter of going to war in Iraq, who told Robert Novak and Bob Woodward that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, worked for the CIA and had recommended her husband for the trip to Niger. It was Novak’s column identifying Ms. Wilson that triggered the CIA request to the Justice Department for an investigation, which resulted in the appointment of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

The ordeal has been stressful and expensive for Libby. But in the aftermath of his sentencing last week to 30 months in jail and a $250,000 fine, the case can and still should be made for Libby’s complete exoneration. That can only happen if the appeal process continues and Libby is not pardoned.

The editors of The Weekly Standard, National Review and the Wall Street Journal have all made strong cases for a pardon. Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post has assembled major editorials opposing a pardon.

We showed in another column that a who’s who of journalists testified at the trial that they had spoken with Libby during the period in question when he was supposedly out talking about Ms. Wilson to get back at Mr. Wilson, and only Judith Miller of the New York Times recalled him saying anything to her about Ms. Wilson working for the CIA. Under cross examination, however, Miller’s testimony collapsed, and besides, she never wrote about the story until much later.

This proved that Libby never targeted Plame. His purpose was to find out why Joe Wilson went to Africa and who sent him, and to inform the members of the press that it wasn’t Cheney’s office, as Wilson had suggested. His purpose was also to discuss the CIA’s campaign of leaks and efforts to undermine the Administration’s position on the war and the issue of WMD. It was a natural matter of curiosity for officials of the Bush Administration and the press. People were talking to one another on multiple occasions. This is how Washington works.

In that same column, we documented Libby’s testimony to the grand jury in which he made very clear that he first learned about Ms. Wilson’s identity from Vice President Cheney in June of 2003, before telling the grand jury his memories of conversations with reporters Tim Russert and Matt Cooper in July of that year. It was in those conversations that he was said to have perjured himself and obstructed justice, in part by saying that he recalled that he heard about Ms. Wilson from Russert, and that at that time he thought he was learning it for the first time.
But that didn’t stop Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald from writing in the Government Sentencing Memorandum, dated May 25 of this year, that Libby “lied about when he learned of Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment, about how he learned of her CIA employment, about who he told of her CIA employment, and about what he said when he disclosed it.”

This accusation, despite the jury verdict, cannot be proven.

Here, again, is what Libby said to the grand jury in March 2004, under questioning from Fitzgerald, points he also made when talking to FBI investigators months earlier:

Q....Before we look at your actual notes, how certain are you from memory that the information about the wife [Valerie Plame Wilson] working in the functional office at the CIA, the wife of this former ambassador, was information that Vice President Cheney imparted to you as opposed to information that you imparted to Vice President Cheney?

A. Oh, I'm pretty certain of that.

Q. And what makes you certain?

A. I sort of remember him saying it, you know, in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion. That’s my recollection of it anyway.

And later:

Q. And are you telling us under oath that from July 6th to July 14th you never discussed with Vice President Cheney whether Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA?

A. No, no, I’m not saying that. Only July 10 or 11 I learned, I thought anew, that the wife--that, that reporters were telling us that the wife worked at the CIA. And I may have had a conversation then with the Vice President either late on the 11th or on the 12th in which I relayed that reporters were saying that. When I had that conversation I had forgotten about the earlier conversations in which he told me about--reflected in my notes that we went over this morning, in early June, before the [Walter] Pincus article, when he had told me about that the wife worked at the CIA. I had just forgotten it.

Q. ...who did you speak to on July 10th or 11th that you recalled learning again, thinking it was for the first time, that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA?

A. Tim Russert of NBC News, Washington Bureau Chief for NBC News.

The question remains: If Libby was trying to convince the FBI agents and the grand jury that he first learned about the identity of Ms. Wilson from journalists, why would he first tell them that he actually learned it originally from Cheney? Again, Libby had no reason to lie.

