The Political Chase

Odds Against Libby and Rove

I know this is an unusual reference, but Tradesports.com is quoting a 68.9% chance that Scooter Libby will be indicted by December 31, and a 54% chance that Karl Rove will be indicted within the same timeframe.

Why Tradesports? Tradesports has accurately predicted several elections and significant legal cases. Some may knock the source because they missed the Michael Jackson trial, but that’s just one case.

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TalkLeft: Bloomberg: Wilsons May Sue Bush, Cheney

TalkLeft says that Joseph Wilson may pursue suing Bush, Cheney and others in the administration.  If a lawsuit is brought forward, it would probably go to trial during Bush’s term.  All the big boys would have to testify under oath.

Hmm…

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Meirs Confirmation Questionnaire

The completed confirmation questionnaire Harriet Miers submitted to the Committe on the Judiciary may be found here.

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Many Rumors - Cheney May Resign

It seems that if nothing else, today’s Washington Post article heated up the rumor mill.  US News reports plenty of rumors around Washington that Cheney may resign and Condi Rice will move up a notch.

I don’t believe this will come to pass, but…

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Cheney aide allegedly working with Fitzgerald

Raw Story reports that John Hannah, a senior national security aide to VP Dick Cheney, is cooperating with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.

According to the article, Hannah was recently told that he may face indictment and should cooperate with the investigation.  Apparently, Hannah may have been involved with the initiation of the campaign to smear Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson’s husband.

Those close to the investigation said in June 2003, Hannah was given orders by higher-ups in Cheney’s office to leak Plame’s covert status and identity in an attempt to muzzle Wilson, who had been a thorn in the side of the administration since May 2003, when he started questioning the administration’s claims that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. and its neighbors in the Middle East. The specifics of who issued those orders and what directives were given were not provided.

Joseph Wilson, in his book The Politics of Truth, specifically targets Hannah as a source and makes a strong claim that he was acting on orders from a higher level authority.

“In fact, senior advisers close to the president may well have been clever enough to have used others to do the actual leaking, in order to keep their fingerprints off the crime,” Wilson writes.

“John Hannah and David Wurmser, mid-level political appointees in the vice-president’s office, have both been suggested as sources of the leak …Mid-level officials, however, do not leak information without the authority from a higher level,” Wilson notes.

Another factor that may have motivated Hannah to participate is he is under investigation for alleged activities associated with the Iraqi National Congress, which is lead by Ahmed Chalabi.

There’s an obvious reason for Fitzgerald making his announcements from Washington rather than Chicago.  He can be at the same location where the FBI will be making most of their arrests.

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Cheney’s Office Is A Focus in Leak Case

Mr. Vice President, you and Scooter need to find an undisclosed location.

As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent’s name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney’s office, according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney’s long-standing tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame.

In grand jury sessions, including with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Fitzgerald has pressed witnesses on what Cheney may have known about the effort to push back against ex-diplomat and Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, including the leak of his wife’s position at the CIA, Miller and others said. But Fitzgerald has focused more on the role of Cheney’s top aides, including Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, lawyers involved in the case said.

Prosecutors focusing from the bottom up is a normal process – it does not imply, by any means, that there isn’t trouble further up the ladder.

This sounds rather ominous also:

[I]t is increasingly clear that Cheney and his aides have been deeply enmeshed in events surrounding the Plame affair from the outset.

And here we have the motivation for the President’s famous 16 word foul up in the State of the Union address:

 Fitzgerald has been exposed to the intense, behind-the-scenes fight between Cheney’s office and the CIA over prewar intelligence and the vice president’s central role in compiling and then defending the intelligence used to justify the war.

And then there is this precedent taking step:

Before the war, he traveled to CIA headquarters for briefings, an unusual move that some critics interpreted as an effort to pressure intelligence officials into supporting his view of the evidence.

As I understand it, not from this article, but several credible organizations, it is unprecedented for the Vice President to pull up a chair beside a CIA staffer and have a get acquainted chat. No Vice President or President is known to have ever taken this step.  Just a little pressure on the folks in the CIA to see it his way, don’t you think?

Repeatedly, the Vice President’s office has denied having anything to do with initiating Wilson’s trip, but then there is this interesting passage.

Wilson’s trip, for example, was triggered by a question Cheney asked during a regular morning intelligence briefing. He had received a Defense Intelligence Agency report alleging Iraq had sought uranium from Niger and wanted to know what else the CIA may have known.

Believe it or not, this item surprised me.  I’ve been under a rock, because I have been oblivious to the fact that the entire family are the executives running the show.  Sounds more like the soap opera, “The Bold and the Beautiful” than the Office of the Vice President.

In the Bush White House, Cheney typically has operated secretly, relying on advice from a tight circle of longtime advisers, including Libby; David Addington, his counsel; and his wife, Lynne, and two children, including Liz, a top State Department official. [Emphasis added.]

More on this later.

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CNN Poll Puts Bush’s Rating Lower

Another poll says Bush’s approval rating dropped further.  The CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll has President Bush’s approval rating at 39%, which is similar to other polls taken in the last week or so.  This poll represents a drop in the results from a poll taken by the same group in the last week of September.

I wonder what the same poll would reflect if taken after the two articles in tomorrow’s Washington Post (here and here).

As the president has stated, he doesn’t pay attention to polls, he leads and solves problems. But his actions indicate – oblivious to the polls, oblivious to the scandal and corruption just outside the Oval Office, oblivious to our becoming subservient to China, oblivious to Katrina, oblivious to DeLay, Abramoff, Safavian, Flannigan…exactly what does this man focus on – cartoons on Saturday morning, or are they even on anymore? I’m surely showing my age.  Hell, the man can’t even watch a 6:30 PM national news broadcast – Andy Card has to shove that under his nose to get his attention to the worst disaster in the history of the country.

Everybody that believes this country can endure three more years of malpractice by President Bush, please raise your hand. Gee. I can’t see anybody from here. Oops, I missed one, I see Ms. Meirs’ hand is raised.

More later.

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FEMA Discombobulated After Katrina

E-Mails Show Disarray at FEMA After Katrina

As Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans on Aug. 29, then-FEMA director Michael D. Brown appeared confused over whether Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had put him in charge, officials of responding agencies could not reach Brown and Brown’s team became swamped by the speed of the unfolding disaster, according to e-mails to and from Brown.
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Cheney’s Office Is a Focus in Leak Case

Announcement:  Cheney’s Office Is a Focus in Leak Case.

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Follow the Washington Post

You might want to keep your eye on the Washington Post. A few things I’ve read in the blog world leads me to believe they may release something (new and improved) on Judy Miller, Cheney, et al.

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Bush Changes Position on Investigation Again

Yet again, George Bush is back pedaling on the Plamegate investigation.  He will not commit to dismissing any staff if they are indicted.  “There’s a serious investigation. I’m not going to prejudge the outcome of the investigation.”

Hat tip to Josh Marshall. 

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