On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:27:13 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> in
alt.abortion with message-id
<3auhe11k5co12dctffp1vdj4ch9cekjnvr@4ax.com> wrote:

Off topic

stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote in news:3auhe11k5co12dctffp1vdj4ch9cekjnvr@
4ax.com:

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:09:55 -0700, "Yang, AthD (h.c), Kicking AWOL's
Cocaine Snorting *****" <eacmole@/*AWOLBUSH*/mail.com> wrote:

Hmmm... I wonder who this high ranking FORMER administration official,
who happened to be on the same flight, might be?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103

&sid=awksAN7mYRZY&refer=us

On the flight to Africa, Fleischer was seen perusing the State
Department memo on Wilson and his wife, according to a former
administration official who was also on the trip.

Special Prosecutor's Probe Centers on Rove, Memo, Phone Calls

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- The fate of White House Deputy Chief of Staff
Karl Rove may rest with the old Watergate question: What did he know
and when did he know it?

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the leaking
of a Central Intelligence Agency agent's name is now focused on how
Rove, one of President George W. Bush's closest advisers, and other
administration officials dealt with a key fact in an equally key memo.

The memo, prepared by the State Department on July 7, 2003, informed
top administration officials that the wife of ex-diplomat and Bush
critic Joseph Wilson was a CIA agent. Seven days later, Wilson's wife,
Valerie Plame, was publicly identified as a CIA operative by
syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

On the same day the memo was prepared, White House phone logs show
Novak placed a call to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer,
according to lawyers familiar with the case and a witness who has
testified before the grand jury. Those people say it is not clear
whether Fleischer returned the call, and Fleischer has refused to
comment.

The Novak call may loom large in the investigation because Fleischer
was among a group of administration officials who left Washington
later that day on a presidential trip to Africa. On the flight to
Africa, Fleischer was seen perusing the State Department memo on
Wilson and his wife, according to a former administration official who
was also on the trip.

In addition, on July 8, 2003, the day after the memo was sent, Novak
discussed Wilson and his wife with Rove, who had remained in
Washington, according to the New York Times.

The Times quoted an attorney familiar with Fitzgerald's probe as
saying that when Novak mentioned Wilson's wife worked for the CIA,
Rove said, ``Yeah, I've heard that too.''

Mission to Niger

Three days after that, on July 11, Rove also discussed Wilson and his
wife with Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, Cooper said
yesterday. Rove told the reporter that Wilson's wife worked for the
CIA and had a hand in having Wilson sent to Niger in 2002 to check out
reports that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium for a nuclear
weapons program, Cooper said during an appearance on NBC's ``Meet the
Press'' program.

Cooper, who recently testified before the grand jury after a long
legal battle to keep his sources secret, said Vice President *****
Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, told him the same
thing. Cooper said neither Rove nor Libby mentioned Wilson's wife by
name.

Bush, in Sept. 30, 2003, comments to reporters, said that ``if
somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and
we'll take the appropriate action.'' His remarks echoed those of his
spokesman, Scott McClellan, who had said the day before, ``If anyone
in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in
this administration.''

On June 10, 2004, Bush answered ``Yes'' when asked whether he whether
he would fire anyone who leaked Plame's name.

Not by Name

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has said that Rove mentioned to Cooper
that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent but did not identify her by name.

In Time's July 18 edition, Cooper writes that Rove ended their brief
telephone conversation by saying, ``I've already said too much.''
Cooper added that he was unsure whether that indicated Rove knew he
had revealed information he should not have mentioned, or whether Rove
was simply indicating he was pressed for time and had to end the call.

As a result of these facts, the State Department memo has become a
central element in Fitzgerald's investigation of how Plame came to be
publicly identified as a CIA agent and whether that violated a 1982
law making it a federal crime to divulge the identity of a covert
intelligence operative.

The memo was prepared by the department's Bureau of Intelligence and
Research at the request of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell,
according to current and former government officials familiar with
Powell's request.

