Plame Perjury Investigation? (via Laura Rozen)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/12/AR2005051201556.html

A Leak's Wider Ripples
By David Ignatius
Friday, May 13, 2005; Page A23

It's hard to fathom the continuing legal squeeze on Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller to reveal their sources in a White House leak investigation. Unless, that is, the real concern of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald isn't just the leak but possible perjury by a senior Bush administration official.

If Fitzgerald's investigation has now expanded to include perjury, as some close followers of the case suspect, that sharpens the dilemma for the journalists involved. It's one thing to protect the identity of a confidential source, even if that person may have violated the law by disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence agent. But it is arguably quite a different matter if the reporter has reason to believe a source lied to a grand jury. Does a reporter's confidentiality agreement extend to protecting a cover-up?

Though the perjury issue hasn't surfaced in most discussions of the case, it's buried between the lines of the hundreds of pages of memos, briefs and other legal documents. Unless perjury is one of Fitzgerald's concerns, his tireless pursuit of Cooper and Miller is difficult to understand. As was said of Melville's "Moby-Dick," this is more than a story about a fish.

The case is rooted in President Bush's January 2003 claim that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Africa for its alleged nuclear weapons program. On July 6, 2003, a former ambassador named Joseph Wilson, who had been sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 to investigate the uranium claim, published an op-ed piece in the New York Times saying that he hadn't found any credible evidence to support the charge.

. . . more

(via the always worthwhile www.warandpiece.com ).

So besides treason for outing an agent, Scooter is also a perjurer?


Keith’s Barbeque Central

have the access to that kind of information... and we know that Mathews said to Wilson that Rove told him that Plame was "fair game", meaning that Rove was aware.

May 4th, http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2005_05.html

Bolton Rumors and a Call to Return to the Cheney-Bolton-Fleitz Axis on Valerie Plame and Niger-Uranium Story

On another front in Bolton World, it was Fred Fleitz's role in all of this as Bolton's chief spear-carrier and warrior, that seems unusually important. Fleitz was an amazing conduit for Bolton to the CIA, given Fleitz's relations there as a former senior intel guy, and also with Vice President Cheney's office with which Bolton and Fleitz seemed to have constant contact.
........

Go back to the Henry Waxman letter which documented a fairly profound role of John Bolton and his office in promulgating the Niger Uranium story in State even when the CIA and INR had clearly rejected that intelligence.
.........

Fred Fleitz was in a position to know about Plame and disliked Joe Wilson's findings. Fleitz was a top-notch "cherry-picker" of intelligence and combined in league with Bolton, the pair made a Dynamic Duo in pounding the intelligence establishment to give them the intel they wanted for ideologically pre-determined policy positions they wanted to articulate and pursue.

Was Bolton's office responsible for initiating the leaks of Valerie Plame's identity, which the White House began to promulgate with key members of the press?

I can only assume he talked, and they need corroboration from Miller and Cooper. of what?

Novak was contacted by someone very high Senior in the administration not yet mentioned or suspected.

Maybe even someone in an elected office. Would that be reason to corroborate the story? Remember they worked on Agnew a long time before he was hammered.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3519379#3519562

March 14, 2005
JOHN BOLTON PUSHED NIGER-URANIUM FIASCO AT STATE -- Then Tried to Hide his Tracks and Staff Lied to Congress

I just received this March 1, 2005 letter written by House Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman to Representative Christopher Shays who chairs the Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Security.

Waxman is basically blowing the whistle on the administration's extravagant use of "sensitive but unclassified" designations on official acts to block public access to and transparency of government policymaking.

On pages 5-7, Waxman reveals that John Bolton promulgated the Niger-Uranium fiction at the State Department despite rejection of this claim by State Department and CIA intelligence analysts.

Waxman then argues that not only did Bolton and his people then try and conceal Bolton's role in pushing the Niger-Uranium agenda by marking the material "sensitive but unclassified" and blocking it in case of a Freedom of Information Act request, the State Department actually LIED TO CONGRESS about John Bolton's role.

