Eat Crow Dot Org

Why Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Filed
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 14 July 2006

Syndicated columnist Bob Novak and officials speaking on behalf of White House political adviser Karl Rove have attempted to convince the American people that there wasn’t a White House campaign to smear and discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson three years ago for speaking out publicly against the Bush administration’s use of pre-war Iraq intelligence.

In a stunning interview Wednesday on Fox News, which came across as yet another orchestrated Rovian crusade against the former ambassador, Novak claimed he did not see any evidence of a White House smear campaign against Wilson in the days prior to a column he wrote that disclosed Wilson’s wife’s covert CIA status and identity.

Novak’s July 14, 2003, column took Ambassador Wilson to task for accusing the administration, in a New York Times op-ed the week before, of twisting the intelligence during the lead-up to the Iraq war.

Novak wrote that Plame was responsible for sending her husband on a fact-finding trip to Niger to determine if Iraq was trying to acquire yellowcake uranium from the African country. The trip, Novak was trying to impress upon his readers, was the result of nepotism and as such Wilson’s findings should not be trusted.

Novak, in his interview on Fox News, where he now works as a consultant, called the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status an accidental slip by one of his sources during the course of an hour-long background interview on foreign and domestic policy issues.

An all too willing Brit Hume, and for that matter the rest of the Washington press corps, lapped up Novak’s version of the truth, and have treated the Wilson story as a non-issue, without so much as disclosing the documentary proof that has surfaced during the course of a three year federal investigation that would prove Novak and others in the media have been peddling lies in hopes of manipulating public perception about the truth regarding White House officials’ roles in the Plame leak.

A month ago, Robert Luskin, the attorney defending Rove in the CIA leak case, claimed he received a faxed correspondence from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicating that Rove would likely not be charged with crimes - barring any additional evidence - related to his role in the leak.

Fitzgerald’s office would not confirm that the prosecutor sent such a letter nor would his office confirm that Rove is truly free from the burden of a criminal indictment. But that has not stopped the media and even some naïve bloggers from taking Luskin at his word and printing news stories with sentences like “Fitzgerald said Rove won’t be charged” when in fact Fitzgerald said no such thing.

In helping to carry the message Rove and Novak are disseminating, the mainstream media and a slew of extreme right-wing bloggers have helped shield this administration from accepting responsibility for one of the most egregious crimes that has taken place since the presidency of Richard Nixon.

Earlier Thursday, the Wilsons filed a civil suit against Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, who is the only White House official who has been indicted in the leak case.

The civil suit may help vindicate the Wilsons and hold these officials accountable for their actions three years ago, but it’s worth revisiting some of the evidentiary findings that Fitzgerald’s probe has turned up since he was appointed Special Prosecutor in December 2003 that prove the White House’s culpability in the leak.

In April, Fitzgerald stated in a court filing related to a discovery motion in the Libby case that his investigators have obtained evidence that proves “multiple” White House officials conspired to discredit Wilson.

Libby’s attorneys said, according to the filing, that they were entitled to the government’s evidence in order to prove Libby was not engaged in a “plot” to discredit Wilson.

However, Fitzgerald says in the filing that long before Wilson published his July 6, 2003, op-ed in the New York Times there were pieces of evidence “some of which have been provided to defendant and there were conversations in which defendant participated, that reveal a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House, to repudiate Mr. Wilson before and after July 14, 2003.”

Although he made it abundantly clear that Libby is not charged with conspiracy, Fitzgerald argues that Libby’s suggestion that there was no White House plot to discredit Wilson is ludicrous, given the amount of evidence he has in his possession that suggests otherwise.

“Given that there is evidence that other White House officials with whom defendant spoke prior to July 14, 2003, discussed Wilson’s wife’s employment with the press both prior to, and after, July 14, 2003 … it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to ‘punish’ Wilson,” Fitzgerald wrote in the court filing.

Moreover, this court filing describes in detail how White House press secretary Scott McClellan came to publicly exonerate Libby and Rove during a press briefing in October 2003, three months after Plame Wilson’s identity was unmasked.

