Should Fitzgerald Reopen Rove CIA Leak Investigation? (Brent Budowsky)

Should Fitzgerald Reopen Rove CIA Leak Investigation?

by

Brent Budowsky

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For now, here are the questions that I believe Mr. Fitzgerald should publicly answer, and which Congressman Waxman's Committee should objectively investigate:

1. It appears that there were some gaps in what Rove provided the investigation. As I understand the situation, the gaps involve time periods in 2003, the year of the infamous Bob Novak column that named Plame. I may stand corrected, but this needs to be nailed down.

2. Specifically, do the email gaps include the time period proximate to the Novak column? For example, if the gaps involve April, May, June, or July of 2003 this would obviously be profoundly significant.

3. Next, was the Fitzgerald investigation aware of, and did the Fitzgerald investigation review, email traffic on all email systems involving the other players in the case? For example, was there any email traffic investigated, reviewed or missing between Dick Armitage and Rove, Libby or any other players in the case, on any email system, including the RNC-related email systems, that might have been used and then destroyed, to evade detection?

The investigative question is, taking all of the players in the case, all of the email systems involved, and all of the possible gaps that limited the investigation, can Fitzgerald say with confidence that there are no gaps in the evidence presented, as well as the emails?

4. Relevant to point (3), at the time Fitzgerald concluded his Rove investigation, did he know that there may have been massive destruction of email records in multiple systems?

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http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/04/should_fitzgera.html

and did nothing. Not good not good at all.

If he did then why did he just get Libby? Was the White House willing to have Libby go to jail if it meant that the others especially Rove get off scott free?

and demand the 'missing' emails. Criminals acting just like criminals by using outside email accounts and destroying presidential records. I love the smell of impeachment in the air, in Washington, D.C. in the springtime.

The whole affair was very strange, IMO. We have to hope that justice was served here, but something here sure stinks. Why did Fitzgerald just walk away from the whole affair with only Libby being held for being an accessory?
I mean, that's it? The ump got sand in his face and the game's over?
Clearly, a major crime was committed - either in face value (the outing) or in the cover-up.

...that there is enough evidence of tampering that these systems should be frozen now, and also search warrants issued for computer forensics analysts to start tracking those email headers to see what other systems copies may have landed on. Including the ability to require production of backups, from any server where an email of interest may have landed either in transit or as the point of initial sending or final delivery.

Not to mention having computer forensics analysts recover deleted files on hard drives.

This should start now.

SOMETHING, that stopped him from going further, OR, since it was clear that his main target was Cheney, he concluded that this was a job for Congress. He very pointedly kept the investigation open, and can obtain a new grand jury at any time. I expected a GJ report naming Cheney as an "unindicted co-conspirator," and then it would go to Congress. No report was forthcoming. I think here is a mountain buried here, underneath the surface. I think this crime is/was a coverup of something worse.

I've speculated that it could be a Rumsfeld plot to plant WMDs in Iraq, after the invasion--a plot that got foiled, possibly by someone in the Brewster-Jennings network, and that possibly David Kelly knew about. Kelly was found dead, under highly suspicious circumstances, four days after Plame was outed; if the hidden crime was something like this, Rumsfeld was be on the operational end, while Cheney would be the political end--for instance, keeping the Niger/Iraq nuke allegation front and center, even after it had been disproven, in prep for the "find" of the planted nukes. Rove, while never innocent, may have been a mere political operative in the outings--likely relishing the revenge and pain aspects of it--but realized he was being set up to take the fall, when the Rovian political revenge story, and the shaky Plame-Wilson nepotism thing, made the rounds. Easy to believe Rove would like this sort of thing, but NOT easy to believe that he would take on the CIA by himself. Circumventing and gutting the CIA was a particular Rumsfeld project; also, Cheney was a heavy in it, visiting Langley. But mainly Cheney was involved in spin, in disinformation, in political prep (for the "find"), and lately, in political/legal fallout--the coverup. That's the WMD-planting theory of Plamegate. (Kelly, who was whistleblowing in England at the same time Wilson was whistleblowing here may have caused panic among the Bushites, that their nefarious scheme to plant the WMDs was getting out. This may be why they outed the entire BJ network, four days after Kelly turned up dead, and after his office and computers were searched.)