Wilson's Article

Powell asked for it on July 6, 2003, the same day Wilson published an
opinion article in the New York Times revealing his trip to Niger and
his conclusion that there was no evidence to support the claim that
Hussein was seeking uranium there. Wilson went on to accuse the Bush
administration of ignoring his findings and similar intelligence to
make a case for war in Iraq.

The current and former government officials say that the report
reached Powell sometime on July 7. It said Wilson had been approved
for the Niger trip by mid-level CIA officials on the recommendation of
his wife, a counter-proliferation expert at the spy agency.

A key question will be which officials received the report and when.
The special prosecutor has subpoenaed telephone and fax records from
Air Force One and the White House.

Inner Circle

Fleischer, who saw the July 7 memo, wasn't part of Bush's inner circle
during his tenure as press secretary, while Rove was at the heart of
it. Given those facts, it seems highly doubtful that Fleischer would
have acted on the information in the memo without the knowledge or
approval of Rove and other top-level White House officials.

The July 7 memo was largely a reproduction of an earlier State
Department report prepared around June 12. Another key question that
Fitzgerald is interested in, according to the grand jury witness and
the lawyers familiar with the case, is whether Rove or Libby learned
of this earlier report and, if so, shared its content with reporters.

Rove's defenders say the recent revelations in the case -- some of
which have emanated from his camp -- serve to exonerate rather than
implicate him.

They say those revelations show that Rove was not the original source
of Plame's identity for either Novak or Cooper. They note that the
1982 law sets a high bar for prosecution: Fitzgerald would have to
prove that the person outing Plame did so knowingly and in awareness
that the government was trying to conceal her identity.

Five-Year Window

In addition, the law only makes it illegal to divulge the identity of
an agent who worked overseas within the past five years; Plame has
lived in the U.S. since 1997.

Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman said yesterday on ``Meet the
Press'' that recent newspaper stories ``have the effect of exonerating
and vindicating Mr. Rove, not implicating him. That information says
Karl Rove was not Bob Novak's source, that Novak told Rove, not the
other way around, and it says that Karl warned Matt Cooper about Joe
Wilson.''

Others see difficulties in these arguments. They note the inherent
contradiction between Rove's testimony to the grand jury that he
learned Plame's name from Novak and his statement to Novak during the
July 8 phone call that ``I've heard that, too.''

Potential Problem

This points toward a potential problem for Rove in the direction of
Fitzgerald's investigation. It now has expanded beyond its original
mission -- to determine if the 1982 law was violated -- to encompass
whether any White House officials, including Rove and Fleischer, have
testified falsely about the case or obstructed justice by trying to
cover up their involvement in the leak, according to people familiar
with the case who cite a pattern of questioning by Fitzgerald.

In addition, there is strong reason to believe that Fitzgerald is
hunting big game, according to several legal experts. They say that is
demonstrated by the fact that he has done something that no federal
prosecutor has done in 30 years: send a reporter, Judith Miller of the
New York Times, to jail for refusing to divulge with whom she spoke
about the Wilson-Plame case.

``You wouldn't expect him to go to these lengths unless he thought he
had something serious to look at,'' said Randall Eliason, the former
chief of the public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney's office
in Washington. ``You don't compel reporters to testify or jail
reporters unless you have a pretty good reason.''

Tatel's Opinion

That ``pretty good reason'' was highlighted by U.S. Appellate Judge
David Tatel in his Feb. 15 opinion concurring that Miller and Cooper
must testify in the Plame case.

Tatel noted that the vast majority of the states, as well as the
Justice Department, ``would require us to protect reporters' sources
as a matter of federal common law were the leak at issue either less
harmful or more newsworthy.''

However, he added, ``just as attorney-client communications made for
the purpose of getting advice for the commission of a fraud or crime
serve no public interest and receive no privilege, neither should
courts protect sources whose leaks harm national security while
providing minimal benefit to public debate.''

-- With reporting by Laurie Asseo in Washington. Editor: Fireman,
Kraus

To contact the reporters on this story: Richard Keil in
Washington at (1)

great post! and topical.

now watch some right wing loon claim you are off topic.