Update [2005-10-23 03:30AM PST by Oui]:
By Lawrence O’Donnell | Bio
Huffington Post July 7, 2005 — In February, Circuit Judge David Tatel joined his colleagues’ order to Cooper and Miller despite his own, very lonely finding that indeed there is a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources. He based his finding on Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which authorizes federal courts to develop new privileges “in the light of reason and experience.” Tatel actually found that reason and experience “support recognition of a privilege for reporters’ confidential sources.” But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to “the gravity of the suspected crime.”
Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to “having carefully scrutinized [the prosecutor’s] voluminous classified filings.”
PBS Tavis Smiley Interview with Lawrence O’Donnell – July 18
Tavis: Nice to see you again. I’ve been dying to ask you this for a few days since I knew that you were connected to this. What did Lawrence O’Donnell know and when did he know it?
O’Donnell: Well, he knew what was in the “Time” magazine emails that were under subpoena by the special prosecutor. That subpoena was being defied for a year and a half, as was, as we all know, the two reporters were defying their subpoenas and appealing all the way up to the United States Supreme Court to try to be excused from answering—-
More to follow below the fold »»
CBS NEWS Oct. 21 — The White House maintains Mr. Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, were not involved. Sources close to the case say neither man knows if he’s about to be indicted. Still, the White House maintains it’s going about business as usual.
“I was in the Nixon White House during Watergate, and we pretended that we were all about business as usual. And we had a president who was talking to the portraits. It was not business as usual, but you have to say it,” former presidential adviser David Gergen told CBS News’ The Early Show.
“It will be a significant blow to a White House that’s already in freefall politically,” Gergen, a veteran of Republican and Democratic administrations, said of any possible indictments.
The conclusion of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald‘s two-year investigation, expected within days, bears down on the White House amid other troubles.
Mr. Bush’s pick of White House counsel Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court disappointed many of his longtime conservative allies and puzzled some Republicans in Congress. Also, the White House is still reeling from criticism of its slow reaction to the misery caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Further complicating Mr. Bush’s plans are investigations of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, on conspiracy and money-laundering charges in Texas, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for stock transactions.
Weary of the CIA investigation and the uncertainty it has brought, presidential aides say they just wish it would end. Officials say they don’t talk about the investigation or its outcome at meetings because they don’t want to give the appearance of colluding against Fitzgerald. They acknowledge there is an expectation that if any White House official is indicted, he will resign.
Indeed, officials have been speculating about who would move in to replace Rove or Libby if they were forced out. The consulting firm jointly headed by one possible Rove replacement, GOP strategist Ed Gillespie, has begun considering how Gillespie’s clients might be reassigned if he were tapped for a White House assignment and how to handle the other ramifications of a White House move.
WASHINGTON DC (NYT) Oct. 20 — In Mr. Rove’s case, the prosecutor appears to have focused on two conversations with reporters. The first was a July 9, 2003, discussion with Mr. Novak in which, Mr. Rove has said, he first heard Ms. Wilson’s name. The second conversation took place on July 11, 2003 with a Time magazine reporter, Matthew Cooper, who later wrote that Mr. Rove had not named Ms. Wilson but had told him that she worked at the C.I.A. and that she had been responsible for her husband being sent to Africa.
Mr. Rove did not tell the grand jury about his phone conversation with Mr. Cooper until months into the leak investigation, long after he had testified about his conversation with Mr. Novak, the lawyers said. Later, Mr. Rove said he had not recalled the conversation with Mr. Cooper until the discovery of an e-mail message about it that he sent to Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser. But Mr. Fitzgerald has remained skeptical about the omission, the lawyers said.
In Mr. Libby’s case, Mr. Fitzgerald has focused on his statements about how he first learned of Ms. Wilson’s identity, the lawyers said. Mr. Libby has said that he learned of Ms. Wilson from reporters. But Mr. Fitzgerald may have doubts about his account because the journalists who have been publicly identified as having talked to Mr. Libby have said that they did not provide the name, that they could not recall what had been said or that they had discussed unrelated subjects.
▼ ▼ ▼ MY LATEST DIARIES & COMMENTS
- DeLay :: Gotcha – Fingerprints et al! Abramoff & Bob Ney
- Prosecutor Fitzgerald Zeroes In :: Cheney – CIA Feud!
- CIRCLE CLOSED :: Neocons – AIPAC – Shill Reporter Laurie Mylroie – Benador Associates
- As Time Evolves :: Neocon Think – A DEEP THROAT?
- U.S. District Court Indictment Larry Franklin & AIPAC Directors
- Judith Miller :: A Need To Know Basis
- Judith Miller :: Libya – Gaddafi – Poindexter
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
Maybe they should have thought about that angle before they leaked Plame’s name.
They must be damn scared of Fitzie if they can’t even launch a decent Bushco smear campaign attack on him. Or, maybe that’s coming after the indictments.
.
The New York Times Co. by Judith Miller
Judith MillerNEW YORK Oct. 22 — The spat between embattled New York Times reporter Judith Miller and the paper’s Executive Editor Bill Keller has heated up in the last 24 hours, and many of the details are playing out in the press.
In an article in Saturday’s Times, Miller shot back, calling Keller’s charges “seriously inaccurate.”
<snip>
Meanwhile, Keller’s memo seems to have set off a chain of editorials around the country blasting Miller.
