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| 5/24 |
| 2006/4/6-7 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:42707 Activity:high |
4/6 http://nysun.com/timesleak.php Original New York Sun story on Bush involvement in leak. Basically, according to Libby's grand jury testimony: (1) The NIE (the official joint judgment of all the intelligence agencies) disputed Joe Wilson's criticisms about Iraq uranium (2) Bush told Cheney to get the NIE information out. (3) Cheney told Libby this. (4) Libby asked Cheney's lawyer, David Addington. The lawyer said Bush's permission to disclose "amounted to a declassification of the document" (5) Libby told Judy Miller, et al. Therefore, Libby never leaked classified information, because what he said became unclassified the moment Bush said to get it out. \_ But then later they claimed it was still classified, and they hadn't bothered to tell anyone else that they had declassified it. \_ I'm relieved, for a moment I thought that both Bush and Cheney had committed treason! Now I know better ... The [Vice] President has the authority to give aid and comfort to our enemies legally, since if they do it, it can't be illegal! \_ For those interested, backup on point 4 from 2003 -op \_ For those interested, backup on point 4 http://hnn.us/articles/1753.html For completeness, an article questioning the declassification powers of Dick Cheney -op http://csua.org/u/fgb (fas.org) \_ "If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know Who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of. "I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job. I want to know the truth," the president continued. Leaks of classified information are bad things." -Dubya 2/2004 Justice Department will do a good job. I want to know the truth," the president continued. Leaks of classified information are bad things." -Dubya 2/2004 I guess it all means what is is, right? He added that he did not know of "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information." \_ See "became unclassified the moment Bush said to get it out". \_ Some pigs are more equal than other pigs. \_ I should also note that the NIE was wrong about the vigorous attempt to obtain uranium (recall that the Duelfer report said that Saddam was trying his best to keep his programs dormant so he could escape sanctions, after which he would resuscitate the WMD programs as soon as people stopped looking), and Wilson's findings about the Niger forgeries were right, but didn't make it into the NIE for reasons I would say are due to a spectactular combination of incompetence and intent to get Saddam. Cf. the delay of the investigation into the political use of Iraq intelligence that was promised after the '04 election. -op |
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| nysun.com/timesleak.php National Bush Authorized Leak to Times, Libby Told Grand Jury New York Sun Web Exclusive By JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun April 6, 2006 updated 9:02 am EDT A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case. The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr Bush violated any law or rule. However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter. Mr Fitzgerald's inquiry initially focused on the alleged leak, which occurred after a former ambassador who is Ms Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times questioning the accuracy of statements Mr Bush made about Iraq's nuclear procurement efforts in Africa. No criminal charges have been brought for the leak itself, but Mr Libby, a former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, was indicted in October on charges that he obstructed the investigation, perjured himself in front of the grand jury, and lied to FBI agents who interviewed him. Mr Libby, who resigned from the White House and pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to go on trial in January 2007. In a court filing late Wednesday responding to requests from Mr Libby's attorneys for government records that might aid his defense, Mr Fitzgerald shed new light on Mr Libby's claims that he was authorized to provide sensitive information to the Times reporter, Judith Miller, at a meeting on July 8, 2003. "Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was Opretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was Overy important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out," Mr Fitzgerald wrote. Mr Libby is said to have testified that "at first" he rebuffed Mr Cheney's suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr Bush. "Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE," the prosecution filing said. Mr Libby told the grand jury that he also sought the advice of the legal counsel to the vice president, David Addington, who indicated that Mr Bush's permission to disclose the estimate "amounted to a declassification of the document," according to the new court papers. One of the facts Mr Libby said he planned to disclose to Ms Miller was that the estimate, produced in October 2002, concluded that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium." This contention was sharply at odds with Mr Wilson's op-ed piece which argued there was no evidence of such a procurement effort, at least on a trip he took to Africa at the CIA's request. Mr Bush's alleged instruction to release the conclusions of the intelligence estimate appears to have been squarely within his authority and Mr Fitzgerald makes no argument that it was illegal. While Mr Libby said he gave that information "exclusively" to the Times reporter at their breakfast meeting at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, many of the findings of the estimate were formally declassified and discussed at a White House press briefing ten days later, on July 18, 2003. The court papers filed by Mr Fitzgerald do not make clear whether Mr Bush knew the disclosure was