The filing clearly states that Libby lied about his role in the leak when McClellan asked him about it in October 2003. Libby, with Vice President Cheney’s backing, persuaded the press secretary to clear his name during one of his morning press briefings, and prepared notes for him to use. “Though defendant knew that another White House official had spoken to Novak in advance of Novak’s column and that official had learned in advance that Novak would be publishing information about Wilson’s wife, defendant did not disclose that fact to other White House officials (including the Vice President) but instead prepared a handwritten statement of what he wished White House Press Secretary McClellan would say to exonerate him:

People have made too much of the difference in
How I described Karl and Libby
I’ve talked to Libby.
I said it was ridiculous about Karl.
And it is ridiculous about Libby.
Libby was not the source of the Novak story.
And he did not leak classified information.”

“As a result of defendant’s request, on October 4, 2003, White House Press Secretary McClellan stated that he had spoken to Mr. Libby (as well as Mr. Rove and Elliot Abrams) and “those individuals assured me that they were not involved in this.”

McClellan’s public statement and the fact that President Bush vowed to fire anyone in his office involved in the leak were motivating factors that led Libby to lie during an interview with FBI investigators in November 2003, Fitzgerald states in the court filing:

“Thus, as defendant approached his first FBI interview he knew that the White House had publicly staked its credibility on there being no White House involvement in the leaking of information about Ms. Wilson and that, at defendant’s specific request through the Vice President, the White House had publicly proclaimed that defendant was ‘not involved in this.’”

On September 14, 2003, during an interview with Tim Russert of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Cheney maintained that he didn’t know Wilson or have any knowledge about his Niger trip or who was responsible for leaking his wife’s name to the media.

“I don’t know Joe Wilson,” Cheney said, in response to Russert, who quoted Wilson as saying there was no truth to the Niger uranium claims. “I’ve never met Joe Wilson. And Joe Wilson - I don’t who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back … I don’t know Mr. Wilson. I probably shouldn’t judge him. I have no idea who hired him.”

That was a lie. Cheney knew Wilson well. He spent months obsessing about him.

Cheney and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley led a campaign beginning in March 2003 to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson for publicly criticizing the Bush administration’s intelligence on Iraq, according to current and former administration officials.

In interviews over the past year, sources close to the case said their roles included digging up or “inventing” embarrassing information on the former ambassador that could be used against him, preparing memos and classified material on Wilson for Cheney and the National Security Council, and attending meetings in Cheney’s office to discuss with Cheney, Hadley, and others the efforts that would be taken to discredit Wilson.

A former CIA official who has worked in the counter-proliferation division, and who is familiar with the undercover work Wilson’s wife did for the agency, said Cheney and Hadley visited CIA headquarters a day or two after Joseph Wilson was interviewed on CNN.

In the interview, which took place two and a half weeks before the start of the Iraq war, Wilson said the administration was more interested in redrawing the map of the Middle East to pursue its own foreign policy objectives than in dealing with the so-called terrorist threat.

“The underlying objective, as I see it, the more I look at this, is less and less disarmament, and it really has little to do with terrorism, because everybody knows that a war to invade and conquer and occupy Iraq is going to spawn a new generation of terrorists,” Wilson said in a March 2, 2003, interview with CNN.

“So you look at what’s underpinning this, and you go back and you take a look at who’s been influencing the process. And it’s been those who really believe that our objective must be far grander, and that is to redraw the political map of the Middle East,” Wilson added.

But it wasn’t Wilson at first who Cheney was so upset about when he visited the CIA in March 2003.

During the same CNN segment in which Wilson was interviewed, former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright made similar comments about the rationale for the Iraq war and added that he believed UN weapons inspectors should be given more time to search the country for weapons of mass destruction.

The National Security Council and CIA officials said Cheney had visited CIA headquarters and asked several CIA officials to dig up dirt on Albright, and to put together a dossier that would discredit his work that could be distributed to the media.

“Vice President Cheney was more concerned with Mr. Albright,” the CIA official said. “The international community had been saying that inspectors should have more time, that the US should not set a deadline. The Vice President felt Mr. Albright’s remarks would fuel the debate.”

