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Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wilson

Murray Waas breaks news in PlameGate today:

Bush told prosecutors he directed Cheney to disclose classified information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson.

However, Waas reports, Bush did not tell Cheney to leak Valerie Plame's identity.

Some snippets:

But Bush told investigators that he was unaware that Cheney had directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, to covertly leak the classified information to the media instead of releasing it to the public after undergoing the formal governmental declassification processes.

Bush also said during his interview with prosecutors that he had never directed anyone to disclose the identity of then-covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife. Bush said he had no information that Cheney had disclosed Plame's identity or directed anyone else to do so.

As to why Libby would lie to the FBI and grand jury:

One obvious reason, prosecutors have believed, is that Libby did not want to admit that he was disseminating material gleaned from classified information. Even if Libby believed that he was unlikely to be charged with disclosing classified information, the investigators think that Libby could have feared the loss of his security clearance or his job. Or, perhaps most important of all, he worried about embarrassing Cheney and Bush.

Sources say investigators believe it is possible that Libby was trying to obscure Cheney's role in the Plame leak -- either by the vice president directing Libby to leak her CIA status, or through a general instruction from Cheney encouraging Libby to get the word out about Plame's role in sending Wilson to Niger. They say it is also possible that Libby lied to conceal the fact that he leaked Plame's identity to the press without Cheney's approval.

Another interesting note:

A senior government official who has spoken to the president about the matter said that although Bush encouraged Cheney to get information out to rebut Wilson's charges, Bush was unaware that Cheney had directed Libby to leak classified information....."[Libby] further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE. [Libby] testified that the Vice President later advised him that the President had authorized [Libby] to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE."

And Libby "testified that he spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom [Libby] considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that presidential Authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of a document."

Crooks and Liars has some good analysis of Murray's new article.

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  • Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#1)
    by scribe on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 01:43:18 PM EST
    They're going to tie it off at just Scooter, then pardon him after the election. They'll say something like "loyal servant, he misinterpreted his masters' voices and we should forgive him" or "if he lied, it was to protect classified information, and that's all right".

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#2)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 01:54:07 PM EST
    scribe - Works for me. A politial settlement of a political smearing. First by the Demos and then by the Repubs.

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 01:59:13 PM EST
    Is this really any surprise? There would have been no motivation for bush to want to discredit Wilson if the justifications he had put forward for attacking a country run by a regime that was absolutely no threat, incapable of harming the US, and completely contained after years of sanctions had... not... been... utter... Chain of command. Chain of accountability. Chain of responsibility.

    Dear TL & CL, Would you please consider selling postage stamps and other souvenirs with CL graphics and the TalkLeft URL?

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#5)
    by Dadler on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 02:29:51 PM EST
    Row, row, row your sh*t Out into the stream It stinks, it floats It proudly gloats De-ni-a-bil-i-ty. P.S.) "But I deny the allegation and I deny the alligator. And they were only supposed to release stuff that wouldn't get me in trouble."

    I agree with scribe that they are going to try to contain it with Libby. Obviously some kind of deal was made concerning Rove, who is way too valuable to lose. I just have one question, can you imagine for one moment, that Dick "gives-new-meaning-to-control-freak" Cheney would let Scooter run off on his own on something this big or that Scooter would not run it past his boss first?

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#7)
    by Edger on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 03:18:08 PM EST
    JESchwartz: Obviously some kind of deal was made concerning Rove, who is way too valuable to lose. Speculative question for any of the lawyers here... Would it have been legal and within bush's authority to have secretly pardoned (by executive order or otherwise) Rove and somehow dismissed an existing indictment after Jason Leopold wrote his article, with the condition that the rove team, and Fitzgerald, could say nothing about it?

    Who told Bush who Plame was? His CIA briefer? Seems to me the CIA briefer's job would have been to give Bush the most amount of info in the smallest package, but omitting her classification and the Brewster Jennings connection from his face to face seems unlikely to me. So, when he gave Cheney direction, he did so knowing the probable consequences. Oh WAIT, this is the president who doesn't think through consequences!

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#9)
    by Che's Lounge on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 07:00:08 PM EST
    Remember how Bush said that any leakers in the administration would be dealt with? court papers filed by Fitzgerald in April suggest that Libby was reluctant to leak any classified information to the press, and only did so after being assured that his actions were approved by both the president and vice president. So Bush and Cheney approve the leaking of portions of the NIE for Iraq's WMD program to a reporter to print in a major national newspaper? They are talking out of both sides of their mouths. Bushlickers like Jim say tht the president has the authority to just declassify top secret information on the spur of the moment, yet here they leak it to a reporter. Why? Because they knew it was illegal and would not say it openly in a stand up debate. about the weapons programs. This is not over by a long shot.

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#10)
    by Sailor on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 08:27:47 PM EST
    Bush told prosecutors he directed Cheney to disclose classified information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson.
    Well he got half of it right, the part where they smeared Wilson. ppj should ask himself why bushco resorted to a personal attack instead of facts? Uhh, has been shown, the facts were against them because THEY LIED, and then outed an undercover CIA op working on WMDs.

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#11)
    by Che's Lounge on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 11:32:12 PM EST
    Jimbo this is one of your best yet: The smear came from the Democrats who attempted to turn Wilson's trip re PURCHASE into a trip re attempt, and then have Wilson claim the President was wrong And THAT my friends is the direct effect of drinking the neocon Koolaid. Observe the blank stare, the slight drool, and the generalized rigitidy. Often confused with catatonic shizophrenia except they are able to verbalize and tap out messages on a keyboard. Mostly nonsensical ramblings. There is not enough tin foil on the planet to make a hat big enough to wrap around that diabolical plan. Seriously, did you just make that up or is it printed somewhere else on some RWNJ site? Thanks. LOL

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#12)
    by desertswine on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 11:56:32 PM EST
    Bush was unaware of... Bush had no information that... Yes I suppose Bush can always hide behind his incredible stupidity.