And what about Tim Russert? Russert had commented on the case on NBC, in a form of pre-trial publicity that was damaging to Libby’s case, before he went on the stand. He claims there was no mention of Ms. Wilson in his conversation with Libby, but Russert, like many of the other prosecution witnesses, clearly had memory problems of his own. And making this verdict even more questionable, one of the jurors in the case was a former Washington Post journalist who knew Russert, a witness in the case.

Out of Control

In the Sentencing Memo, Fitzgerald went way beyond what he had prosecuted Libby for, and asked for sentencing as if Plame had been a protected agent under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Fitzgerald also suggested that Libby had violated the Espionage Act, even though he was never charged with doing so.

As pointed out in Time magazine, Fitzgerald, during pre-trial hearings, had insisted that this wasn’t a case about a leak, and he fought “defense requests for documents about whether Plame was ever a covert agent, a status that could have made intentionally leaking her identity a crime.”

But for the sentencing phase, “Fitzgerald changed his tune, arguing that the underlying (and uncharged) crime was so serious as to warrant a sentence twice as long as what the federal probation office recommended; notably, his brief included the revelation that the CIA did consider Plame’s identity classified, at least for 18 months.”

Fitzgerald states very specifically in the Sentencing Memo that Plame was a covert agent, covered by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act at the time her name was revealed by Bob Novak. But Clarice Feldman, a Washington attorney who has covered this case for American Thinker, challenges both the propriety and the accuracy of his charges in one of her many outstanding columns on this case.

“One would have thought that a good investigator would have made an effort to find out whether this was the case at the beginning,” writes Feldman, “not at the sentencing, where Fitzgerald is seeking an upward revision of the sentence claiming now that Plame is ‘covert’, in circumstances shocking to anyone with a notion of due process.” She challenges the basis of his findings as well.

The judge obviously agreed with Fitzgerald, but Libby has now fought back, seeking to stay out of jail while his appeals continue. An outstanding blog which has covered this complete trial and process like no other, Just One Minute, has linked to Libby’s latest filings and summarized his arguments to stay out of jail, and ultimately to have the verdict overturned.

One is based on the court’s refusal to let Andrea Mitchell testify. We documented her comments that Plame’s CIA affiliation was “widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger.” Mitchell later claimed that she was confused and that she had misspoken. But confusion and a faulty memory for Libby got him prosecuted and convicted.

Basis for Appeal

The basis for appeal that legal experts seem to think stands the best chance to have the verdict overturned is the memory defense. Libby was denied the opportunity to have a memory expert offer a theory as to why and how he may have gotten his comments confused. The simple fact is that people remember different things, and that other things were on Libby’s plate at the time he supposedly was lying about what he knew about Wilson and Plame.

In addition, a group of legal scholars, including Alan Dershowitz and Robert Bork, has submitted an amicus brief to Judge Walton “arguing that that there are serious constitutional questions about the legal authority of the special prosecutor who pursued Libby,” and which could lead to his convictions being overturned on appeal.

It is for those reasons that we continue to argue that, painful as it may be, Libby should continue to go through the system, and hopefully be exonerated, rather than to carry the burden of guilt that a pardon carries. It appears this view is gaining currency in the blogosphere, although there is plenty of passion for a pardon as well.

If Judge Walton allows Libby to stay out on bond during the appeals process instead of having to go to prison sometime this summer, then a decision to fight it to the end makes more sense. It will still be stressful and expensive, but at least Libby won’t have to wait for exoneration in a prison cell. If he has to go to prison now, however, the decision becomes much tougher, for Libby and for Bush.

In an odd twist to this whole story, Judge Walton, who came into the Justice Department under President Carter, and was named as a judge first by President Reagan, then President George H.W. Bush, and to his current position by George W. Bush, was just appointed by U.S. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to consider requests from the Justice Department for “authorization to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches within the United States of those suspected of being foreign spies or terrorists.”

There is another factor which is extremely important. Plame, who has sued Cheney, Karl Rove, Libby and Armitage for destroying her career, and now the CIA and Director of National Intelligence over the contents of her forthcoming book, has some explaining of her own to do. Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri has released a document that appears to contradict a statement she made under oath before a Congressional committee. Sen. Bond said, according to USA Today, that she “should explain the ‘differences’ in her various accounts of how her husband was sent to the African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate reports Iraq was trying to buy uranium there.”

