The Political Chase

Indictments Tomorrow

Steve Clemmons of The Washington Note reports:

1. 1- 5 indictments are being issued. The source feels that it will be towards the higher end.
2. The targets of indictment have already received their letters.
3. The indictments will be sealed indictments and “filed” tomorrow.
4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday

Business as usual in the White House.

Sex, Lies and WMDs

The Washington Post trashes Joseph Wilson today. First I’m not sure why and particularly at this point in time – why have they waited until now? Maybe it is supposed to be their attention getter since the New York Times is getting all the attention today.

Does it matter? No. Not in the scheme of things. Let’s assume everything Wilson said was inaccurate, which it wasn’t; it does not give Cheney and his lieutenants justification or the right (legally, ethically, and morally) to victimize Wilson as was done and to lead this nation into war under false pretenses.

The Post also has some “he said, she said” supportive administration talking points, but is the administration in a position for anyone to trust anything they say?  Stand back and look for a moment at where we are and what is happening around us.  This particular issue has been on my mind for days; I’ve given considerable thought to what the long term effects of the Bush administration’s misdeeds will be.

The core Plame Wilson matter is important.  The malfeasance and unscrupulous behavior of George Bush and his administration are gravely serious matters that have far reaching effects. Although Bush has not been nailed to the extent Cheney has, I include his name because I find it implausable that the president had no knowledge of all these activities (others and possibly his own). And if he did not, that’s a terrible situation itelf.  The credibility of the Executive Branch has been shot to hell in a hand basket.  It’s not just the president, but it spreads throughout his administration. This is far beyond huge, profund or reprehnensible.

Nixon put a big dent in the credibility of the Office of the President of the United States.  Over the years,  a certain amount of trust returned to the White House, but it has never reached the level prior to Nixon, much less where it should be theoretically.  Public trust of the federal government at any level has not been the same since.  President Clinton inflicted damage on the Office of the President, but his shenanigans do not come close to the magnitude of what this administration has done.  George Bush has turned the White House into the Mob House.  Death and destruction lie in its wake.

Bush will leave the White House sooner or later…given the state of things now, no one can be 100% sure when.  It’s a foregone conclusion that the President cannot be trusted.  Who is going to believe anything he says going forward?  Regretably, his legacy will spill over into many administrations to come.  How many presidents in the future will stand before this country and present allegations of grave situations as President Bush has done, and we will believe and support them on faith alone? I don’t foresee it my lifetime. And, what does that do to this country – domestically and internationally?

John Tierney, Nicholas Kristof, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) submit this should all just be swept under the rug and claim it is a partisan lynching over nothing but a technicality. Have these people thought beyond the elections of 2006 and 2008? No. I don’t think they have seen beyond November 22, 1963.

Partisanship and technicalities? No I’m afraid not. If it was only that simple, it would be one heck of a ride.

Tierney - Out of whack this week also.

John Tierney has lost touch with reality.

And Your Point Is? - New York Times

No one deserves to be indicted on conspiracy charges for belonging to a group that believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Foreign policy mistakes are not against the law.

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Kristoff - Insulting the Intelligence of NYT Readers

Nicholas Kristof appears to be a few french fries short of a Happy Meal.

The Times has suffered — all of its own doing — and now they seem to think it’s suck up and play nice time to rectify that. Kristoff must have been hanging around with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) too much.

This is an insult to the intelligence of The Times’ readers.

Hurricane Fitzgerald Approaches the White House - New York Times

Late Update: I posted Kristof’s Op-Ed piece briefly but have now removed it. The subscription requirement escaped me — obviously it’s long past time for bed. If you’re interested in reading a bit of lunacy and don’t have a subscription, drop a few quarters and pick up a copy of the NYT or just sign up for their 14 day trial and then cancel.

Bush, Cheney, Libby, Chalabi and Wurmser

If you will remember, I recently wrote (ranted) about Ahmad Chalibi returning to the US. We now know David Wurmser, who was allegedly in the June 2003 meeting with Cheney and Libby, had direct ties to Chalibi. I asked why would Bush and Cheney even consider allowing Chalibi back in the country.

This passage from Raw Story answers some questions and raises others.

Wurmser largely invented evidence that Iraq had close ties to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, sources knowledgeable about his work told RAW STORY. [Emphasis added.]

Although the CIA documents that Wurmser and his staff pored over never showed Iraq as being an immediate threat, Wurmser was dead set on finding and presenting evidence to Vice President Dick Cheney that suggested as much even if the veracity of such intelligence was questionable, sources close the probe said. Wurmser had met with now discredited Iraqi exiles who were part of the Iraqi National Congress, headed by Ahmed Chalabi, the infamous single source of Judith Miller’s explosive columns published in the New York Times that said Iraq was acquiring nuclear bomb components.

Assuming Raw Story’s reporting is accurate, it is blatantly obvious why Cheney, Libby, et. al., had to discredit Wilson. It also exposes why Bush and Cheney made every attempt possible to destroy Chalibi when it became well known there were no WMDs in Iraq. This was not Mickey Mouse stuff.

Now, let’s go back to Chalibi’s pending return to the US. The question why seems considerably more important now. Is Chalibi’s return truly the request of Treasury Secretary John Snow as reported, or are there other possibilities? I’m not sure where this is headed exactly, but Chalibi’s return and especially the timing of his trip raise flags.