A week later, Wilson was interviewed on CNN again. This was the first time Wilson ridiculed the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. “Well, this particular case is outrageous. We know a lot about the uranium business in Niger, and for something like this to go unchallenged by US - the US government - is just simply stupid. It would have taken a couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early ’60s. All this stuff is open. It’s a restricted market of buyers and sellers,” Wilson said in the March 8, 2003, CNN interview. “For this to have gotten to the IAEA is on the face of it dumb, but more to the point, it taints the whole rest of the case that the government is trying to build against Iraq.”

What Wilson wasn’t at liberty to disclose during that interview, because the information was still classified, was that he had personally traveled to Niger a year earlier on behalf of the CIA to investigate whether Iraq had in fact tried to purchase uranium from the African country. Cheney had asked the CIA in 2002 to look into the allegation, which turned out to be based on forged documents but was included in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address nonetheless.

Wilson’s comments enraged Cheney, all of the officials said, because they were seen as a personal attack against the Vice President, who was instrumental in getting the intelligence community to cite the Niger claims in government reports to build a case for war against Iraq.

The former ambassador’s stinging rebuke also caught the attention of Stephen Hadley, who had played an even bigger role in the Niger controversy, having been responsible for allowing President Bush to cite the allegations in his State of the Union address.

At this time, the international community, various media outlets, and the International Atomic Energy Agency had called into question the veracity of the Niger documents. Mohammed ElBaradei, head of IAEA, told the UN Security Council on March 7, 2003, that the Niger documents were forgeries and could not be used to prove Iraq was a nuclear threat.

Wilson’s comments in addition to ElBaradei’s UN report were seen as a threat to the administration’s planned attack against Iraq, the officials said, which would take place 11 days later.

Hadley had avoided making public comments about the veracity of the Niger documents, going as far as ignoring a written request by IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei to share the intelligence with his agency so his inspectors could verify the claims. Hadley is said to have known the Niger documents were crude forgeries, but pushed the administration to cite them as evidence that Iraq was a nuclear threat, according to the State Department officials, who said they personally told Hadley in a written report that the documents were bogus.

CIA and State Department officials said that a day after Wilson’s March 8, 2003, CNN appearance, they attended a meeting at the Vice President’s office with Cheney, Hadley and others who worked in the Office of the Vice President and it was there that a decision was made to discredit Wilson.

“The way I remember it,” the CIA official said about that first meeting he attended in Cheney’s office, “is that the vice president was obsessed with Wilson. He called him an ‘asshole,’ a son-of-a-bitch. He took his comments very personally. He wanted us to do everything in our power to destroy his reputation and he wanted to be kept up to date about the progress.”

The CIA, State Department and National Security Council officials said that early on they had passed on information about Wilson to Cheney and Libby that purportedly showed Wilson as being a “womanizer” and that he had dabbled in drugs during his youth, allegations that are apparently false, they said.

The officials said that during the meeting, Hadley said he would respond to Wilson’s comments by writing an editorial about the Iraqi threat, which it was hoped would be a first step in overshadowing Wilson’s CNN appearance.

A column written by Hadley that appeared in the Chicago Tribune on February 16, 2003, was redistributed to newspaper editors by the State Department on March 10, 2003, two days after Wilson was interviewed on CNN. The column, “Two Potent Iraqi Weapons: Denial and Deception” once again raised the issue that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger.

Cheney appeared on Meet the Press on March 16, 2003, to respond to ElBaradei’s assertion that the Niger documents were forgeries.

“I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong,” Cheney said during the interview. “[The IAEA] has consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don’t have any reason to believe they’re any more valid this time than they’ve been in the past.”

Behind the scenes, Wilson had been speaking to various members of Congress about the administration’s use of the Niger documents and had said the intelligence the White House relied upon was flawed, said one of the State Department officials who had a conversation with Wilson. Wilson’s criticism of the administration’s intelligence eventually leaked out to reporters, but with the Iraq war just a week away, the story was never covered.

Wilson said he had attempted to contact the White House through various channels after the State of the Union address to get the administration to correct the public record.

“I had direct discussions with the State Department, Senate committees,” Wilson said in April in a speech to college students and faculty at California State University Northridge. “I had numerous conversations to change what they were saying publicly. I had a civic duty to hold my government to account for what it had said and done.”