    It's an interesting thing, when you think about it. If you want to believe that they wanted to defend the administration, rather than just discredit Wilson, that is. See, here's the thing. June 12th, Cheney tells Libby that Wilson went, and his wife works at the CIA, right? That's in the court documents. July 6th, he writes questions about whether the trip was legitimate. So, what? On June 12th, the question of whether the trip was legitimate didn't matter? What changed between June 12th and July 6th? They now have the name in public. If there were questions about the legitimacy of the trip, they'd have been answered by June 14th at the latest. Let's say June 19th, to make it a week. Whether it was a junket or not, whether the CIA had sent former ambassadors around in the past or not, all of those questions would have been answered weeks before July 6th, if they had serious questions about the value of the trip. So why were those questions written on an article that didn't appear until July 6th? Because they had no questions about the intelligence reporting; they had questions about how to spin the story. Oh, and for those talking about "attempt" versus "purchase", just drop it. Niger couldn't sell uranium to Iraq without it raising red flags; they wouldn't becasue it was illegal, and it would put Niger's metaphorical ass in a crack, and they couldn't have shipped the uranium without it being noticed, even if they could divert the uranium from the mines. Nobody sensible said it was okay to go to war because there were Iraqis asking about uranium and being told "no", and not getting any. Some people were swayed by a fear that there was a real risk that Iraq was acquiring uranium. If it makes you feel better, "Bush didn't lie, he only spoke deceptively, and sure, maybe he was such an incompetent that he didn't know the truth." It's still not a reason to blow hundreds of billions of dollars, kill tens of thousands of innocent people, and sacrifice the lives and wholeness of thousands of our troops.

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#14)
    by Strick on Tue Jul 04, 2006 at 05:23:27 AM EST
    Amazing how people read what they want to into things like this. The "information" referred to in all this was what the NIE said about Iraq, not Plame's identity. Bush had every reason to want to get that information out given the false assumptions that drove Wilson's op-ed piece in the times. How is it in any way wrong to provide information to the public on how and why pubic policy was made, particularly after an accusation was made that had no basis in fact?* As to the "leak", it's intellectually dishonest to call an authorized disclosure of information a leak, particularly when the information from the NIE was in the process of being declassfied and was made available to the public at large only 12 days later. The whole thing on the disclosure was a tempest in a teapot. Of course if the times had printed what actually happened, VP Cheney authorizes giving their reporter a scoop, they wouldn't have sold any papers, would they? *Read Wilson's piece again. It all falls apart once it's clear that his main point, if they ignored his report, they were fiddling the intelligence, is based on a false assumption. No one thought his report worth reporting up the chain, much less basing any policy upon. That's clear in ever examination of what the State Department thought of the trip (a complete waste of time from the get go) or what the CIA did when they got the verbal report (spiked it for not contributing any value).

    this whole "bush directed cheney" meme has obviously been cooked to order. i'm curious as to why Waas was the first to report this, i.e., how did he get his hands on the "goods"? sounds like an attempt at cover for cheney to me.

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#16)
    by Sailor on Tue Jul 04, 2006 at 07:55:13 AM EST
    The "information" referred to in all this was what the NIE said about Iraq, not Plame's identity.
    that's silly because all they did was out Plame. Deliberately, in political retaliation they blew an undercover WMD expert's ID. Don't try to claim they were counter facts with facts, it was sheer, coordinated political retribution.
    As to the "leak", it's intellectually dishonest to call an authorized disclosure of information a leak
    read the article, bush never authorized it, and they only mcame up with that spin after libby and miller went to jail for them. If they didn't think it was a crime, why did they cover it up?
    given the false assumptions that drove Wilson's op-ed piece in the times
    Wilson was accurate, and bushco ended up apologising for including those '16 words' in the STFU address.
    Read Wilson's piece again.
    you read it again and provide links to where it was inaccurate. Amazing the lengths wrongwingers will go to to defend any act by bushco, no matter how much it hurts America.

    Re: Waas: Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Joseph Wil (none / 0) (#17)
    by squeaky on Tue Jul 04, 2006 at 09:38:15 AM EST
    Are we to assume that Wilson didn't interview probably the most important man in Nigeria, a man who was Premier in 1999??
    PPJ knows not only where the WMDs are but all about the inner workings of the Niger Uranium business. We shoulda sent ppj to Iraq and then to Niger. Crazy Curt Weldonis still hoping that you will join his little expedition.
    On March 1, the State Department weighed in with another cable, headed "Sale of Niger Uranium to Iraq Unlikely." Citing "unequivocal" control of the mines, the cable asserted that President Tandja of Niger would not want to risk good relations with the U.S. by trading with Iraq, and cited the prohibitive logistical problems in such a transaction. A few days later, Wilson returned from Niger and told C.I.A. officials that he had found no evidence to support the uranium charges. By now the Niger reports had been discredited more than half a dozen times--by the French in 2001, by the C.I.A. in Rome and in Langley, by the State Department's INR, by some analysts in the Pentagon, by the ambassador to Niger, by Wilson, and yet again by State.
    link

    Apologies if this has already been covered, but who do we think is telling Waas all this? Someone from Libby's team?

    I'm cleaning up this thread and deleted comments that are off-topic to Waas' article and PlameGate and Bush and leaks.

    If Bush authorised the release of classified information for purely political purposes (discrediting a critic) isn't that at least an impeachable offence if not treason!

    Your Category for this post is "Leaks." Very appropriate.