And Plamegate returns with a vengeance via the NYT: In Court Filings, Cheney Aide Says Bush Approved Leak
The court filing said that Mr. Libby said “he understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the N.I.E. held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.” Mr. Libby, the prosecutors, said, testified that the meeting with Ms. Miller was the “only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the president’s authorization that it be disclosed.”Ms. Miller never published anything about the contents of the intelligence estimate.
Mr. Libby testified that he first told Mr. Cheney that he could not conduct such a conversation with Ms. Miller because the intelligence estimate on Iraq was classified. Mr. Libby testified that Mr. Cheney later told him that Mr. Bush had authorized the release of “relevant portions.”
In addition, Mr. Libby told the grand jury that he also spoke with David Addington, then a lawyer for Mr. Cheney, whom Mr. Libby regarded as an expert on national security law. “Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to declassification of the document,” the court filing said.
Two initial thoughts emerge: 1) this strikes me as a credible possibility, and that the specific disclosures about Plame may have been collateral damage, so to speak, of the overall desire to leak information aimed at rebutting Wilson; and 2) that Libby is in a position where his best defense is “I was following orders”–a fact which does cast some shadow over the story automatically.
Still, if this is the case, the President and Vice President are going to have some ’splainin’ to do–especially given Bush’s public protestations about the Plame affair when it first broke and the fact that if the storyline is correct, he and Cheney both could be said to have left Libby out to dry rather than take some responsibility early on.
On CNN, national security correspondent David Ensor explained the situation as follows (Ensor: Lowdown on documents in CIA leak case):
What the most recent document and the one that we’re talking about here is the government’s response to the defendant, Mr. Libby’s request for an effort to get these documents out. And in it — and I’m going to quote here — the government says that “the vice president thought” — Vice President Cheney — “thought that it was very important for the key judgments of the NIE” — and that’s the National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — “to come out.”“The defendant further testified that he had first advised the vice president that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller” — that would be Judy Miller of The New York Times — “because of the classified nature of the NIE. The defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized the defendant to discuss the relevant portions of the NIE.”
So, it had nothing to do with Valerie Plame-Wilson’s name. It was simply about this matter of intelligence in the lead-up to the war.
And in that matter, the president, according to this document, authorized Mr. Libby to give out some information to Judy Miller.
And by the way, he is legally entitled to do so.
Ensor goes on to describe the act as follows:
Selective leaking authorized at the highest level, that’s — I’m afraid that is business as usual in Washington. It’s been practiced by Republicans and Democrats alike.
Of course, it is still unclear as to how any of this would impact the law about revealing a covert operatives names–but, of course, the exact applicability of that law has long been fuzzy (to put it mildly) in this case–especially given the lack of indictments in that specific area.
At a minimum this could potentially aid Libby in terms of the obstruction and perjury charges–but then again, maybe not.
Certainly if this scenario is even close to true, there is going to be some political hell to pay from the White House.
Sphere: Related Content
April 7th, 2006 at 10:04 am
It seems unimaginable that either Cheney or Bush would not refute the story if it were not true. The fact that they have not, virtually confirms Libby’s version of events.
All people are hypocritical to varying degrees. In light of this new information, the level of hyprocisry displayed by President Bush seems staggeringly large. But, in the end, most core Bush supporters will forgive and forget - focusing instead on his percieved positive qualities (”He’s against killing babies” they will remind themselves for the nth time).
April 7th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Libby: Bush Authorized The Leak
According to The Smoking Gun, Scooter Libby told the grand jury that Bush had authorized the release of Valerie Plame’s identitycertain classified material. So those who, like me, were accusing Cheney of being behind this were aiming too low.
Ther…
April 7th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Critical reading time, boys and girls. Where does it say the President authorized Libby to release details about Valerie Plame’s identity? Now linking Libby and leak, one is certainly “drawn” to that conclusion. But is it an accurate one, or simply a desired one?
April 7th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Bill,
At this point I don’t think we have enough data to know one way or another for certain.