Wilson said he was rebuffed at every instance and that he received word, through then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that he could state his case in writing in a public forum. And that’s exactly what he did. Wilson decided to write an op-ed in the New York Times and expose the administration for knowingly “twisting” the intelligence on the Iraqi nuclear threat to make a case for war. Wilson wrote that had he personally traveled to Niger to check out the Niger intelligence and had determined it was bogus.

“Nothing more, nothing less than challenging the government to come clean on this matter,” Wilson said. “That’s all I did.”

With no sign of weapons of mass destruction to be found in Iraq, news accounts started to call into question the credibility of the administration’s pre-war intelligence. In May 2003, Wilson re-emerged at a political conference in Washington sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

There he told the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff that he was the special envoy who had traveled to Niger in February 2002 to check out allegations that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from the country. He told Kristoff he had briefed a CIA analyst that the claims were untrue. Wilson said he believed the administration had ignored his report and had been dishonest with Congress and the American people.

When Kristoff’s column was published in the Times, the CIA official said, “a request came in from Cheney that was passed to me that said ‘the vice president wants to know whether Joe Wilson went to Niger.’ I’m paraphrasing. But that’s more or less what I was asked to find out.”

In his column, Kristoff Had accused Cheney of allowing the truth about the Niger documents the administration used to build a case for war to go “missing in action.” The failure of US armed forces to find any WMDs in Iraq in two months following the start of the war had been blamed on Cheney.

What in the previous months had been a request to gather information that could be used to discredit Wilson turned into a full-scale effort involving the Office of the Vice President, the National Security Council, and the State Department to find out how Wilson came to be chosen to investigate the uranium allegations involving Iraq and Niger.

“Cheney and Libby made it clear that Wilson had to be shut down,” the CIA official said. “This wasn’t just about protecting the credibility of the White House. For the vice president, going after Wilson was purely personal, in my opinion.”

Cheney was personally involved in this aspect of the information gathering process as well, visiting CIA headquarters to inquire about Wilson, the CIA official said. Hadley had also raised questions about Wilson during this month with the State Department officials and asked that information regarding Wilson’s trip to Niger be sent to his attention at the National Security Council.

That’s when Valerie Plame Wilson’s name popped up showing that she was a covert CIA operative.

By Marc Ash,

Wed Jun 21st, 2006 at 06:42:38 PM EDT ::

Sorry for the confusion, yes Jason Leopold categorically denies identifying himself as Joe Lauria. Other hysterias will no doubt evolve by morning and we’ll do our best to address them as they surface. Good night folks.On Sunday, The Washington Post published an article titled, “My Unwitting Role in the Rove ‘Scoop’” by Joe Lauria. It’s a hit piece, plain and simple.

For the record, Jason Leopold is not acting alone on the Rove indictment story. All of TO’s senior editors are participating in interviewing sources, verifying facts and vetting every sentence published before the story goes live.

We find it curious that The Washington Post has taken such a keen interest in Jason Leopold and TO. The Lauria piece is only the latest in a series of pieces published by Post editors attacking - in a very personal manner - Jason Leopold and TO. But there has been no critical assessment of the facts we have reported. Why? Who is directing this smear campaign at the Post and why?

A Rather Backhanded Assault

The Post published Lauria’s article as an opinion piece, but Lauria used that platform to present fact - fact without documentation. In reference to our report that a grand jury has returned an indictment of Karl Rove (a report that we do stand by), Lauria writes, “The report set off hysteria on the Internet, and the mainstream media scrambled to nail it down. Only … it wasn’t true.” He is stating - as a fact - a premise that he does not even attempt to document or substantiate, and the Post is a willing host.

The basis for Lauria’s complaint is that Jason Leopold reportedly used Lauria’s name to get Karl Rove’s spokesman Mark Corallo on the phone … according to, you guessed it, Corallo. For the record, I think Mark Corallo is doing a brilliant job of representing Karl Rove’s best interests as his interface with the media. I also think it’s fair to say that The Washington Post is being way too cooperative - unless they, too, are beholden to Mr. Rove? Everybody hold your breaths waiting for a response from the Post’s ombudsman on that one.

