http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013107Z.shtml
Wednesday 31 January 2007
Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair
Notes intorduced as evidence:
http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_02/cheney.notes.word.jpg
http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_02/cheney.notes.graph.jpg
http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_02/cheney.notes.doc.jpg
By Jason Leopold and Marc Ash
t r u t h o u t | Report
Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President ***** Cheney, introduced
at trial by defense attorneys for former White House staffer I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame
CIA Leak case.
Bush has long maintained that he was unaware of attacks by any member
of his administration against [former ambassador Joseph] Wilson.
The ex-envoy's stinging rebukes of the administration's use of pre-war
Iraq intelligence led Libby and other White House officials to leak
Wilson's wife's covert CIA status to reporters in July 2003 in an act
of retaliation.
But Cheney's notes, which were introduced into evidence Tuesday during
Libby's perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial, call into question
the truthfulness of President Bush's vehement denials about his prior
knowledge of the attacks against Wilson.
The revelation that Bush may have known all along that there was an
effort by members of his office to discredit the former ambassador
begs the question:
Was the president also aware that senior members of his administration
compromised Valerie Plame's undercover role with the CIA?
Further, the highly explicit nature of Cheney's comments not only
hints at a rift between Cheney and Bush over what Cheney felt was the
scapegoating of Libby, but also raises serious questions about
potentially criminal actions by Bush.
If Bush did indeed play an active role in encouraging Libby to take
the fall to protect Karl Rove, as Libby's lawyers articulated in their
opening statements, then that could be viewed as criminal involvement
by Bush.
Last week, Libby's attorney Theodore Wells made a stunning
pronouncement during opening statements of Libby's trial.
He claimed that the White House had made Libby a scapegoat for the
leak to protect Karl Rove - Bush's political adviser and "right-hand
man."
"Mr. Libby, you will learn, went to the vice president of the United
States and met with the vice president in private. Mr. Libby said to
the vice president, 'I think the White House ... is trying to set me
up. People in the White House want me to be a scapegoat,'" said Wells.
Cheney's notes seem to help bolster Wells's defense strategy.
Libby's defense team first discussed the notes - written by Cheney in
September 2003 for White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan -
during opening statements last week.
Wells said Cheney had written "not going to protect one staffer and
sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder
because of incompetence of others":
a reference to Libby being asked to deal with the media and
vociferously rebut Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration
knowingly "twisted" intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq.
However, when Cheney wrote the notes, he had originally written "this
Pres." instead of "that was."
During cross-examination Tuesday morning, David Addington was asked
specific questions about Cheney's notes and the reference to President
Bush.
Addington, former counsel to the vice president, was named Cheney's
chief of staff - a position Libby had held before resigning.
"Can you make out what's crossed out, Mr. Addington?" Wells asked,
according to a copy of the transcript of Tuesday's court proceedings.
"It says 'the guy' and then it says, 'this Pres.' and then that is
scratched through," Addington said.
"OK," Wells said. "Let's start again. 'Not going to protect one
staffer and sacrifice the guy ...' and then what's scratched through?"
Wells asked Addington again, attempting to establish that Cheney had
originally written that President Bush personally asked Libby to beat
back Wilson's criticisms.
"T-h-i-s space P-r-e-s," Addington said, spelling out the words.
"And then it's got a scratch-through."
"So it looks like 'this Pres.?'" Wells asked again.
"Yes sir," Addington said.
Thus, Cheney's notes would have read "not going to protect one staffer
and sacrifice the guy this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meat
grinder because of the incompetence of others."
The words "this Pres." were crossed out and replaced with "that was,"
but are still clearly legible in the document.
The reference to "the meat grinder" was understood to be the
Washington press corps, Wells said.
The "protect one staffer" reference, Wells said, was White House
Political Adviser Karl Rove, whose own role in the leak and the
attacks on Wilson are well documented.
Furthermore, Cheney, in his directive to McClellan that day in
September 2003, wrote that the White House spokesman needed to
immediately "call out to key press saying the same thing about Scooter
as Karl."
McClellan had publicly stated in September 2003 that Rove was not
culpable in the leak of Valerie Plame's covert CIA identity, nor was
he involved in a campaign to discredit her husband, but McClellan did
not say anything to the media that exonerated Libby, which led Cheney
to write the note.
A couple of weeks later, in October 2003, McClellan told members of
the media that it was "ridiculous" for them to suggest Libby and Rove
were involved in the leak, because he received personal assurances
from both men that they had nothing to do with it.
Moreover, Wells insinuated Tuesday that Cheney's note [seemingly]
implicating President Bush in the discrediting of Wilson was one of
the 250 pages of emails and documents the White House failed to turn
over to investigators who had been probing the leak for more than two
years.
Wells insinuated that Cheney's note, because it contained a reference
to "this Pres." may have been an explosive piece of evidence that
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who at the time of the leak was
White House counsel, withheld from investigators, citing executive
privilege.
Addington told Wells that when subpoenas were first issued by the
Justice Department in the fall of 2003, demanding documents and emails
relating to Wilson and Plame be preserved, he was given Cheney's notes
and immediately recognized the importance of what the vice president
had written.
Addington said he immediately entered into a "discussion" with
Gonzales and Terry O'Donnell, Cheney's counsel, about the note, but
Addington did not say whether it was turned over to investigators in
the early days of the probe.
Wells's line of questioning is an attempt to shift the blame for the
leak squarely onto the shoulders of the White House - a tactic aimed
at confusing the jury - and will likely unravel because it has nothing
to do with the perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges at the heart
of the case against Libby.
Still, Tuesday's testimony implicating President Bush may be the most
important fact that has emerged from the trial thus far.
Addington revealed during his testimony Monday that in June 2003 there
were internal discussions - involving President Bush and Vice
President Cheney - about declassifying for specific reporters a
portion of the highly classified October 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate as a way to counter Wilson's criticisms against the
administration.
That portion purportedly showed that Iraq was attempting to purchase
uranium from Niger to use for building an atomic bomb - a claim that
Wilson had debunked when he personally traveled to Niger to
investigate it a year earlier.
In late June or early July 2003, "a question was asked of me - by
Scooter Libby: Does the president have authority to declassify
information?" Addington told jurors Monday, in response to a question
by defense attorney William Jeffress.
"And the answer I gave was, 'Of course, yes. It's clear the president
has the authority to determine what constitutes a national security
secret and who can have access to it.'"
President Bush signed an executive order in 2003 authorizing Cheney to
declassify certain intelligence documents.
The order was signed on March 23, four days after the start of the
Iraq War and two weeks after Wilson first appeared on the
administration's radar.
____________________________________________________
Truthout will publish a follow-up to this story, with opinions
from legal experts on possible implications of these latest
developments for the White House.
Harry
.
|
