Author: Dean Pajevic

With his permission, the poetry of Michael Murphy, Patrick Lang‘s friend. Below, please add your own, or others’, poetry. (Photo from Empire Burlesque blog.)

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Enjoy! Tom is holding his press conf. now (8am PT)

Update [2005-10-21 12:4:41 by susanhu]: Oh, for pete’s sake, not another “suspicious package.” See CNN. So these two men park their car and then tell the police that there’s a bomb in the car? Huh? (I hope my scarcasm is warranted.)

ATinNM reports that, via FireDogLake, the car is parked close to the GJ building. And Susan T in Michigan just e-mailed me — cracked me up — “Maybe it’s Rove and Libby. After all, desperate times require desperate measures.” ATinNM also thinks this is a “nutcase.” That fits too. This has now MORPHED into an OPEN THREAD.

Update [2005-10-21 13:13:57 by susanhu]: HOLD YOUR BREATH! The police will “disrupt” the device in minutes!

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Most egegriously — beyond the collusion of Scooter and Karl to smear Valerie Plame — and the selling of the Iraq war by the WHIGs — the entire Bush administration has failed to play by the rules it’s enforced on everybody else.

The Friday edition of the Wall Street Journal reveals that:

[Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald] may be piecing together a case that White House White House officials conspired to leak various types of classified material in conversations with reporters — including Ms. Plame’s identity but also other secrets related to national security.

The WSJ story — “CIA Leak Queries Look at Disclosure Of Classified Data” — reports that Fitzgerald is now looking beyond his “initial mission” of finding out “if the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name violated a 1982 act that bars the intentional disclosure of an undercover intelligence operative’s identity.”

It’s key to note that the WSJ wrongly describes (and thereby attempts to minimize?) Fitzgerald’s mission:

… Fitzgerald was given broad authority [GAO PDF] to investigate leaks of Plame’s identity. He was not restricted to investigating possible violations of the IIPA, and he is reportedly considering a number of possible charges. According to an October 12 Washington Post article: “Numerous lawyers involved in the 22-month investigation said they are bracing for Fitzgerald to bring criminal charges against administration officials. … based on his questions, he may be focused on charges of false statements, obstruction of justice or violations of the Espionage Act involving the release of classified government information to unauthorized persons.” (Media Matters, Oct. 13, 2005)

The WSJ asserts that “[b]uilding a case on leaking classified intelligence likely would require a lower burden of proof than proving the 1982 law was violated” — for example, “[a] current investigation into the leaking of classified Pentagon information to the Israeli lobbying group, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has resulted in three indictments.”

Be careful what you wish for, you egomaniacal numbskulls. The Bush administration — hellbent on politicizing national security — has promoted “concern about national-security leaks” and “promised to make more use of civil sanctions to punish leaking.”

Too many TV cable pundits — particularly the ‘wingers — have focused on the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the act that Victoria Toensing proudly (and unceasingy) claims as her Rosemary’s Baby:

[But, on the October 12 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews], Toensing misleadingly claimed that Fitzgerald’s investigation was limited to possible violations of one statute in particular and recycled a number of falsehoods about Plame’s husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. […]

… Toensing distorted the scope of Fitzgerald’s investigation by narrowing it to a single law. … (Media Matters, Oct. 13, 2005)

But Vicky Toensing had better bone up on “the 1917 Espionage Act, which more widely prohibits disclosure of ‘information relating to the national defense’.”

Update [2005-10-21 17:20:9 by susanhu]: The LeftCoaster also reports on the WSJ story: “As Fitzgerald Sets Up His Own Website, Wall Street Journal Says Conspiracy Case Seems To Be His Emphasis.”

Marty Aussenberg of the weekly Memphis Flyer has handicapped the “Plame Game.” The 1982 act is a “longshot,” but he gives “better than even” odds that the 1917 Espionate Act will be used.

The 1917 statute, notes the WSJ, “is broader, and would set a lower legal burden for proving a defendant’s intent …” Adds Aussenberg:

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Scooter and Judy, cut the whining about coercion and rights! You’re a couple of liars who only respond to hardcore proof — like Secret Service logs, writes this year’s Woodward & Bernstein-rolled-into-one, Murray Waas:

New York Times reporter Judith Miller told the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case that she might have met with I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby on June 23, 2003 only after prosecutors showed her Secret Service logs that indicated she and Libby had indee met that day in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House, according to attorneys familiar with her testimony.

ReddHedd has a professional’s insights into this story at FireDogLake. In Crap! Those Pesky Records! — with the background as a public defender of criminals in federal prosecutiions — he writes that “[i]n this particular matter, what Judy and Scooter forgot is that they are dealing with a professional [Fitzgerald].”

Not some slackass, just out of law school, wet behind the ears kid. Not some political social climber who would sell his mother for a Senate seat or a nomination to the Federal bench. Not some guy who was going to phone it in because he didn’t want to piss off the high and mighty and powerful. This guy is a professional prosecutor, who does his job. Period.

You don’t prosecute the Gambinos, Sheik Omar Abdel Rachman, Osama Bin Laden and former Governor Ryan of Illinois just for kicks. Those cases are all long, hard slogs, and potentially very deadly to your career as well as your person.

And when you do your job, you find things like this: all government buildings after 9/11 (and even before 9/11 in a lot of cases) require that you sign in and out. That goes double for buildings where you have the potential for someone being around national security documents or highly placed government officials, because you don’t want something disappearing without some written record of who has had access to the building. You follow the paper trail, the evidence in hand, the usual patterns of behavior, and sometimes even your gut — but it is the little details that nail someone to the wall.

During her first go at her testimony, Judy was evasive and could not recall whether or not she had ever met with Scooter on June 23rd, when asked specifically about this by the Special Prosecutor. (Note to witnesses: If the prosecutor is asking you about a date certain, he has something that he will nail your ass with unless you are completely truthful. Keep that in mind in the future.)

Perry Mason would have LOVED this:

A gotcha moment can be a rare and beautiful one for any attorney, and usually occurs over some very specific detail on which you can hang the person on the stand. But it is almost always a detail that the witness thought was so insignificant that no one would ever bother with it in a million years.

Wrong.

For Judy Miller, that detail was a Secret Service log from June 23, 2003. It showed her entering and exiting the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House to meet with Scooter Libby.

ReddHedd’s riff on the Waas revelations is a must-read. It’s long, but worth it. And I loved this part:

My read on all of this is that Scooter is in very big trouble. And Judy is on a very, very short leash. If Fitz finds out that she has lied about anything else, held back anything, tried to cover for anyone else’s ass, she’s toast.

Billmon also adds spin to this story:

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“President George W. Bush and Bono discuss global AIDS and Africa policy in the Oval Office Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005, following lunch in the White House. White House photo by Eric Draper”

White House photo. (Is the portrait behind them crooked?)

Scottie hasn’t announced his daily press briefing yet. C-SPAN has nothing scheduled either.

P.S. C-SPAN has all of Harriet Miers’ submitted questionnaires. (Check the middle column, under Featured Links.)

OPEN THREAD!

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