Author: catnip

Steve Clemons of The Washington Note uses his government sources tonite to weave together the details revealed in the latest NYT article (via Truthout) about what Cheney knew and when he knew it.

Clemons warns that it is speculation, but it ties together angles and players in a way that we’ve all suspected.

This is where things get interesting. Although Fitzgerald may not need to establish this connection, it seems increasingly plausible to TWN that Tenet and Cheney had some kind of exchange regarding Joe and Valerie Wilson. Cheney then passed off the information to Libby along with a few expletives about Wilson, implying that the @#$%@%er should be done in.

The question is how did Libby then churn up more info on Wilson without other parts of the “untrusted” bureaucracy spitting in his face or reporting his sins?

My hunch is that he went to trusted spear-carriers for Vice President Cheney — the office and staff of Under Secretary of State John Bolton. Fred Fleitz, Bolton’s chief of staff, maintained his CIA WINPAC portfolio and access as an active duty CIA staff member while he operated as Bolton’s “acting” chief of staff. We know that Fleitz was a key part of the intelligence cherry-picking/stove-piping operation when it came to both the intel and policy response to various global WMD concerns — in North Korea, Libya, Iran, and Iraq.

We also know that David Wurmser and John Hannah, who have both apparently cooperated after threats of legal action (i.e., time behind bars) with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald worked both for John Bolton’s operation and the Vice President’s office.

I recently consulted with a number of senior State Department officials about the level of interaction between Vice President Cheney’s office and John Bolton’s office — and was informed that there was “intense” exchange between them, constant. One said that “Bolton and his team were operatives of Vice President Cheney inside the State Department establishment — there to subvert Armitage and Powell wherever they could, and if not subvert, then there to spy on the them and report back.

TWN knows nothing more than what it speculates to be a plausible scenario. Tonight, I consulted with three senior State Department officials, one currently at the State Department and two who are now outside the Department. All three of them agreed that the scenario I have described about Fleitz being the source of information about Plame’s covert WINPAC role — and this information then passing from Fleitz and/or Bolton to Scooter Libby “is not unbelievable.”

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Years ago while I was visiting friends of mine who had two daughters ages 7 and 9, or thereabouts, their mom got up from the kitchen table, opened up the girls’ door and asked them to pipe down because they were laughing hysterically. Mom sat back down at the table and dad looked at the now closed bedroom door, raised his finger and said snidely, “Ya! Stop having fun!!”. I laughed, of course. Mom wasn’t too impressed with him though.

Over at the orange place, they’re having a big, serious discussion about the appropriateness of celebrating Fitzmas with SnoodGuy leading the way in his “Kill the Fitzmas Talk”  diary. To that I say, “Ya! Stop having fun!!”.

Geez.
 

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Italy’s la Republica has provided a partial chronology of events related to the forged Niger documents and blogger de Gondi at Booman Tribune’s sister site European Tribune has a translated summary.

In their first installment, the reporters trace the origins of the documents “up to the autumn of 2001 when Nicolò Pollari passed the false SISMI dossier to Rome CIA station chief, Jeff Castelli.” According to de Gondi’s account: “Castelli wrote a report and forwarded it to the Greg Thielmann’s Bureau of Intelligence which eventually dismissed this first report as unfounded.” As we all know, it didn’t end there.

Much more on the flipside…

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Despite continual public attempts by Bush to make it appear that he is completely in control of his staff and his senses regardless of all of the scandals swirling around his White House, insiders tell the NY Daily News that, behind closed doors, he is as out of control as a rabid dog. Unlike a rabid dog, however, Bush brought all of this on himself.

Thomas DeFrank has the scoop in his article, Bushies feeling the boss’ wrath. Noting the unrelenting insurgency in Iraq, the loss of 23 US soldiers this past week, the US death toll nearing 2000, the controversy of the Miers nomination and, of course, the pending probable indictments in the Plame investigation (writes DeFrank: “Many Bush staffers believe indictments are likely.”), DeFrank gives us a glimpse into the madness of the modern-day King George.