Byron York has summarized this on the National Review website. In a new Senate Intelligence Committee report on its investigation into prewar intelligence, Bond has submitted “additional views” in which he makes a strong case that Ms. Wilson may have lied under oath before a House committee last March when she unequivocally denied having played any role in picking Joseph Wilson for a fact-finding trip to Niger.

All of this adds to the mystery. If she lied, why? Was she just protecting herself? Or is she protecting somebody else perhaps several others at the CIA?

If Plame lied under oath about her role in sending her husband on the CIA mission, then that means that what or who she is protecting is very serious indeed. This case, rightly or wrongly, will forever be linked to the larger question of whether we were lied or misled into the war to topple Saddam Hussein and liberate Iraq. That’s why it is so important that it is played out until the end, because this debate will resonate for many years to come.

Roger Aronoff is a media analyst with Accuracy in Media.

Copyright 2004 – 2007 All Rights ReservedThe National Ledger, LLC

Somebody is a Liar in Plamegate

Valerie Plame’s testimony contradicts CIA and government assertions that Plame indeed sent husband Joe Wilson to Niger. Plame denies the assertion vehemently.

So what does that mean? Both Plame and Wilson are liars or the CIA, State Department and White House are liars.

More resources corroborate the CIA, State Department and White House than Plame and Wilson. That would mean Plame has the gall to lie on record at a House hearing.

And AGAIN I raise the question: Why did not Special Persecutor Prosecutor Fitzgerald fulfill his mandate and indict Richard Armitage?

Is There a Conspiracy Link Between the CIA and President Bush?

Jack Cashill insinuates a mysterious conspiracy possibility involving or I should I say revolving around Plamegate.

After reading “Joseph Wilson's Original Sin and how the Administration Washed it Away,” I realized I might have been a little slow connecting the dots.

Who sent Wilson to Niger? It has been verified that wifey Valerie Plame sent Wilson. Why did Plame send Wilson? This is the CIA connection I did not get until possibly now. Wilson was highly involved with French interests in providing nuclear material to Saddam Hussein. The CIA was against an Iraqi invasion by the Bush Administration.

Why was the CIA so dead set against an invasion that America’s Cloak and Dagger Company did everything it could to embarrass President Bush and the Administration?

Here is my guess. Iran has been an official enemy of America since Carter sold out the Shah and allowed the Iran Revolution to proceed. As is typical of those in the American bureaucracy that favor Arab assets to accomplish National Interests, I believe the CIA was working with Saddam to do something to a mutual enemy – Iran. In that work relationship, I sense the CIA (some how) schemed with the French without the knowledge of the Bush Administration or perhaps prior to the Bush Administration.

Why do I contemplate an operation was in place prior to the Bush Administration Agenda to take Saddam down? It is because America shipped out 1.77 tons of enriched uranium out of Iraq. The story was brief but mysteriously withdrawn. Now why would the Bush Administration not take advantage of this moment of vindication?

I sense the CIA was trying to sweep complicity to an Iraqi nuclear program that would also implicate France and Russia. By the time the Bush Administration connected the dots about CIA designs that ran counter to a Bush agenda, the invasion was committed to happen or happened.

President Bush had to decide whether to look like a weak President not in control of his own government and expose America to the embarrassment of a Clinton Agenda still moving in the bureaucracy or hide the dual opposite American government agendas to project strength.

I believe the President chose the latter. Unfortunately the less embarrassing choice set Bush up to be a target by unscrupulous Democrats that had only one agenda: to regain power in government at any cost. I believe there are Democrats that are privy to the knowledge of the CIA agenda. I believe Sandy Berger stole Classified Documents and shredded them to protect Clinton and various Democrats who might be traced to the CIA, French and Russian agenda. When those documents were destroyed, President Bush lost a smoking gun to be used against his political enemies.