In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times titled “How Judith Miller Was Used,” Tim Rutten writes that “the Washington press corps continues to be studded with useful idiots like Miller, who would whack their own grandmothers for a byline above the fold.”
Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz devoted his Saturday column to the feud, running with the headline “A Split Between The Times & Miller?“
In an Op-Ed in the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, St. Paul, actor and playwright Mark Rosenwinkel compared Miller’s journalistic sins to those of Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair. “The tragedy is that it’s not only their personal integrity that’s at stake, but our national honor.”
In other developments, Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the leak, set up a Web site, a move that may signal that indictments are imminent.
Links referenced within this article
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
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that aids and staff are going to be replaced because they are “burnt”.
It seems to me that rather, it has been way too quick, and that instead they are abandoning ship before it goes down to the bottom.
.
By Lawrence O’Donnell | Bio
Huffington Post July7, 2005 — In February, Circuit Judge David Tatel joined his colleagues’ order to Cooper and Miller despite his own, very lonely finding that indeed there is a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources. He based his finding on Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which authorizes federal courts to develop new privileges “in the light of reason and experience.” Tatel actually found that reason and experience “support recognition of a privilege for reporters’ confidential sources.” But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to “the gravity of the suspected crime.”
Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to “[h]aving carefully scrutinized [the prosecutor’s] voluminous classified filings.”
Some of us have theorized that the prosecutor may have given up the leak case in favor of a perjury case, but Tatel still refers to it simply as a case “which involves the alleged exposure of a covert agent.” Tatel wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law — a federal reporters’ shield law — but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it in this particular case.
In his final paragraph, he says he “might have” let Cooper and Miller off the hook “were the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security.”
Tatel’s colleagues are at least as impressed with the prosecutor’s secret filings as he is. One simply said “Special Counsel’s showing decides the case.”
All the judges who have seen the prosecutor’s secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment.
It’s Rove… ◊ by Lawrence O’Donnell – July 2, 2005
[Minor edits, links and bold face emphasis added – Oui]
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
.
Tavis: Nice to see you again. I’ve been dying to ask you this for a few days since I knew that you were connected to this. What did Lawrence O’Donnell know and when did he know it?
O’Donnell: Well, he knew what was in the “Time” magazine emails that were under subpoena by the special prosecutor. That subpoena was being defied for a year and a half, as was, as we all know, the two reporters were defying their subpoenas and appealing all the way up to the United States Supreme Court to try to be excused from answering—
Tavis: The two reporters: Judith Miller of the “New York Times–”
O’Donnell: Judith Miller and Matt Cooper of “Time” magazine. The press took their eye off the ball of the most important subpoena, which was the documents subpoena. It was my feeling for a very long time that “Time” magazine, once they exhausted their appeals and if the case went against them, would turn over those documents. And what I knew for months was in those documents, it will be revealed to the prosecutor that Karl Rove was indeed the source that Matt Cooper had been protecting for two years and willing to go to jail for two years. And so that’s what I revealed on July 1 on “The McLaughlin Group” that kind of got this end of the controversy started again. It had been a quiet controversy for almost a year at that point.
<snip>
Tavis: This is my own sense, and, you know, I don’t even try to hide behind it. I think personally “Time” magazine caved. That’s my own personal opinion. People are entitled to their own. I think they caved. You intimated a moment ago that you felt that at the appropriate time, if they lost all appeals, that they would cave as well. What made you feel–I didn’t think they would, but I think they did. What made you think that they in fact would?
O’Donnell: Well, first of all, it’s a publicly traded corporation. This is a federal court order. I’m not sure that you could survive FCC scrutiny if, as a public ally traded corporation, you’re defying a federal court order that has gone all the way to the Supreme Court. There’s no doubt left in it. And listen, the document subpoena I always thought they would regard differently from the individual reporters being forced to testify, and I was right about that. And I actually think, you know, “The New York Times” takes the position that they’re very critical of “Time” magazine in this, but technically, legally they did the same thing, because “The New York Times” had its documents subpoenaed in this case. Judy Miller never wrote an article. So “The New York Times”‘ response was we don’t have any documents. Now, “The New York Times” could have said to the prosecutor we won’t tell you if we have any documents. That’s really kind of where Judy Miller is on this. She’s an absolutist. “The Times” responded to the subpoena by saying we don’t have any. That was a completely responsive attitude taken by “The New York Times” when it got hit with a subpoena at the corporate level. So “Time” magazine was completely responsive, too. It’s just that it had documents, really hot ones that had some very big names in them.
Tavis: All right, so what’s your sense, speaking of the big names, what’s your sense of the news today that one of the other sources was another White House aide? This one happens to be Mr. Libby, Mr. Cheney’s, Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff.
O’Donnell: We’re at the stage now where the daily revelations are completely unsurprising. This is the general sense of the case that people who understood the White House, understood the way it worked, understood this subject in the White House, we all kind of understood this was how it would be treated. I always knew that Karl Rove was involved without having the actual facts. I just know that’s the one that likely talked to Cooper. I mean, I didn’t know it for a fact until this year, several months ago, but there’s nothing surprising about the Libby involvement and the Rove involvement. So now we’re in a series of unsurprising elements of the story being locked into place in a way that fits the expectation of most journalists who were following the case for two years.
[Minor edits, links and bold face emphasis added – Oui]
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
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