Month: October 2005

From No Right Turn – New Zealand’s liberal blog

Saddam Hussein goes on trial tomorrow for crimes against humanity over the 1982 Dujail massacre. While I’m looking forward to this, and believe that Saddam has no defence under international law, I am concerned that justice may not be done.  The most basic problem is the standard of proof: rather than the accepted standard of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”, the tribunal simply has to be “satisfied” of guilt.  This is a significant violation of fundamental standards of justice.

Murray Waas’s new report today (via the Daou Report) adds substance to the possibility — beyond reported conflicts between the testimony of Scooter Libby and Judith Miller about their conversations — that, as I wrote last Thursday:

Because of their less-than-forthright dealings with Judith Miller and her attorneys, Joseph Tate (Scooter Libby’s attorney) and Libby may find themselves accused of witness intimidation or tampering. Even if Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA Leak case (aka Plamegate), does not press charges for witness intimidation, Tate may find himself the subject of a state or federal bar disciplinary investigation (depending on the jurisdiction).

Now, the problem that you and I have — and which I imagine that Fitzgerald must also have — is which of these liars to believe. Miller, whose next book should be titled I Have Ninety-Nine Faces, is being excoriated by the press.

Today’s L.A. Times reports that the Pentagon “raised doubts about Miller’s contention that she had a special security clearance that allowed her to report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” And, at one time, Miller had the gall to deny to the NYT’s “Washington bureau chief that anyone in the Bush administration had discussed Plame with her.” Then there’s her close “alliance” with Libby:

[S]ome of her colleagues and others said her relationship with Libby appeared too cozy.

They noted that Miller told how Libby asked her for an autographed copy of her book on biological weapons. And they were upset that Miller agreed to Libby’s request to be identified as “a former Hill staffer” instead of “a senior administration official.” …

Such an identification would have allowed Libby to take potshots at Plame without identifying the true source of the attacks. (LAT)

So Miller, as I’ve suspected, lied to her bosses and colleagues, and probably lies to everyone (except maybe her dog). But then there’s Scooter Libby, an avocational fiction writer, who exhibits the dissembling patter of a sociopath:

According to attorneys familiar with his testimony, Libby told the grand jury that … he told Miller that Plame had something to do with Wilson’s being sent on a controversial CIA-sponsored mission to Africa, but that he did not know that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA or anything else …

However, Miller testified and turned over notes … that showed that Libby had told her that Plame worked for the CIA’s Weapons, Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control office. […]

Libby and Miller’s two-hour breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., on July 8. Libby has told federal investigators, according to legal sources familiar with his testimony, that he told Miller … he had heard that Wilson’s wife had played a role in Wilson’s being selected for the Niger assignment. But Libby also testified that he never named Plame nor told Miller that she worked for the CIA, because either he did not know that at the time, or, if he had heard that Plame was a CIA employee, he did not know whether it was true. (“Waas)

We’re supposed to believe Libby told Miller that Wilson’s wife was involved in the Niger trip but he didn’t tell Miller that Plame worked for the CIA or even her name?

But — where’s the Excedrin? — what if Libby’s version is truer than Miller’s? (Or — don your tinfoil hats — what if it was Miller who told Libby about Valerie Plame’s identity?)

There’s this disturbing section on how Miller “interpreted” what Floyd Abrams, the NYT’s in-house counsel and a fame First Amendment attorney, told her … BELOW:

Wednesday’s New York Times reveals that associates of Fitzgerald’s have said he will not issue a final report about his investigation, perhaps indicting that indictments are likely.

Fitzgerald is under no obligation to issue a report, as some Democrats had urged him to do.

This leak that no final report is forthcoming means one of two things, according to the NYT article: either he will have indictments or he won’t.

Apparently, “government officials” have also said Fitzgerald “is not expected to take any action in the case this week”. Time is running out though, as this grand jury is set to expire on October 28.

more…

Abortion is in the headlines this week.  On Saturday jsmdlawyer at Daily Kos diaried Clarence Thomas’ attempt to prevent an imprisoned woman in Missouri from having the abortion to which she was legally entitled, just because she didn’t have the $350 she needed to get to the clinic (before we were through with that one, she could have hired a limo, but how much better for women everywhere that she didn’t need it after all).  

And this morning none of us was shocked–shocked!— to hear about Harriet Miers’ 1989 promise to support a Constitutional amendment banning abortion altogether.  

But now I’m going to tell you an abortion story that hasn’t made the news, and probably won’t–a story about the women of Katrina, and about the hurricane relief effort no one talks about–the Katrina aid that dare not speak its name.

While we wait for Patrick Fitzgerald to announce the results of his investigation of the Plame affair and since RAW STORY mentioned the little discussed John Hannah who may have flipped on his higher-ups, I thought it might be useful to present what we know about this man who has been flying under the radar.

The speculation that Hannah has been a cooperative witness in this case is actually old news. Back in early 2004, it was rumoured that Hannah, along with Libby, was facing possible indictments and by late summer that year speculation was rampant that he had flipped to the prosecution’s side.