Karl Rove headed to Prison???

[BLUEHAWK]

A former US President once said:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

On those grounds there were enough votes in Congress to Impeach a recent President, whose minions and apologists engaged in a certain kind of conduct unbecoming.

So, let us step back together... and compare.

Wonder how the lady journalist is liking her 63rd day in the hoozie

OOPS, she's off the front page!

[Gimpy]

Originally posted by BLUEHAWK

Wonder how the lady journalist is liking her 63rd day in the hoozie

OOPS, she's off the front page!

Not for long!......The proverbial '$hit' is fixin to hit the fan!

[SuperScout]

OK boys and girls, let's see if the following quote causes you to fall out of your chairs in laughing disbelief:

" ... Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year.?

Lessee here, since Time magazine has had an anti-Bush agenda, similar to the NYT, LAT, and other rags, how can we possibly believe that they would withhold any information, true or not, that would damage the reelection chances of GWB? What Gimpy is asking us to swallow is a bigger lie than his hero Clinto ever told, quote, " I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Maybe you can get Monica to swallow, but not us, Gimpy.

I ask again, if there is such overwhelming "evidence," why hasn't an indictment been handed down by now? One would think that an enterprising special prosecutor, anxious to make coup on the legal turf, would be salivating about this opportunity to further his career.

[Gimpy]

I said before...............'BE CAREFUL OF WHAT YOU ASK FOR' there my SuperCowboy buddy! :

[Gimpy]

like the 'cronies' at the Whitehouse are in for some hard times.

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EDITOR & PUBLISHER

America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry

Time for 'NY Times' to Explore Miller's Tale

It's obvious that the leaders of the Times have made a decision not to order hard reporting on Judith Miller's involvement in the Plame affair. This journalistic void is in stark contrast to its editorial page's persistent calls for her release. Now it's time for the paper's public editor, Byron Calame, to take action.

By William E. Jackson, Jr.

(September 26, 2005) --

Surely Byron Calame, the public editor at The New York Times, has more important things to do than to scold Alessandra Stanley for unfair treatment of Geraldo Rivera. Calame might better spend his time looking into a festering controversy of much greater consequence that has internally "tied the paper in knots" -- as described to me by a senior Times employee when referring to the bizarre case of Judith Miller.

But Calame has not yet written a single word about a most public Fourth Estate showdown between Miller -- serving time in jail for contempt of court in the Valerie Plame investigation -- and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

In fact, it is obvious that the leaders of the Times have made a decision not to order hard reporting on Miller's involvement in the Plame affair even when there are important new developments. This journalistic void -- in the midst of widespread suspicion that Miller's refusal to testify before a grand jury may reflect a fear of incriminating herself rather than simply betraying a source -- is in stark contrast to the editorial page's unceasing calls for her release.

How might she incriminate herself? On one thing everyone can agree: Miller had extensive sources among national security officials in the Bush White House and cabinet departments. In the early summer of 2003, she was still the lead reporter covering the WMD beat for The Times. Valerie Plame worked on weapons of mass destruction intelligence for the CIA. Miller never wrote an article about Plame. But it is quite possible that Miller discussed Plame's identity with numerous sources, and may have actually been the "carrier" of the information to some officials.

A special prosecutor armed with information that would allow him to compare and contrast her discussions might very well be in a position to charge her with perjury, or even conspiracy to obstruct justice -- if she were found to be in collusion with those officials seeking to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson by revealing the professional identity of his spouse.

A veteran journalist with a major Washington news outlet expressed this understated opinion to me: "My guess is that her conversation or conversations were probably with her usual sources and touched on Wilson's Op-Ed along with their other common interests."

The Times does not seem to mind getting scooped by outside rivals in the mainstream press when the revelations cut too close to the bone. After a bold but brief attempt by Doug Jehl on July 28 ("Case of C.I.A. Officer's Leaked Identity Takes New Turn") to get executive editor Bill Keller to answer some key questions about the circumstances surrounding her alleged "contemplation" of "reporting" on the exposure of Plame's identity, the paper has rolled up the carpet on investigating itself.