destined for Ms Miller, though they indicate Mr Cheney knew that fact. Mr Libby is also said to have testified that five days late Mr Cheney authorized the release to the press of information about a cable about Mr Wilson's strip. Bush and Cheney have been interviewed by Mr Fitzgerald and his staff, but it is not known how their accounts of the events compared to that of Mr Libby. In an interview with Fox News in February, Mr Cheney, who has a reputation for secrecy, acknowledged that he has sometimes pressed for the official release of classified records. "I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions," he said. Asked if he had ever "unilaterally" declassified material, Mr Cheney replied, "I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president." While prosecutors initially said Mr Libby was the first government official to disclose Ms Plame's identity, it subsequently emerged that a Washington Post reporter, Bob Woodward, learned earlier about her CIA employment from another government official. Neither Mr Woodward nor Ms Miller wrote about Ms Plame at the time. Another journalist, Robert Novak, first disclosed the employment of Mr Wilson's wife in a syndicated column released on July 14, 2003. The columnist based his story on interviews with Mr Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and another official who has not been officially identified. Prosecutors argued that Mr Libby covered up his role in the disclosures because "he knew the White House had publicly staked its credibility on there being no White House involvement in the leaking of information about Ms Wilson." They also noted that Mr Bush publicly declared he would fire anyone found to have leaked classified information. The new court filing quotes from handwritten suggestions Mr Libby gave to the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, urging the spokesman to proclaim the vice presidential aide's innocence with the same vigor that the press secretary previously denounced as "ridiculous" suggestions that Mr Rove might have had a hand in leaking Ms Plame's identity. Mr Libby's note, as typed up by the prosecution, reads like a stanza of verse: "People have made too much of the difference in How I described Karl and Libby I've talked to Libby. I said it was ridiculous about Karl And it is ridiculous about Libby. Mr McClellan did not adopt the talking points verbatim, but did tell reporters later that Messrs. Rove and Libby "assured me that they were not involved in this." Mr Rove has not been charged with a crime, but remains under investigation by Mr Fitzgerald's office. |
| hnn.us/articles/1753.html Nation, Eric Alterman stated flatly that President Bush had broken the law when he personally leaked classified secrets to Bob Woodward after 9-11. Alterman wrote: In his most recent book, Bush at War, Bob Woodward brags that he was given access to the deeply classified minutes of National Security Council meetings. He also noted, not long ago, that the President sat for lengthy interviews, often speaking candidly about classified information. This surprised even Woodward, who observed, "Certainly Richard Nixon would not have allowed reporters to question him like that. President Nixon famously stated during the Watergate era that when a president does something that means it's not illegal. But was Alterman correct in his assessment of President Bush's culpability? HNN asked Steven Aftergood, editor of Secrecy News, a newsletter published by the Federation of American Scientists, what he thinks. He told us that Alterman's conclusion that Bush had violated the law "can't be taken at face value," adding, "though I suppose it is within an opinion columnist's editorial license." He went on: There are several specific categories of classified information that are protected by statute -- communications intelligence, identities of covert agents, nuclear weapons design information, and some others. Those statutes are binding on the executive branch as well as on everyone else. But most classified information is not protected by law. Instead, its classified status derives from the president's constitutional authority as commander in chief. He has full authority to declassify and disclose it as he sees fit. The numerous disclosures of classified information made to Woodward probably did not violate the specific statutory prohibitions. If they were declassified, fine-- let's have a look at them. But by handing classified documents over to Woodward on a selective basis, Administration officials probably did not break the law. What they did was to undermine the integrity of the whole classification system. Yes, under the terms of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, though some have argued that not even the disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity was a crime. previously has noted that leaks by themselves are not necessarily harmful to democracy, though clearly in Plame's it was. "For better and for worse," he observed, "they are an essential component of the overall economy of news and government information. In many cases, leaks are the most expeditious remedy to arbitrary or irrational government information policies." |