First, is it possible that somehow Fitzgerald is responsible for Chalibi’s return? It seems like deposing (how about arrest) Chalibi would be appropriate given the allegations against Wurmser with the link to Cheney and Libby.

Josh Marshall began speculating that Fitzgerald’s tentacles had spread outside the US. He referred to a Martin Walker (UPI) report that:

that NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald’s team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government. Fitzgerald’s team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium. This claim, which made its way into President Bush’s State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was later withdrawn by the White House.

and follows up with this:

There is one line of inquiry with an American connection that Fitzgerald would have found it difficult to ignore. This is the claim that a mid-ranking Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, held talks with some Italian intelligence and defense officials in Rome in late 2001. Franklin has since been arrested on charges of passing classified information to staff of the pro-Israel lobby group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. Franklin has reportedly reached a plea bargain with his prosecutor, Paul McNulty, and it would be odd if McNulty and Fitzgerald had not conferred to see if their inquiries connected.

Furthermore, Josh refers back to an article from a year ago that he, in collaboration with others, wrote for the Washington Monthly. He summarizes the article as follows:

US government cables showed an on-going tussle between different parts of the executive branch with the CIA and the State Department repeatedly pressing the White House, specifically then Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, to take some action over the meetings Michael Ledeen was then organizing in Rome with members of Italian intelligence, Pentagon employees working under Doug Feith and various Middle Eastern exile groups. [Emphasis added.]

After a somewhat lengthy, but relevant post Josh made yesterday following up the UPI reports, he further clarified it today.

There seems to have been some unclarity on this point. So let me follow up on the previous post about the article in today’s Repubblica. Repubblica, apparently, now says that the motive behind the forgeries was money. Certainly, individual players did their part for cash. But the question is, what were the aims of those who organized the whole plot, the whole hoax? Who hatched the plan? Given the history of the case and all my reporting on it, I find highly implausible the claim that those people were motivated by financial gain alone. But for the governments involved, it is a convenient theory since it walls the act off from larger political implications. [Emphasis added.]

Now, to the point I am trying to make, but first, if you did not read my post about Chalibi’s return, you need to read it..

There has obviously been a considerable amount of activity related to forgeries, cover-ups, money under the table, etc. in Europe and reference to “various Middle Eastern exile groups” all related to the Iraq’s WMDs, which is the central element of Fitzgerald’s investigation. Remember, Chalibi was an Iraqi exile until the Bush administration sent him literally royally back to Iraq.

Has Fitzgerald’s long grasp worked its way through Europe to Iraq to Chalibi? Does Fitzgerald have Chalibi on his way to the US to provide supporting information to the entanglement and nefarious activities of Cheney, Libby, and Wurmser as it relates directly to Valerie Plame Wilson? Does Fitzgerald want to utilize Chalibi to take things to a higher level?

Is it possible that Fitzgerald was not cognizant of the potential connections (until now maybe), and the administration wanted him here for reasons other than economic as reported — like insure he remains permanently quiet since things were getting hot, or maybe somehow put Chalibi in as a barrier and a scapegoat for Cheney and Bush?

Maybe it’s just coincidental and too far off the wall thinking. What I do know is The New York Times and Raw Story reports raise the stakes considerably.

There’s more and it gets worse

Raw Story has more. It looks like the moving vans will be headed to the West Wing soon.

Those close to the investigation say that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been told that David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney on loan from the office of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told Libby that Plame set up the Wilson trip. He asserted that it was a boondoggle, the sources said.

Libby then shared the information with Karl Rove, President Bush’s deputy chief of staff, the sources said. Wurmser also passed on the same information about Wilson to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, they added.

Within a week, Wurmser, on orders from “executives in the office of the vice president,” was told to leak her name to a specific group of reporters in an effort to muzzle her husband, Wilson, who had become a thorn in the side of the administration, those close to the inquiry say. It is unclear who Wurmser had spoken with in the media, the sources said, but they confirmed he did speak with reporters at national media outlets about Plame.

“Libby wanted to discredit him right from the start,” one source close to the investigation told RAW STORY. “He used David Wurmser to help him do that.”

Wurmser had a direct link to the CIA because of his work on intelligence issues related to Iraq and frequently met with CIA analysts who worked on weapons of mass destruction.

Click here for the full article.

Ann Coulter on the First Ammendment

Ann Coulter admits she’s not a big fan of the first ammendment.

Coulter "criticized the media for being liberal and Democrats for whining about their rights under the First Amendment. ‘They’re always accusing us of repressing their speech,’ she said. ‘I say let’s do it. Let’s repress them.’"

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New Evidence Contradicts Libby’s Testimony and Points to Cheney

The New York Times reports that contrary to testimony given previously, Scooter Libby learned about Valerie Plame Wilson by at least June 12, 2003. Libby had a discussion with Vice President Dick Cheney on June 12, 2003 according to notes taken by Libby, which are now in the possession of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

The closer to indictment time it gets, the more things come out of the woodwork.

Libby and Cheney having a conversation about Plame Wilson was not illegal, but the circumstances and timing of the conversation do not reflect well on Cheney, and makes it clear that Libby is guilty of a crime(s). Impeding a grand jury and perjury seem to be the minimum; its possible more charges could apply.

While this alone doesn’t prove that Cheney commited a crime, it takes the doors to Cheney’s office off their hinges. Cheney and Libby discussed Plame Wilson on the same day the Washington Post reported that the CIA had sent “a retired American diplomat” to Niger to investigate the uranium claims in Niger.

Click here to read the article.

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