Moreover, there have been no investigative reports of late that have probed into the particulars of the larger Plame case. Over the last two months, the only story of note in the Times concerned former Sen. Robert Dole's well-publicized visit to Miller in jail and his service in reading a letter from her after a luncheon address at the National Press Club. ("Bob Dole Issues Jailed Reporter's Plea," by Lynnette Clemetson, September 3, 2005).

In the intervening time, several national newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, have run major stories. Newsday disclosed that the subpoena for Miller by the grand jury on August 20, 2004, had asked for all documents relating to any conversations ?between Judith Miller and a government official whom she met in Washington D.C. on July 8, 2003, concerning Valerie Plame Wilson."

The Washington Post has continued to report on the Plame case and Miller, despite the fact that two of its reporters were subpoenaed by the grand jury, but legal aspects seem to be avoided.

On September 17, Carol Leonnig -- in a front-page Post story on Miller titled "Jailed Reporter Is Distanced From News, Not Elite Visitors? -- reported that for 30 minutes nearly every day, "the world comes to her" in the form of a ?parade of prominent government and media officials.?

One Washington reporter covering the case observed to me: "I notice that Bob Bennett is now listed as one of Miller's lawyers; that would explain the PR burst. That's how he does cases."

One other press account warrants mention. Reuters' Adam Entous on Sept. 8 reported that lawyers close to the investigation were detecting signs that the 20-month-long inquiry could be wrapped up within weeks in a final flurry of negotiations and legal maneuvering. Asked if talks were under way with special prosecutor Fitzgerald to secure Miller's testimony and release, one of Miller's lawyers, attorney Floyd Abrams, said: "She made a promise and, unless properly released from her promise by her source, she has no choice but to continue to take the position that she's taking." He declined comment when asked if Miller had reached out anew to her source for a clear release from confidentiality that would allow her to testify.

There is a huge elephant in the Times building on West 43rd Street, but editors and publisher act as if they do not see it. It is striking that important information that has appeared elsewhere, including certain details about Miller's meeting with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff -- which is now widely believed to be prosecutor Fitzgerald's main focus -- and John Bolton's visit to her in jail, have still not been reported in The New York Times. This permits the eminent newspaper to be scooped, not only by its leading competitors, but also by numerous online Web sites and bloggers.

Has The Times opted out of covering all issues related to the role of Judith Miller in the Plame investigation, the most prominent case involving the press and national security to come along in years.? And, if this is true, should not the newspaper explain that decision to its readers, or at least be put on the spot by its public editor?

William E. Jackson, Jr. (letters@editorandpublisher.com) has written frequently for E&P Online about the Plame investigation for well over a year. A former arms control official of the State Department, he writes about the press and national security from Davidson, N.C.

[Gimpy]

like the 'SLEDGE HAMMER' is about to come down on this corrupt bunch of jerks after all!

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Miller Agrees to Testify in CIA Leak Probe

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago

WASHINGTON ----

- Finally agreeing to testify, New York Times reporter Judith Miller's grand jury appearance throws a damaging spotlight once again on a White House whose credibility has been undermined in the criminal probe into the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity.

Freed after 85 days in a federal detention center, Miller was to testify Friday for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation about her conversations in July 2003 with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Until a few months ago, the White House maintained for nearly two years that Libby and presidential aide Karl Rove were not involved in leaking the identity of Valerie Plame, whose husband had publicly suggested that the Bush administration twisted intelligence in the runup to the war i Iraq.

The timing of the criticism by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson was devastating for the White House, which was already on the defensive because no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. The president's claims of such weapons were the main justification for going to war.

Libby met with Miller just two days after Wilson blasted the Bush administration in a Times op-ed piece.

Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper has testified recently that Rove and Libby had spoken to him about Wilson's wife that same week in July 2003 when Miller spoke to Libby.

In October 2003, with the criminal investigation gaining speed, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said of Rove and Libby: "Those individuals assured me they were not involved in this" leaking of Plame's identity.

Miller has been in custody in Alexandria, Va., since July 6. A federal judge ordered her jailed for civil contempt of court when she refused to testify.

The disclosure of Plame's identity by syndicated columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003, triggered a criminal investigation that could still result in criminal charges against government officials.

"My source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations relating to the Wilson-Plame matter," Miller said in a statement Thursday. Her newspaper identified Libby as the source, saying that Miller and Libby spoke in person on July 8, 2003, then talked by phone later that week.

Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said that "as we have throughout this ordeal, we continue to support Judy Miller in the decision she has made. We are very pleased that she has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver, both by phone and in writing, releasing her from any claim of confidentiality and enabling her to testify."

White House aides signed waivers earlier in the probe, but Miller wanted and received personal assurances that her source's waiver was voluntary. Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment.

President Bush has given varying accounts of the circumstances under which he would fire leakers in the Plame probe.

In September 2003, Bush said "we'll take the appropriate action" and his spokesman said "they would no longer be in this administration." In June 2004, Bush reiterated the pledge, answering "yes" when asked if he would fire anyone in his administration who leaked Plame's name. In July, amid revelations that Rove and Libby had been involved in the leaks, Bush said that "if someone committed a crime" he would be fired.

The federal grand jury delving into the matter expires Oct. 28. Miller would have been freed at that time, but prosecutors could have pursued a criminal contempt of court charge against the reporter if she continued to defy Fitzgerald.

Of the reporters swept up in Fitzgerald's investigation, Miller is the only one to go to jail.

Novak apparently has cooperated with prosecutors, though neither he nor his lawyer has said so.

Novak's column in July 2003 said two senior administration officials told him Plame had suggested sending her husband to the African nation of Niger on behalf of the CIA to look into possible Iraqi purchases of uranium yellowcake.

Wilson's article in the Times, titled "What I Didn't Find In Africa," had stated it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

Miller is a veteran national security reporter. In the 1980s, she became the first woman to be named chief of the Times' Cairo bureau in Egypt. For her work on Osama bin Laden in 2001, she won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism as part of a small team of Times reporters.

Starting in 2002, her stories about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq helped bolster the Bush administration's case for toppling Saddam Hussein. The failure to find the weapons prompted heavy criticism of Miller and the Times as well as of the Bush administration.

[BLUEHAWK]

It is deemed unsavory, and ungentlemanly, to kick a man when he is down.

[Gimpy]

you think the Bush..Cheney...Rove cartel is down NOW!

Just WAIT........they ain't even CLOSE to 'hittin bottom' yet!

[BLUEHAWK]

Originally posted by Gimpy you think the Bush..Cheney...Rove cartel is down NOW!

Just WAIT........they ain't even CLOSE to 'hittin bottom' yet!

a. I said nothing about a cartel.

b. Those comments are, at best, delusional.

[Gimpy]

just the 'Tip Of The Iceberg'!

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Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer

Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White

House Statement

By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, October 2, 2005; A05

As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally indicated.

With New York Times reporter Judith Miller's release from jail Thursday and testimony Friday before a federal grand jury, the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, came into clearer focus. Libby, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the vice president's main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case.

His story is similar to that of Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. Rove, who was not an initial focus of the investigation, testified that he, too, talked with two reporters about Plame but never supplied her name or CIA role.

Their testimony seems to contradict what the White House was saying a few months after Plame's CIA job became public.
In October 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that he personally asked Libby and Rove whether they were involved, "so I could come back to you and say they were not involved." Asked if that was a categorical denial of their involvement, he said, "That is correct."

What remains a central mystery in the case is whether special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has accumulated evidence during his two-year investigation that any crime was committed. His investigation has White House aides and congressional Republicans on edge as they await Fitzgerald's announcement of an indictment or the conclusion of the probe with no charges.