Thus President Bush was at the mercy of the 2006 election in hope of perpetuating a Bush agenda. The Democrats exploited enough propaganda that voters were swayed to Democrat lies. I sense President Bush has lost his resolve to follow through and acquiescing to political enemies at the expense of American honor.

The Left Indeed Scapegoats Scooter

I find this unbelievable! Scooter Libby was convicted with four guilty verdicts relating to perjury and obstruction of justice. Then Special Persecutor Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald proclaims this is the event that wraps four years of American taxpayer money.

Fitzgerald goes after Libby for lying about the outing of Plame. Yet Fitzgerald knew full well from the beginning of his investigation that it was Richard Armitage that outed Plame. AND Armitage outed Plame not in any attempt to cover-up anything President Bush or Vice President Cheney were doing, Armitage outed Plame to embarrass the President and Vice President because he was against invading Iraq.

In fact Fitzgerald told Armitage to keep quite about his role in leaking Plame’s name.

Plame and Wilson go Scot free about lying. There is NO indictment whatsoever for Armitage's treasonous acts and MSM manipulation to wrap his anti-War/pro-Arab agenda; then Libby is convicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.

The Yahoo News (which I found out is often edited) report makes Libby looks scandalously heinous and does not write about the appeal outlook put forth by Libby’s Attorney until the end.

Where is the Justice!?

FREE THE FITZGERALD ONE!

(A warm up to Reading Ann Coulter’s Column)


This is one of Ann Coulter’s best columns. Fitzgerald is a tool of the Democratic Party to try and embarrass the Bush Administration in its handling of the war in Iraq. If there can be some court evidence discovered that Saddam Hussein had zero interest in nuke WMD, then the Democrats feel the have the ammunition to nuke Neocon and Christian Right influence and possibly the entire Republican Party.

Patrick Fitzgerald was given a Special Prosecutor’s mandate to hunt down the Neocon that must have released Valerie Plame’s name to the public as an employee for the CIA. As if Plame had any operations that could harm lives of CIA operatives in Africa. Here is the great mystery: Plame is to have sent her husband (an anti-Iraq invasion persona) to Niger to discover if Saddam Hussein was looking to buy Yellow Cake to make nukes. The Wilson adventure was so secret that he told everyone who his wife was and she sent him for the CIA.

Of Course it has been proven that anything related to what Wilson says on his Niger adventure has been proven a lie.

And yet since Plame’s name hit the Mainstream Media (MSM), someone had to fry for crossing the CIA. The data I have read is that the CIA has not gotten along with President Bush and very likely has fed the President corrupted or unusable intelligence. I am guessing that the CIA is trying to cover their butts by making a Presidential Administration they widely dislike to look bad.

I surmise this because both Plame and Wilson were hacks of nearly zero importance to the CIA or the Diplomatic Corps. Yes, they both worked their particular professions however they hardly handled life threatening or Security threatening port folios.

Fitzgerald has spent his millions of tax payer’s money on this Leftist hunt of Neocons and has NOT indicted one person for actually leaking to the MSM Plame’s name. This is the case even after every indication is that Richard Armitage initiated the LEAK.

Armitage is not a Neocon, he is just an Arab loving old school Republican that worked in the State Department (or was it Defense – who cares?).

So what is the result of Fitzgerald’s Independent Prosecutor’s investigation? It was to try to catch a Neocon in a lie and prosecute the Neocon for perjury. The Dems really want to nail Karl Rove, but they could not dig any dirt that could stick to him. Next was Vice-President Cheney’s Chief of Staff I. Scooter Libby.

The indictment on Libby was for obstruction of Justice by lying or in other words perjury. Fitzgerald’s case is the Special Prosecutor’s accusation versus Libby’s claim of an inexact memory. Memory lapses that are very plausible because of all the duties a Chief of Staff performs, recalling insignificant details are not filed in the human memory banks say like a sitting President having oral sex with a White House intern before remembering her name in an actual perjury case.

