Sunday, July 31, 2005
Time: Administration Started Wilson Smear Work As Early As June 12th, 2003
Trouble in paradise for the Bush administration. Time magazine (via Think Progress and AmericaBlog) has a scoop in the CIA leak case that ought to bring Rovegate back to the front pages just in time to ruin the preznit's summer vacation and send the administration rats scurrying for cover in Crawford, Texas (through the use of anonymous leaks, of course!):
"As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer.
The previously undisclosed fact gathering began in the first week of June 2003 at the CIA, when its public-affairs office received an inquiry about Wilson's trip to Africa from veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus. That office then contacted Plame's unit, which had sent Wilson to Niger, but stopped short of drafting an internal report. The same week, Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman asked for and received a memo on the Wilson trip from Carl Ford, head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Sources familiar with the memo, which disclosed Plame's relationship to Wilson, say Secretary of State Colin Powell read it in mid-June. Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage may have received a copy then too.
When Pincus' article ran on June 12, the circle of senior officials who knew about the identity of Wilson's wife expanded. "After Pincus," a former intelligence officer says, "there was general discussion with the National Security Council and the White House and State Department and others" about Wilson's trip and its origins. A source familiar with the memo says neither Powell nor Armitage spoke to the White House about it until after July 6. John McLaughlin, then deputy head of the CIA, confirms that the White House asked about the Wilson trip, but can't remember exactly when. One thing he's sure of, says McLaughlin, who has been interviewed by prosecutors, is that "we looked into it and found the facts of it, and passed it on." --By Massimo Calabresi. With reporting by Timothy J. Burger, Michael Duffy and Viveca Novak
Remember, Rove's alibi is that he never heard of Valerie Plame until somebody in the press told him who she was (though he can't remember which member of the press this was). But Time says after the Pincus article ran on June 12th, a "general discussion with the National Security Council and the White House and State Department and others about Wilson's trip and its origins" ensued.
How could the "others" discussing the Wilson matter in June 2003 not include the preznit's main political operative, Karl Rove? How could Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney, as members of the National Security Council, not be involved in Operation Smear Wilson as well?
This could be serious trouble for the administration. If Time's report is true and special prosecutor Fitzgerald has the administration conspiring to smear Wilson as early as June 12th and then lying about it to the FBI and/or the grand jury, there are going to be a whole lot of frog-marches going in the White House come October when the grand jury ends.
And perjury just might be the least of the charges.
"As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer.
The previously undisclosed fact gathering began in the first week of June 2003 at the CIA, when its public-affairs office received an inquiry about Wilson's trip to Africa from veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus. That office then contacted Plame's unit, which had sent Wilson to Niger, but stopped short of drafting an internal report. The same week, Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman asked for and received a memo on the Wilson trip from Carl Ford, head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Sources familiar with the memo, which disclosed Plame's relationship to Wilson, say Secretary of State Colin Powell read it in mid-June. Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage may have received a copy then too.
When Pincus' article ran on June 12, the circle of senior officials who knew about the identity of Wilson's wife expanded. "After Pincus," a former intelligence officer says, "there was general discussion with the National Security Council and the White House and State Department and others" about Wilson's trip and its origins. A source familiar with the memo says neither Powell nor Armitage spoke to the White House about it until after July 6. John McLaughlin, then deputy head of the CIA, confirms that the White House asked about the Wilson trip, but can't remember exactly when. One thing he's sure of, says McLaughlin, who has been interviewed by prosecutors, is that "we looked into it and found the facts of it, and passed it on." --By Massimo Calabresi. With reporting by Timothy J. Burger, Michael Duffy and Viveca Novak
Remember, Rove's alibi is that he never heard of Valerie Plame until somebody in the press told him who she was (though he can't remember which member of the press this was). But Time says after the Pincus article ran on June 12th, a "general discussion with the National Security Council and the White House and State Department and others about Wilson's trip and its origins" ensued.
How could the "others" discussing the Wilson matter in June 2003 not include the preznit's main political operative, Karl Rove? How could Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney, as members of the National Security Council, not be involved in Operation Smear Wilson as well?
This could be serious trouble for the administration. If Time's report is true and special prosecutor Fitzgerald has the administration conspiring to smear Wilson as early as June 12th and then lying about it to the FBI and/or the grand jury, there are going to be a whole lot of frog-marches going in the White House come October when the grand jury ends.
And perjury just might be the least of the charges.
