Author: BooMan

As Indictments Loom: Old Hands Pile On Cheney

Posted by | Oct 23, 2005 |

Reuters gives the latest skinny on the upcoming indictments of the warlords:

The lawyers [involved in the case], who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Fitzgerald appears likely to bring charges next week in the nearly two-year leak investigation.

The grand jury, which expires on October 28, convened on Friday with two of the lead prosecutors present, but it was unclear what issues they were working on since the panel appears to have completed hearing from witnesses.

Fitzgerald is expected to meet with the grand jury early next week for a possible vote on indictments.

One of the lawyers said prosecutors were likely starting to present their final case to jurors, either for bringing indictments or to explain why there was insufficient evidence to do so.

“I would be hesitant to say it’s a sign one way or the other,” the lawyer said.

After the grand jury broke up, the two prosecutors, lugging giant legal briefcases, left the federal courthouse without comment.

While Fitzgerald could still charge administration officials with knowingly revealing Plame’s identity, several lawyers in the case said he was more likely to seek charges for easier-to-prove crimes such as making false statements, obstruction of justice and disclosing classified information. He also may bring a broad conspiracy charge, the lawyers said.

From public information, we know that Rove and Libby are both exposed to charges of perjury. Libby is also exposed to charges of suborning perjury. Miller has already testified about Libby’s letter:

Mr. Fitzgerald asked me to read the final three paragraphs aloud to the grand jury. “The public report of every other reporter’s testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame’s name or identity with me,” Mr. Libby wrote.

The prosecutor asked my reaction to those words. I replied that this portion of the letter had surprised me because it might be perceived as an effort by Mr. Libby to suggest that I, too, would say we had not discussed Ms. Plame’s identity. Yet my notes suggested that we had discussed her job.

We have published reports that two Cheney aides, John Hannah and David Wurmser, have been cooperating with the prosecutor.

Andrew Sullivan has reported rumors than Colin Powell has also been cooperating. It wouldn’t be too surprising in light of Larry Wilkerson’s (Powell’s former chief-of-staff) recent comments:

“What I saw was a cabal between the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.”

Those sentiments are echoed in a new piece in the New Yorker, where Poppy’s best friend, Brent Scowcroft says:

“The real anomaly in the Administration is Cheney,” Scowcroft said. “I consider Cheney a good friend — I’ve known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don’t know anymore.”

Not quite “he’s dead to me” but close. Elements within the CIA have been gunning for Cheney for three years, but now everyone is distancing themselves. There is no better indication that Beltway insiders think Cheney is going down than this sudden airing of dirty laundry. It looks like the GOP Establishment (the old hands) are ready to cut Cheney loose and blame him for the Chimpadeer-in-Chief’s misguided foreign policies.

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What I’ve Learned from George W. Bush

Posted by | Oct 22, 2005 |

My first experience with political disillusionment came during the late summer of 1988. Coming out of the Democratic Convention, Michael Dukakis had an enormous 17% lead in the polls over George Herbert Walker Bush. Bush was widely suspected of being implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal, he was seen as lacking leadership skills, he was unpopular with the Reagan crowd, and the biggest MSM talking point about him was that he was a ‘wimp’. Making matters worse for Bush, his selection of Dan Quayle to be his running mate was deeply controversial and prevented him from getting the usual bounce out of his own convention.

But then something happened that changed the minds of tens of millions of voters, virtually overnight.

The GOP started running commercials about the Massachusetts prison furlough program, focusing on one example of a furloughed black man who raped a white women.

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Time to Impeach the President and the Vice-President

Posted by | Oct 21, 2005 |

I got this image from Sherlock Google’s diary at dKos.

Sherlock notes:

The above graphic was originally made by 911Blimp.net.

Hardball is now reporting that Fitz has received a copy of the fake Niger document. A copy above shows why it is such a laughable forgery.

Here is a PDF of the entire doc: http://cryptome.org/niger-docs.pdf

Here is a link to more info: http://cryptome.org/niger-docs.htm

When you know all the facts of how Stephen Hadley put those words in there “by mistake”, even after it was asked to be removed by the CIA–you will see it makes the 16 words a deliberate lie to Congress.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey led 40 Democrats in asking Fitz to expand his investigation to the Niger forgeries, sending a letter that outlined the crime of lying to Congress and the statutes that were broken by George W. Bush. By law, the GJ is required to hear any such request–especially one signed by 40 members of Congress.

If this is true Harwood of the WSJ said it would be an “earthquake” in Washington.

The INR (State Department Intelligence Agency) analyst that looked at this document wrote an email stating:

“You’ll note that it bears a funky Emb. of Niger stamp (to make it look official, I guess).”

I suspect the American people will warm to the concept of impeachment when they get a look at this document.

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