Hmm ...…

FITZGERALD VAINLY REACHES FOR SELF-JUSTIFICATION

Plamegate will begin to hit the headlines again for a few weeks. Why? Because Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald has a jury trial against Scooter Libby involving the public release of information that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.

So let us be clear about one thing: Fitzgerald has been on this Left Wing hunt to embarrass the Bush Administration and has NOT indicted one single person for the release of the information. Did you read that? FITZGERALD HAS NOT INDICTED ONE PERSON IN HIS ASSIGNMENT AS SPECIAL PROSECUTOR FOR THE ALLEGED CRIME OF OUTING VALERIE PLAME!



The only indictment Fitzgerald has been able to account for with tax payer money is that Scooter Libby lied to the FBI and a Grand Jury.

It is interesting that the man who did release the name is Richard Armitage. Armitage is an anti-war Republican and thus anti-Bush. And yet Fitzgerald is not prosecuting him for what his Special Prosecutor mandate is to accomplish. He is Prosecuting Libby for lying.

Scooter says he did not lie but had his memory of details was sketchy because there was more important issues the government was working on than an insignificant CIA employee that was not a top level handler who is the wife of a confirmed liar who blabbed about his wife working for the CIA more than the Press.

Libby’s lawyers have proved that one of Fitzgerald’s star witnesses is unreliable. Marc Grossman has admitted to telling two different stories about Libby to the FBI. Libby’s Lawyers also accused Grossman was coached on what to say by guess who? Richard Armitage, the actual Plame outer! Fitzgerald tried to object, the judge allowed the questioning. READ IT!

JRH

Cheney to Testify for Libby

Does anyone else find it odd that a discredited Plame and Wilson of Plamegate is still an issue for Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald?

V.P. Cheney is taking the stand (in person or via video – undecided) for his pal Scooter Libby. I guess Fitzgerald wants to save a little face by getting a shot to grill a big dog for what now amounts to a petty charge.

Fitzgerald had better be careful. For the big dog to testify for the Defense, certainly Fitzgerald will get verbally slapped like a red head step child.

Fitzgerald and the Abuse of Special Prosecutor Power

I have said over and over that Plame and Wilson would come out looking like liars. Indeed that is the case! The White House exposed nothing! Vice President Cheney exposed nothing! Karl Rove exposed nothing. I don't know how this will affect Scooter Libby's indictment, however it should be dismissed for there was no cover-up or lies. In fact there was nothing for Fitzgerald to expose.

Old Fitz knew who the person who outed pseudo-CIA agent Plame (Read Ann Coulter’s words about old Joe Wilson), it was Richard Armitage. Armitage was a State Department official and an opponent of taking Saddam Hussein down in Iraq.

So how does Fitzgerald justify wasting tax payer money merely in an attempt for an unwarranted attempt to nail the Bush Administration? It is now reported that Fitzgerald has known nearly from the beginning of his investigation that Armitage was the person that released Plame’s name to the press.

How does the Democratic Party and the Left Wing MSM justify all the false accusations made against President Bush, VP Cheney, Rove and Libby?

It was petty and highly dishonorable on the part of the part of the Left and anti-Bush State Department and anti-Bush CIA cronies. My guess both the anti-Bush crowd of government entities used an irrelevant CIA employee that was expendable to cook up a false conspiracy merely to make the President look bad. There is no justification!

Is the Valerie Plame-CIA Leak Case Crumbling?

O what wicked web liars weave when they set out to deceive? Theyget caught in their own web of deception. Fitzgerald is reaching forimaginary straws to prosecute a case that is emerging as a witchhunt for Conservatives when the only witches are self-incriminatingliberals.

Again it appears the Democrats are sinking in their own mud. Go to http://www.slantright.com/ to read more.

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by Jim Kouri, CPP
November 17, 2005 06:34 AM EST

What a difference a few weeks make in the world of politics. One day, the Democrat Party and the mainstream news media are celebrating the indictment of a key White House staff member, then suddenly facts start to emerge that just might put a damper on the prosecutors case.