Excerpts:

WASHINGTON – Facing the darkest days of his presidency, President Bush is frustrated, sometimes angry and even bitter, his associates say.

[…]

“He’s like the lion in winter,” observed a political friend of Bush. “He’s frustrated. He remains quite confident in the decisions he has made. But this is a guy who wanted to do big things in a second term. Given his nature, there’s no way he’d be happy about the way things have gone.”

Bush usually reserves his celebrated temper for senior aides because he knows they can take it. Lately, however, some junior staffers have also faced the boss’ wrath.

“This is not some manager at McDonald’s chewing out the help,” said a source with close ties to the White House when told about these outbursts. “This is the President of the United States, and it’s not a pleasant sight.”

That’s what happens to control freaks. When things go wrong, they have a very nasty meltdown and no one around them is spared.

DeFrank’s sources have many more adjectives to describe Bush’s bad behaviour:

Presidential advisers and friends say Bush is a mass of contradictions: cheerful and serene, peevish and melancholy, occasionally lapsing into what he once derided as the “blame game.” They describe him as beset but unbowed, convinced that history will vindicate the major decisions of his presidency even if they damage him and his party in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

What was it Bush said about how the history books would remember him as if he didn’t care? “History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” Right.

Apparently, Cheney hasn’t been spared the wrath of Bush either and is getting the blame for the mess in Iraq:

“The President is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about,” said one Bush insider. “Andy [Card, the chief of staff] gets his share. Karl gets his share. Even Cheney gets his share. And the press gets a big share.”
The vice president remains Bush’s most trusted political confidant. Even so, the Daily News has learned Bush has told associates Cheney was overly involved in intelligence issues in the runup to the Iraq war that have been seized on by Bush critics.

That’s what happens when you give your vice president unrestrained power, Bush. Guess what? That’s your fault, not his.

If indictments of those in Bush’s inner circle are forthcoming this week, the White House will be faced with making major staff changes. If WH staffers think things are bad now, just wait until the end of the week. The rabid dog’s foaming at the mouth will no doubt reach every exposed surface in those hallowed halls and no one will be able to escape that horridly ugly scene.

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Monday’s Washington Post reveals that it has obtained previously classified documents from the Electronic Privacy Information Center which has sued the Justice Department for those papers in relation to potential abuses of the so-called “Patriot” Act.

Records turned over as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also indicate that the FBI has investigated hundreds of potential violations related to its use of secret surveillance operations, which have been stepped up dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but are largely hidden from public view.

In one case, FBI agents kept an unidentified target under surveillance for at least five years — including more than 15 months without notifying Justice Department lawyers after the subject had moved from New York to Detroit. An FBI investigation concluded that the delay was a violation of Justice guidelines and prevented the department “from exercising its responsibility for oversight and approval of an ongoing foreign counterintelligence investigation of a U.S. person.”

In other cases, agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority and conducted an improper “unconsented physical search,” according to the documents.

FBI officials told WaPo, “none of the cases have involved major violations and most amount to administrative errors.”

That is far from comforting considering how secretive the oversight of FBI practices is, which the WaPo article describes in detail.

Chip Pitts of The Nation reminds us that “none of the provisions of the law [the Patriot Act] that were slated to sunset now appear likely to do so.” And, there’s been a lot of arm-twisting and misinformation in the form of misleading Republican talking points used behind the scenes to see that the Patriot Act stays as is. (read the full article for more…).

It is now well-known that truth is not this Administration’s cardinal virtue. What is less well-known is how sustained and deceptive a campaign has been waged to retain the broad powers of the Patriot Act.

and…

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee James F. Sensenbrenner joined many in the latest floor debate in maintaining that “there is no evidence that the Patriot Act has been used to violate civil liberties.” But this position ignores both the fact that the mere existence of such broad powers chills rights and is abusive, and the serious evidence of specific abuses that has come to light.

One man’s violation of civil liberties is, apparently, another man’s “administrative error”.

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