The grand jury is scheduled to expire Oct. 28, and lawyers in the case expect Fitzgerald to signal his intentions as early as this week.

Fitzgerald is investigating whether anyone illegally disclosed Plame's name or undercover CIA job in retaliation against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. In the summer of 2003, Wilson, a former diplomat, accused the White House of using "twisted" intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

He claimed firsthand evidence: At the behest of the CIA, he had flown to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the administration's assertion that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium in the African nation for use in its nuclear weapons program. Wilson returned unconvinced the assertion was true. However, Bush himself made the charge in his 2003 State of the Union address, prompting Wilson to spread word throughout the government and eventually make public his rebuttal.

Many lawyers in the case have been skeptical that Fitzgerald has the evidence to prove a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which is the complicated crime he first set out to investigate, and which requires showing that government officials knew an operative had covert status and intentionally leaked the operative's identity.

But a new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife.

To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.
Lawyers involved in the case interviewed for this report agreed to talk only if their names were not used, citing Fitzgerald's request for secrecy.

One source briefed on Miller's account of conversations with Libby said it is doubtful her testimony would on its own lead to charges against any government officials. But, the source said, her account could establish a piece of a web of actions taken by officials that had an underlying criminal purpose.

Conspiracy cases are viewed by criminal prosecutors as simpler to bring than more straightforward criminal charges, but also trickier to sell to juries. "That would arguably be a close call for a prosecutor, but it could be tried," a veteran Washington criminal attorney with longtime experience in national security cases said yesterday.

Other lawyers in the case surmise Fitzgerald does not have evidence of any crime at all and put Miller in jail simply to get her testimony and finalize the investigation. "Even assuming . . . that somebody decided to answer back a critic, that is politics, not criminal behavior," said one lawyer in the case. This lawyer said the most benign outcome would be Fitzgerald announcing that he completed a thorough investigation, concluded no crime was committed and would not issue a report.

The campaign to discredit Wilson's accusations came at a critical moment in the Bush presidency. It occurred a few months after the United States invaded Iraq and at a time when Bush, Cheney and the entire administration were under extraordinary pressure to back up their prewar allegations that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and was working on a nuclear weapons program.

The Niger claim was central to the White House's rationale for war, and Wilson was on a one-man crusade to disprove it. Early on, his actions caught the eye of the vice president's office, which was often the emotional and intellectual force pushing the United States to war based on fears of potential weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Cheney and Libby were intimately involved in building the case for the war, which included warnings that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons.

Cheney's staff was looking into Wilson as early as May 2003, nearly two months before columnist Robert D. Novak identified Wilson's wife as a CIA operative, according to administration sources familiar with the effort. What stirred the interest of the vice president's office was a May 6 New York Times column by Nicholas D. Kristof in which the mission to Niger was described without using Wilson's name. Kristof's column said Cheney had authorized the trip.

According to former senior CIA officials, the vice president's office pressed the CIA to find out how the trip was arranged, because Cheney did not know that a query he made much earlier to a CIA briefer about a report alleging Iraq was seeking Niger uranium had triggered Wilson's trip. "They were very uptight about the vice president being tagged that way," a former senior CIA official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. "They asked questions that set [off] a chain of inquiries."

By early June, several weeks before Libby is said to have known Plame's name, the State Department had prepared a memo on the Niger case that contained information on Plame in a section marked "(S)" for secret. Around that time, Libby knew about the trip's origins, though in an interview with The Washington Post at the time, he did not mention any role played by Wilson's wife.
By July 12, however, both Rove and Libby and perhaps other senior White House officials knew about Wilson's wife's position at the CIA and, according to lawyers familiar with testimony in the probe, used that information with reporters to undermine the significance of Wilson's trip.

Staff writer Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.


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Get ready my friends.............the $HIT is fixin to HIT THE FAN!