Recall how Patrick Fitzgerald announced the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice charges. During his jovial press conference, Mr. Fitzgerald lectured Americans about how serious it is to leak classified information. He avoided using the term "covert" when describing Valerie Plame, because in order for the leak charge to be a crime that's exactly what she would have had to be -- a covert agent. And it's pretty clear now that she wasn't.

Suddenly there is growing doubt about Fitzgerald's case since the legendary journalist Bob Woodward announced that he knew about Plame's identity weeks before the exchange between Libby and Newsweek's Matt Cooper. And he further stated that it wasn't Libby who told him.

Bob Woodward's own description of when and where he learned the identity of a CIA operative contradicts Patrick Fitzgerald's allegation that Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was the first to make the disclosure to reporters. Recall how Fitzgerald stated as fact that the leak began with Libby's conversations with reporters. Apparently, that's not true.

Woodward claims he told his editors at the Washington Post last month that he had learned about Valerie Plame's identity and her work at the CIA more than two years ago, but declined to name his source.

Another less reported, but equally important, event occurred following Libby's indictment. Major General Paul Vallely, US Army (Ret.) said that prior to the alleged leak, Ambassador Joe Wilson bragged to the general that his wife, Valerie, worked for the CIA. And General Vallely is not the only person making such claims.

Also, news organizations are asking, through their attorneys, that US District Judge Reggie Walton deny a court motion by special prosecutor Fitzgerald for a blanket protective order keeping all pretrial evidence in Libby's case out of public view. One wonders if Mr. Fitzgerald disclosed this evidence to Libby's trial attorneys. Libby's legal counsel is entitled to full disclosure.

As the trial date approaches look for more stories to break. For instance, Tim Russert of NBC's "Meet the Press" is a key figure in the case since he denies having told Libby about Plame's CIA position. Libby testified that he believed it was Russert who told him about Plame. Mr. Russert's conduct as a newsman has been criticized by several news watchdog organizations for his coverage of a case in which he is deeply involved.

I predicted that the attorneys for Libby would make things very uncomfortable for some members of the mainstream news media. These people have crossed the line between being unbiased journalists and covert political operatives perhaps once too often. Does anyone believe Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were the only ones? Elite media's cozy relationship with the DNC and liberal activist groups must be exposed to the American people, many of whom still believe what they read in the newspapers and see and hear on their televisions.

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. He writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a staff writer for New Media Alliance (thenma.org), and he's a columnist for TheConservativeVoice.Com, AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com.

[Found at http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=10030]

© 2005 The Conservative Voice. All rights reserved. Some portions ©The Associated Press.

THE PLAME GAME: General wants Wilson apology

One wonders why Fitzgerald does not go after Wilson for perjury or worse breaking the very law that Fitzgerald is supposed to be investigating. Again this whole Libby perjury trial smacks of liberal Democrats imposing an agenda to disrupt Bush. A Machiavellian whatever it takes agenda to discredit conservatives and Bush. Now this is fascinating for it is the very thing the leftists are accusing President Bush and his Administration.
See more at http://www.slantright.com.
_______________________________________________________

By Art Moore
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Posted: November 8, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern

Threatened with a lawsuit for "slander," retired Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely is turning the tables on Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, calling on the man at the center of the CIA leak controversy to offer a public apology for accusing him of lying.

As WorldNetDaily reported, Vallely claimed Wilson revealed wife Valerie Plame's employment with the CIA to him in a casual conversation the year before she allegedly was "outed" by columnist Robert Novak.

Vallely said he brought up Wilson's disclosure last week because he saw Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the alleged leak as unfinished.

Wilson, he said, has made so many misstatements of fact, "but nobody has taken him to task."

Why Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald did not question Wilson and Plame under oath, "is a mystery to me," Vallely said.

Meanwhile, Wilson's lawyer Christopher Wolf notified Vallely and WorldNetDaily that his office mailed an official demand letter yesterday threatening a lawsuit unless the general retracts his claim.

The letter follows an e-mail Saturday to both Vallely and WND warning of legal action.

