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Leopold: Witnesses to Grossman-Libby Meeting

By Jeralyn, Section Lewis Libby Indictment
Posted on Sun Apr 16, 2006 at 01:26:38 PM EST
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Jason Leopold, writing at Truthout, says former Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who has been cooperating with Fitzgerald in the Valerie Plame leaks investigation, has witnesses to support his claim that he told Libby in June, 2003 that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA.

Libby has claimed in his latest filing (see pages 15-16) that he doesn't remember the conversation, that it might not have happened, that Grossman may have confused him with someone else or that Grossman may be biased.

Leopold writes,

But the conversation did take place, according to current and former administration officials and attorneys who have remained close to the two-year-old CIA leak probe. At least a half-dozen witnesses who testified before a grand jury over the past two years said that they were at the meeting when Marc Grossman, the former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, told Libby that Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, according to attorneys and US officials close to the two-year-old CIA leak probe.

...."It's not just Mr. Grossman's word against Mr. Libby's," said one former State Department official knowledgeable about the substance of the conversation between Grossman and Libby. "There were other people present at the meeting at the time when Mr. Grossman provided Mr. Libby with details about Ms. Plame's employment with the agency. There is an abundance of evidence Mr. Fitzgerald has that will prove this."

If these witnesses were at a meeting with Libby and heard Grossman's identification of Valerie Plame Wilson, and if they are cooperating with Fitzgerald, Libby may have to stick with his lack of memory defense and forget the bias claim. He's already testified he forgot a key conversation in June with Dick Cheney by the time he spoke with Judith Miller in July. (See page 20 of Fitz's last filing.)

Defendant testified that he did not discuss the CIA employment of Ambassador Wilson's wife with reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003 and that he could not have done so because he had forgotten by that time that he had learned about Ms. Wilson's CIA employment a month earlier from the Vice President.

But what will he do about Ari Fleischer?

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    • Leopold: Witnesses to Grossman-Libby Meeting | 3 comments (3 topical)
    Re: Leopold: Witnesses to Grossman-Libby Meeting (none / 0) (#1)
    by squeaky on Sun Apr 16, 2006 at 05:13:15 PM EST
    Looks bad for Scooter, and if Grossman is squealing then it will be bad for Cheney too and all those WHIGsters. Grossman was the guy who ordered the Secret (twice written once distilled) memo drafted June 10, 2003 that he handed to Colin Powell just before he joined the president and others aboard an Air Force One trip to Africa on July 7, 2003. AP notes: via Swopa
    The document was prepared in June 2003 at the direction of Carl W. Ford Jr., then head of the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research, for Marc Grossman, , the retired official said. Grossman was the Undersecretary of State who was in charge of the department while Secretary Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, were traveling. Grossman needed the memo because he was dealing with other issues and was not familiar with the subject, the former official said.
    Must have been for a damage control WHIG meeting. The memo was culled from an analyst's notes who attended the Wilson's debriefing on Feb 19, 2002, when he returned from Niger. The report was written up on March 23, 2002 and may have been one of the three 'instantly declassified' docs that Libby brought to his meeting with Judith Miller on July 8, 2003 at the DC St. Regis hotel.

    Re: Leopold: Witnesses to Grossman-Libby Meeting (none / 0) (#2)
    by squeaky on Sun Apr 16, 2006 at 05:18:51 PM EST
    At least now we know who the unamed official was in Pincus's September 28, 2003 article.
      Attorneys as well as current and former administration officials close to the case said Grossman was the lone dissenting unnamed official quoted in a September 28, 2003, Washington Post story who told two Post reporters that "two top White House officials" called "at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."
    Re: Leopold: Witnesses to Grossman-Libby Meeting (none / 0) (#3)
    by Tom Maguire on Mon Apr 17, 2006 at 05:53:08 AM EST
    Grossman is The One in the 1 x 2 x 6 theory? (One official leaked to the WaPo that two WH officials leaked to 6 reporters). Wow - if, in fact, it was Grossman's boss, Armitage, that leaked to Woodward and Novak, this investigation is a joke. That alone ought to count as evidence in favor of Hadley as Novak's source. Bonus question - if there were half a dozen people in the June 11/12 meeting, aren't they all leak candidates as well?

    Leopold: Witnesses to Grossman-Libby Meeting | 3 comments (3 topical)