Per Think Progress:
Lewis “Scooter’’ Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA
agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn’t tell Libby of Plame’s identity.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who was first to report Plame’s name and connection to Wilson. Novak, according to a source familiar with the matter, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor.
These discrepancies may be important because one issue Fitzgerald is investigating is whether Libby, Rove, or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation.
Looks like Libby has a problem.
All is not lost for Karl, he looks good in stripes.
He’ll look better gone, afaic.
A friend told me the other day that she thinks Rove looks like that Chuckie doll in the horror films. I said to her, “I know just the person to suggest that to!” :):):)
I’ve always felt (Icelandic singer) Björk was closer, but Karl is scarier.
ThinkProgress has the Bloomberg article up for your reading pleasure.
I’m expecting Bush to announce tomorrow that he’ll fire anyone in his administration convicted of murder, committed in a library, with a candlestick.
This just in: Karl Rove found standing over Fitzgerald’s body with a brass candelabra in the Library of Congress. Startled reaction of the Republican campaign mastermind: “What’d he say? No! Inconceivable! That dunderhead got it backwards! Idiots! I’m surrounded by idiots!”
Well, he did get involved in a land war in Asia.
And a turf war in Washington DC, which is almost as stupid.
Ed, that’s hilarious. Thank you:)
for all your great work here.
Hugs. I could use some research help, if you’re in the mood … e-mail me. susanhu at earthlink dot net
Reading comments on this over at kos, some question this leak and how it will impact the entire investigation, i.e., secret testimony leaked will give them an out. Thoughts?
However from what I remember of the Clinton fiasco, grand jury testimony doesn’t have to be kept secret. Anyone who testifies can come out on the court steps and say what they told the GJ. Look at Matt Cooper… He gave snippets of what his testimony was shortly after he testified.
Good point. I’m a little hestitant about thinking this is it. They’re the slipperiest bunch.
I’m not chilling champagne yet myself, but there should be no worries about leaked testimony from the grand jury.
The Daily Show taped a couple hours ago and there’s no show tomorrow! Oh, what fun it would have been :):)
But I’m looking forward to Charlie’s show tonight. Not sure when he tapes. He had that Bloomberg reporter on the other night so he could call him back to be on the show… maybe if not tonight, tomorrow night.
Ha! Aaron Brown is covering it on CNN now. “S is for Secret” is the tagline. I luv it, I luv it!
Aaron Brown is a good reporter, and a smart man. He always had that cocky thing that was irritating but it looks like he’s worked hard to tone that down.
He began as a reporter at KING TV in Seattle — was there for many years and did some anchor work. He married Charlotte __last name? ___ who was also a reporter at KING. She is a stunningly beautiful woman. I mean, a knock-out. And it sounds like they’re still together — he talks about his teen daughter all the time.
KING TV produced a lot of great reporters like him. When it was a sterling station with the highest standards and did in-depth news reports every night. That’s what Aaron learned from. it shows.
He pisses me off sometimes, but he’s okay. 🙂
Darn! I was away all day and good stuff like this is happening? I need to catch up. Are there any comments from Russert and Novak yet?
Russert will have to say something before Sunday, wont’ he?
— P.S. I believe Russert’s version.
CHARLIE ROSE IS ON …
and check RAW STORY now
will do…I don’t get Rose until midnite here…I don’t think Russert is going to be too happy about this…
My MOM called while Pincus was talking to Charlie Rose. Can you believe it? But she is 90 years old, so I talked to her ;):) Now I have to wait until 11PM to catch it on the Tacoma PBS channel … can you get that one too, Catnip? It’s channel 28 here.
Russert doesn’t like to be IN the news, just to make it.
I get KSPS – Spokane. I was interrupted by a phone call during the last 10 minutes of Law & Order – grrr. I feel for you – even if it was your mother. 🙂
nuts I wish Charlie Rose had free audio archives…he comes on at 11pm here or midnight. whatever. no doubt it will be snoozetime for me.
beautiful sunset tonight over puget sound.
I wrote to the show and BEGGED POLITELY for free transcripts. No reply.
I’ll tape it at 11PM. Thing is, the VCR is in the bedroom, and my computer is in my kitchen… I’ll just turn the volume way up and type very quickly!
what kind/how much research help are you looking for? or should i inquire offline?
i just made mr. raincat100 get up and look at the sunset. (hee)
I’m about to crash now … I missed my usual half-hour nap today. Maybe tomorrow? E-mail me…. it’ll be fun.
kewl.