Wolf warned Vallely "the claim that Ambassador Wilson revealed to you or anyone that his wife worked for the CIA is patently false, and subjects you and anyone publishing your statements to legal liability."

But Vallely said Monday he still has no intention of backing down.

He first made the claim in an interview on the ABC radio network's John Batchelor show Thursday night. Since speaking with WND late Friday, Vallely has clarified the number of occasions Wilson mentioned his wife's status and when the conversation occurred.

After recalling further over the weekend his contacts with Wilson, Vallely says now it was on just one occasion – the first of several conversations – that the ambassador revealed his wife's employment with the CIA and that it likely occurred some time in the late summer or early fall of 2002.

He is certain, he says, the conversation took place in 2002.
Wilson admits to two encounters with Vallely, the first in July 2002.
Fox News Channel would not provide information about Wilson's and Vallely's appearances, but WABC's Batchelor told WND his staff has found that Wilson appeared on the network at least 25 times from Aug. 13 to Dec. 31 of 2002 and that Vallely appeared from 150 to 200 times during that year.

After two years of investigating the CIA leak allegations, Fitzgerald's only indictment – of vice presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby Oct. 28 – pertained to the investigation itself, not the 1982 law that made it illegal to blow a covert U.S. agent's cover, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. One of the key drafters of the law, Washington attorney Victoria Toensing, told WND earlier this year she believed it did not apply to Plame.

Fitzgerald has been probing whether Plame's identity was leaked by the White House as retaliation against Wilson for his assertion that the Bush administration made false claims about Iraq's efforts to buy nuclear material in Africa. Wilson traveled to Niger in February 2002 on a CIA-sponsored trip to check out the allegations about Iraq and wrote up his findings in a July 6, 2003, New York Times opinion piece titled, "What I Didn't Find in Africa."

White House defenders insist the White House aides simply were setting the record straight about Wilson, seeking to put his credibility in context by pointing out it was Plame who helped him get the CIA consulting job. Wilson denied his wife's role initially, but a bipartisan report by the Senate panel documented it.

Wilson declared in the column that his trip revealed the Iraq-Niger connection was dubious, but his oral report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence actually corroborated the controversial "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Widely known?

At least two veteran reporters say Valerie Plame's association with the CIA was widely known, and a prominent analyst on military and political affairs, Victor Davis Hanson, told WorldNetDaily his own green-room encounter with Wilson revealed a man who is unusually free with personal information to strangers.

Former Time magazine correspondent Hugh Sidey told the New York Sun in a story published Sunday. "[Plame's] name was knocking around in the sub rosa world we live in for a long time."

NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, in an appearance on CNBC's "Capitol Report," Oct. 3, 2003, was asked how widely it was known in Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.

"It was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger," she said.

Hanson, a Hoover Institution fellow and National Review columnist, told WND that like Vallely, he had a casual but unusually frank conversation with Wilson in the Fox News green room before appearing on the air with the ambassador some time, he believes, in early 2003.

But contrary to a report, Hanson said Wilson did not disclose his wife's CIA employment.
Nevertheless, Hanson found the first-time encounter to be revealing, describing Wilson as being very "indiscreet" and "unguarded" with personal information, rambling in a "stream of consciousness" manner.

"It was almost as if he were bored; he was non-stop talkative and sort of self-absorbed," Hanson said.

"When I left, I seemed to know a lot about Joe Wilson that he had spontaneously offered to a stranger."

While Wilson did not tell Hanson anything of his wife's CIA connection, Hanson was a witness to an intense 30-minute conversation between the ambassador and The Nation magazine Editor David Corn, who apparently were meeting for the first time.

Corn's July 16, 2003, column was the first published mention of Wilson's claim that the White House intentionally had "outed" Plame as retaliation for the Niger report.

Entitled "A White House Smear," Corn's column said, "Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad, the payback came. Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences:

"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate" the allegation.

Corn claims Wilson never confirmed whether his wife was a covert agent, yet he writes:
Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, "Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames."

Corn concluded: "The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security."