| csua.org/u/fgb -> www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2006/02/the_vice_presidents_declassifi.html Confronting the White House's "Monarchical Doctrine" >> The Vice President's Declassification Authority "Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?" Vice President Cheney was asked yesterday by Fox News' Brit Hume. EO 13292 on classified national security information, issued by President Bush in March 2003. It states in section 13 that "The authority to classify information originally may be exercised only by: the President and, in the performance of executive duties, the Vice President; So the Vice President has authority to declassify anything that he himself classified. He also clearly has authority to declassify anything generated in the Office of the Vice President, which he supervises. But is the Vice President, like the President, "a supervisory official" with respect to other executive branch agencies such as the CIA? Did the 2003 amendment to the executive order which elevated the Vice President's classification authority also grant him declassification authority comparable to the President's? "The answer is not obvious," said one executive branch expert on classification policy. cgi/77 Comments Would an organization chart approach lead to a conclusion that since the President sits atop the entire bureaucracy, and certain of his classification authority had been delegated, that the VP by extension also sits atop the classification (declassification) food chain? It seems as if the supervisory language could be read narrowly enough to mean a direct line in the chain of command rather than the sort of dotted line that connects the VP to all of the state apparatus. February 16, 2006 04:36 PM You've hit on the ambiguity in the apparent elevation of the VP's status as a kind of surrogate to the President, who ex officio has unilateral power to classify and declassify. But the argument will be whether the president has the power to delegate an authority that, even if not unilateral and over-arching, certainly looks that way. The parsing would be that if the president has unlimited power in this regard, the VP has powers that are limited but very very wide. February 16, 2006 08:32 PM I was wondering whether you might be able to clarify what exactly this dramatic elevation of the VP's classification authority to that of the President might consist in. In what concrete respects are the VP's classifying powers now greater than those, say, of the Secretary of State? I think that by granting the VP classification authority on a par with the President, the order enables the VP to classify information anywhere in government, and not only in the Office of the VP. The Secretary of State, like other agency heads, could not do that. February 16, 2006 08:52 PM Are there any other laws or rules that come into play when the information declassified effectively outs a covert CIA agent? Shouldn't this specific case at least require Cheney to clear this with Tenet? There are various categories of information that are protected by statute -- eg, the Atomic Energy Act, the National Security Act -- not by executive order. And they cannot simply be declassified by executive fiat. February 17, 2006 05:58 AM The phrase "in the performance of executive duties" can't be contentless. It can't mean that whenever the VP wants to classify something he's performing executive duties. Presumably it means that he's performing executive duties that have been specifically devolved upon him, either by statute or by executive order. The prevailing interpretation of this ambiguous phrase is that it is merely meant to exclude the VP's legislative duties as President of the Senate. February 17, 2006 10:04 AM The legalisms are somewhat beside the point, the real question is: Whom does the Veep have to inform when he declassifies information? If he doesn't have to clear it with the CIA--which he obviously didn't, does he at least have to tell the president? In which case, the president would know if/whether Cheney was behind the Plame leak. February 17, 2006 11:43 AM I thought this excerpt would be useful here; it shows that declassification is just a matter-of-fact thing that is used to bolster Admin arguments about any subject, leaving the public in the dark for any subject. html MSNBC's Keith Olbermann spoke with Newsweek's Richard Wolffe last night about the reality of declassification in the Bush White House. I've been with senior administration officials who have just decided to declassify something in front of me because it's bolstering their argument." At the time that Libby was leaking information from the CIA's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, "Saddam was no longer in power. And I think people felt emboldened to leak information, to declassify stuff, because the regime was no longer there," Wolffe said. " Olbermann: "I'm just picturing that experience in my mind. Wolffe: "There was a sort of frowning, a reaching into a locked cabinet, a filing cabinet, and the sort of, you know, 'Should we declassify this? Earlier, he told Olbermann: "What I know from my own reporting is that in this period, a couple of months after Saddam is toppled from power, really it's only the vice president's office that is exercised --- excessively exercised -- about the holes that are being picked in the case for war, specifically about weapons of mass destruction." February 17, 2006 01:37 PM People, there is no such person as the 'Vice' President anymore. I believe the person you are referring to is the 'Co' President. Let me put it to you this way: The Co-President has all the authority of the 'President' but none of the responsibility. His function is to set foreign and domestic policy for the United States. He is privy to the intel on all members of the government. This explains why, when confronted by the Co-President, members of Congress suddenly change their stance on a wide range of subjects. So, if you would, please give the man the title he has taken, Co-President. February 17, 2006 01:44 PM Wouldn't such declassification powers require something in writing or a stamp or some such thing? If so, Cheney (or somebody, somewhere) should have evidence that Plame's identity had been declassified... Executive Order, it is clear that there is no authority in it for the vice president. Indeed, in appeals on declassification the President is the final authority and the VP isn't even mentioned. One cannot read words into a rule that aren't found in it. February 18, 2006 05:12 PM Post a comment (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. |