For the record, since the entire basis for Lauria’s story is a poorly defined, and factually uncorroborated version of events promulgated by Karl Rove’s public relations contractor, I think Lauria’s getting a free ride to notoriety from the Post. Apparently Lauria recognized that there was a hot market for hit pieces on Jason Leopold and TO. The Washington Post was buying, and Lauria was all to happy to cash in.

We urge The Post and Lauria to meet the same standard that we have been held to these past weeks - account for your statements, please.

The original version which was cached by googlenews for the initial New York Times report by David Johnston and Jim Rutenberg, published: June 13, 2006.

… In a statement, Mr. Luskin said, “On June 12, 2006, Special … Mr. Fitzgerald’s spokesman, Randall Samborn, said he would not comment on Mr. Rove’s status. …

But when you click through to the story you will not find that quote. It appears to have been edited out.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s spokesman, Randall Samborn, had no comment.

Courtesy of Citizen Spook

That’s not the big one, but it does raise questions many bloggers and reporters have begun asking today. If Rove is no longer a target or subject in the Plame leak case, why doesn’t Samborn or Fitzgerald just tell the people the simple truth?

It appears that the truth is not simple.

RANDAL SAMBORN DOES AN ABOUT FACE

OK, here it is, and most of you have probably come across it, so please suspend judgment until we go back a few months for the punchline:

Fitzgerald met with chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan before he notified Rove. Hogan has been overseeing the grand juries in the CIA leak case. Fitzgerald’s spokesman,

Randall Samborn, declined comment. Asked if the CIA leak investigation is still continuing, Samborn said, “I’m not commenting on that as well at this time.”

This is a blockbuster quote. You would think that if Fitzgerald were still investigating the Plame leak, his press officer would tell the public this is an ongoing investigation. And if Fitz had completed his investigation, one would expect Samborn to say that the investigation is complete.

After all, the investigation must be open or closed, right? I’ve never heard of an investigation that’s neither open nor closed. Have you?

That quote by Samborn certainly seemed strange to me and I mentioned it in my speculative report yesterday (more on that below). But yesterday, I downplayed it in my mind because it’s Samborn’s standard pat response, No comment.

NOT!

Today, Samborn’s refusal to confirm or deny whether the investigation remained open haunted me.

The question involves the status of a very public case where people in high Government positions are being accused of treasonous activity, espionage even. Recall that at Fitzgerald’s press conference after Libby’s indictment, Fitz indicated he was considering the Espionage Act to prosecute anybody found responsible for the Plame leak.

The standard Samborn no comment was not appropriate at all for the question asked. Do we have an investigation into who leaked Plame’s name or not? Even for Samborn, no comment seems far too elusive and incendiary. This is the kind of no comment which raises more questions and problems for the public than a simple answer to the question.

So I looked back in time to see if Samborn had ever been asked this question before to see what his response had been in the past. And what I found blew my mind.

Samborn was asked this question in the past, and his answer yesterday signifies a complete change, an about face has been documented. It now appears — based upon a thorough review of Samborn’s prior statements — that the Special Prosecutor’s Office does not know if the investigation will continue. The incredible questions this raises will be addressed below, but first we will examine Samborn’s prior official answers.

From a CBS News Report on October 28, 2005:

Rove’s lawyer said he was told by the prosecutor’s office that investigators had made no decision about whether or not to bring charges and would continue their probe into Rove’s conduct.

Fitzgerald’s spokesman, Randall Samborn, said the investigation will continue but with a new grand jury. The term of the current grand jury cannot be extended beyond today.

There you have it, back in October 2005, Samborn and Fitzgerald (at the Libby Indictment press conference) both unequivocally stated that the investigation was ongoing.

As of yesterday, the official word from Fitzgerald’s office – via Samborn — is:

Asked if the CIA leak investigation is still continuing, Samborn said, “I’m not commenting on that as well at this time.”

Samborn — and by proxy Fitzgerald — have made an official about face. The status of the investigation is now officially in limbo. And I submit to you that neither Samborn nor Fitzgerald are ignorant to the significance of this carefully worded reversal of stated policy pertaining to the status of the investigation.