I've been surprised that nothing further has happened with the Fitzgerald investigation--that we know about. But I also have the strong feeling that lots has happened behind the scenes.

Maybe it's as simple as this: Gonzales had to be removed, before Fitzgerald could proceed further. (Gonzales is a perp--as WH counsel, he gave the other perps 12 hours to shred docs and burn hard drives, when the CIA leak investigation was opened.)

But it could be more complicated, and involve things we don't know about--something deep, dark and ugly--like Rumsfeld complicity in David Kelly's death. Rumsfeld is notably gone, while all the other perps are still hanging on, by tooth and claw. Among the candidates for the "deep and the dark" could be some trail to 9/11, or Cheney arms dealing--or, as we are seeing unfold, a vast internal US political scandal (in which Fitzgerald's name has come up on occasion, as a US Attorney who was "underperforming"). (You just have to laugh at what these jerks are calling "poor performance"--it's so ludicrous.) And someone or some group operating behind the scenes might have decided that, whatever it was, it was too threatening to the foundations of the US government to be revealed. The US Attorney scandal would suggest, as to Fitzgerald, the notion of tossing this hot potato to Congress, since, ultimately, it's going to come down to Congress' mixed political/legal judgment, what to do about this Junta. I think the American people long ago wanted them gone (11/2/04), but Congress has war profiteers to attend to, and other important business. The US Constitution seems to come last. And I stress "seems to." I don't know what may be going on. I'm just guessing, on the basis of what I think these criminals are capable of. Power is like a drug to them. And we all know what drug addicts can be like. I don't imagine it's easy, or safe, to be going after them.

I know this thread is a week old now, but it hasn't gotten enough attention, imho.

I found it after a conversation with my better half prompted a search here and on google. I cannot comprehend why Fitzgerald, after uncovering all the info that he did and knowing there was enough to convict on other crimes, did not proceed to do so.

This is from THE NATION'S last article on Fitzgerald:


At the trial, Fitzgerald chose not to call Dick Cheney or Karl Rove to the stand. If this prosecutor was looking to cause political damage, he passed up two grand opportunities. He could have grilled each for hours. With the vice president, he could have asked a series of potentially embarrassing questions about Cheney's involvement in the campaign to undermine former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, an administration critic. Cheney, according to Libby, was the first official to tell Libby that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA's Counterproliferation Division, which is a unit in the agency's clandestine operations directorate. Fitzgerald could have questioned Cheney about that and about Cheney's own efforts to gather information on the Wilsons and to leak selective pieces of intelligence to administration-friendly reporters (such as Judy Miller and the editorial page editors of The Wall Street Journal. He could have interrogated Cheney about the vice president's curious lack of curiosity when Libby volunteered to tell the boss everything about his involvement in the leak affair. Cheney, according to Libby, indicated to Libby he didn't want to know. (See here.)

Fitzgerald could have had a field day with the vice president. And he was prepared to do so--if Libby's defense attorneys were to place Cheney on the stand. But after Fitzgerald refrained from calling the vice president as a witness, Libby's lawyers decided it would be risky, if not foolish, to do so.

Ditto for Rove. With Rove on the stand, Fitzgerald could have asked Bush's top strategist about his role in the leak. (Rove leaked to Bob Novak for the column that outed Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer, and he also disclosed information about her to Matt Cooper, then of Time.) Fitzgerald could have also asked Rove why he told White House press secretary Scott McClellan that he was not involved in the leak, how he managed to keep his job (given the White House position that anyone connected to the leak would be dismissed), and what Bush had known about Rove's leak-related shenanigans.

Rove and Cheney on the stand--it would have been murder for the administration. Fitzgerald, though, didn't pull the trigger.
...
After the verdict, Representative Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the government reform committee, wrote to Fitzgerald and asked the prosecutor to talk to him and Representative Tom Davis, the senior Republican on the committee, about meeting with and/or testifying before the committee regarding "your views and the insights you obtained during the course of your investigation." In a March 14 letter, Fitzgerald, who is also US attorney in Chicago, turned them down, explaining that the Libby case was still pending (due to possible appeals) and that he did not believe "it would be appropriate for me to offer opinions." In a polite brush-off, he suggested that Waxman review the material introduced during the trial.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=175736


I think Fitzgerald dropped this hot potato too. Just incredible. Does anyone think we'll ever hear the truth? Much less get convictions.