Are both Libby and Rove part of the White House Iraq Group? If so, it would appear that a coordinated attack on Wilson/Plame was launched from the WH.
I am here to tell you all here that I like what is happening in our world today. I am so very glad to see the worle of non-reality in the WH is finally cracking to the tune of maybe going down/up to the river.
I can feel good tonight upon hitting the hay…the first time in five years!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hell I feel like shouting…;o)
I can hardly wait to see what else is going down tomorrow.
Night all “PEACE AND LOVE”
NYT article on Scooter and Karl and oh boy, can you say conspiricy boys and girls?
WASHINGTON, July 21 – At the same time in July 2003 that a C.I.A. operative’s identity was exposed, two key White House officials who talked to journalists about the officer were also working closely together on a related underlying issue: whether President Bush was correct in suggesting earlier that year that Iraq had been trying to acquire nuclear materials from Africa.
Oh, I’m giddy. Go check it out!!!!!
People who have been briefed on the case said that the White House officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr., were helping to prepare what became the administration’s primary response to criticism that a flawed phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been included in Mr. Bush’s State of the Union address six months earlier.
They had exchanged e-mail correspondence and drafts of a proposed statement by George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the address. Mr. Rove, the president’s political strategist, and Mr. Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their efforts with Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, who was in turn consulting with Mr. Tenet.
At the same time, they were grappling with the fallout from an Op-Ed article on July 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Mr. Wilson, a former diplomat, in which he criticized the way the administration had used intelligence to support the claim in Mr. Bush’s speech.
Quite the group…
new Fiore toon — turn your sound up — and it takes a minute to load
If all this news is accurate, then it blows the myth of this white house’s message and media control, right out of the water. It looks like their bark is a lot worse than their bite. If Colin Powell is behind the leaking of the State Dept. memo, then they are more ignorant and cocky than I ever thought. You would think they would have been a lot more careful about this after the way Powell was treated within the Admin. Do you guys think Powell is communicating and maybe even scheming behind the scenes with Bush 1 and/or former members of his staff like Brent Scowcroft on ways to bring these neocons down? If Powell is involved, then he has at least taken a positive step towards righting the wrongs made possible by his compliance and silence while he was still in the Admin. Though, he’ll never bring back the soldiers and civilians killed in this war. He should be in prison with the rest of them. He could have stopped all this before it turned deadly.
I disagree. He is NOT as guilty as the neo-cons.
Powell fought from the inside, right down the line. He was a spook for the opposition.
Did he stay too long, make too many compromises? Possibly.
Was the strategic system upon which he…and the forces that are successfully working to bring this administration down at the present time…incomplete and flawed itelf?
BushCo Lite?
A kinder, gentler economic colonialism?
I think it was. I think it IS. But if Powell had been successful, there WOULD have been no Iraq War, and once his opposition was overwhelmed he spent a couple of years in position to both wage a holding action against it and to at LEAST try to make sure that it was conducted in a professional military manner.
Did he succeed?
No. Not entirely.
But whose fault is THAT?
WE…the American people…elected these criminals.
We…the Democratic Party…nominated yet another weak
candidate and acceded to the offing of yet another STRONG one by the centrist media.
WE…the people who buy and consume the corporate media…swallowed fiction after fiction, stonewall after stonewall as the Pekinese of the Press cringed in the face of an overbearing, hard handed master.
And there was Colin Powell, getting up each morning and opposing however he could.
Until he could do no more in his position, and retreated to ANOTHER position.
is he behind these revelations?
SOME of them…you betcha he is.
Is he “angry”?
I think we non-politicians ascribe emotional considerations too often to political animals. He is still on the same side…the left wing of the right wing…and still doing his job. He risked his reputation and walked a VERY thin line right next to a group of treasonous criminals in his position as Secretary of State, and it is my hope that he doesn’t go down with them if and when they are toppled. If my take on him is correct…he is a very careful politician or he would not have risen from the streets of Harlem to the corridors of power in either the Pentagon OR the White House…then he has proof of his opposition to these people safely buried away somewhere and a group of very influential allies who will protect him.
If not..ce’st la guerre. He is a soldier, and he put his ass at risk in the line of duty.
Sometimes the good guys go down, too.
Later…
AG