I think Senator Hagel might want to reconsider his support for the Bolton nomination now. . .

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000370.html

Waxman letter

Concealment of a State Department Official's Role in the Niger Uranium Claim

In April 2004, the State Department used the designation "sensitive but unclassified" to conceal unclassified information about the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, in the creation of a fact sheet distributed to the United Nations that falsely claimed Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

On December 19, 2002, the State Department issued a fact sheet entitled "Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council." (9) The fact sheet listed eight key areas in which the Bush Administration found fault with Iraq's weapons declaration to the United Nations on December 7, 2002. Under the heading "Nuclear Weapons," the fact sheet stated:

The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.
Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?

It was later discovered that this claim was based on fabricated documents. (10) In addition, both State Department intelligence officials and CIA officials reported that they had rejected the claim as unreliable. (11) As a result, it was unclear who within the State Department was involved in preparing the fact sheet.

On July 21, 2003, I wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking for an explanation of the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, in creating the document. (12) On September 25, 2003, the State Department responded with a definitive denial: "Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John R. Bolton, did not play a role in the creation of this document." (13)

Subsequently, however, I joined six other members of the Government Reform Committee in requesting from the State Department Inspector General a copy of an unclassified "chronology" on how the fact sheet was developed. (14) This chronology described a meeting on December 18, 2002, between Secretary Powell, Mr. Bolton, and Richard Boucher, the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs. According to this chronology, Mr. Boucher specifically asked Mr. Bolton "for help developing a response to Iraq's Dec 7 Declaration to the United Nations Security Council that could be used with the press. According to the chronology, which is phrased in the present tense, Mr. Bolton "agrees and tasks the Bureau of Nonproliferation," a subordinate office that reports directly to Mr. Bolton, to conduct the work.

This unclassified chronology also stated that on the next day, December 19, 2003, the Bureau of Nonproliferation "sends email with the fact sheet, 'Fact Sheet Iraq Declaration.doc.'" to Mr. Bolton's office (emphasis in original). A second e-mail was sent a few minutes later, and a third e-mail was sent about an hour after that. According to the chronology, each version "still includes Niger reference." Although Mr. Bolton may not have personally drafted the document, the chronology appears to indicate that

he ordered its creation and received updates on its development.

The Inspector General's chronology was marked "sensitive but unclassified." In addition, the letter transmitting the chronology stated that it "contains sensitive information, which may be protected from public release under the Freedom of Information Act" and requested that no "public release of this information" be made. (15) In fact, however, the chronology consisted of nothing more than a factual recitation of information on meetings, e-mails, and documents.

This is not a constructive reformer out to promote American interests in a dignified manner in the world's most significant multilateral institution.

There are many administration jobs that John Bolton may be completely appropriate for -- but the one that he has been nominated for is not on that list



Also - State's Bolton Says Iran "Dead Set" on Building Nuclear Weapons


State's Bolton Says Iran "Dead Set" on Building Nuclear Weapons

Iran is continuing to pursue the production and possession of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, despite being a signatory to international treaties banning them, said Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton.

In his prepared testimony before the House International Relations Committee June 24, Bolton said, "We cannot let Iran, a leading sponsor of international terrorism, acquire the most destructive weapons and the means to deliver them to Europe, most of central Asia and the Middle East, or beyond."

The under secretary presented evidence such as U.S. intelligence findings in the biannual "721 Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technologies Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advance Chemical Munitions," reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and statements by Iranian officials in order to back up his statements to the committee.

The under secretary described in detail the basis for the Bush administration's strong belief that Iran has a clandestine program to produce nuclear weapons, despite being a signatory to the Nonproliferation Treaty.
http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20040630-04.html

Was Bolton behind death of State Department official?

Bolton = Plame + neocon "spy" scandal + yellow cake forgeries.

The 1st ammend much the same way as Condi uses her color. Do you actually think Judith Miller is attempting to protect her source out of integrity? She lied about so much that I find it hard to imagine she woke up and decided to be a "journalist".