It just gets stranger and stranger, doesn’t it. You have no idea.

Notice that the above quote taken from October 28, 2005 is attributed to CBS News but the link I’ve provided is to politicalforecast.net . I would love to have provided you a link to the actual CBS news quote. It was originally attributed to CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen.

This is the link provided for the original CBS New report by politicalforecast.net

But when you click through to it, you come to a two part article about the Libby indictment which does not include the quote by Samborn stating that the investigation will continue. That quote has been edited out of the article. Click through and you’ll see that the link to the second part of the two part article, dated October 29, 2005, does not contain the Samborn quote, the investigation will continue. When you click the link at the bottom of that page, it brings you to — not part one of the article you were reading — but rather a different article dated October 30, 2005.

Neither link includes the quote by Samborn, the investigation will continue.

It wasn’t just politicalforecast.net who quoted that Samborn statement. You can find reference to it at Think Progress

as well as Democratic Underground.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

It means something very strange went down in May, 2006.

Let’s see what we know:

1. We know Fitzgerald’s Office has done an about face with regards to the ongoing status of this investigation.

2. We know that Fitzgerald has not confirmed or denied Luskin and Corallo’s statements concerning Rove being cleared.

3. We know Fitzgerald cannot comment about any activity by the Grand Jury which has been sealed by the court.

4. We know that within three business days of Friday, May 12th 2006 the Sealed vs. Sealed entry was added to the District Court’s Pacer system by Judge Reggie Walton who is presiding over the Libby indictment. According to some excellent detective work by Marie26 at the Democratic Underground discussion board, we know that Case No. 06-CR-128 was probably entered on May 16 or 17th. Since the 17th was a Wed. and the Grand Jury meets on Wed., that date is more likely than the 16th.
5. We know that Rove’s spokesperson, Mark Corallo, when he worked as a press officer for Ashcroft at DOJ, was no stranger to the use of Sealed vs Sealed

WHAT WE DON’T KNOW

1. We don’t’ know if Sealed vs. Sealed is a charge against Rove.
2. Truthout.org claims to have a reliable source informing them that Sealed vs. Sealed was an indictment returned by the Fitzgerald Grand Jury. I have no way of verifying that because there is no official information available about that case. It is completely sealed.
3. Since it carries the CR designation, it must be a criminal case, not a civil case or a motion regarding news sources like Cooper and Miller. Those carry different designations than CR.

CONCLUSIONS

If Luskin and Corallo can quote the fax sent by Fitzgerald, than that document is not sealed and they are legally free to show it to the world. If that fax completely exonerated Rove with no legal implications against the story they have told the world, then one would expect them to print that important exculpatory document. The have refused to show the world and until they do, the entire scenario DESERVES to be examined.

We must examine it in light of Randal Samborn’s strange statements regarding the status of Rove and the entire investigation. If Rove’s people and Fitzgerald are on the same pages, we expect a communication from Fitzgerald to that effect. If Luskin has a document from Fitzgerald that he is legally allowed to quote from, then he is also allowed to show that document.

But he won’t. And Fitz won’t back up those statements.

And Samborn won’t even tell us if the investigation is ongoing. Adding this strange behavior to the existence of Sealed vs Sealed, we must assume there is something very unusual about the Plame investigation now that wasn’t strange before May 2006.

The scenario I speculated upon yesterday — a runaway Grand Jury may have returned charges without Fitzgerald having sought them or signed them — allows all of the parties to be telling the truth.

If that were the case then charges may actually exist and may be the pending case Luskin referred to.

The investigation may have been put on hold due to the unique Constitutional issue such charges would cause. And that might also explain Samborn’s inability to confirm whether the investigation is ongoing.

If the Grand Jury returned charges which were not requested by Fitzgerald, such charges would not be signed by him. In fact, according to Constitutional law, the Grand Jury could eject Fitz from the Court and bring whatever charges they like without him. Such charges might read:

Grand Jury for the District of Washington D.C. vs. Karl Rove

And in that case, the charges may have been sealed until Judge Walton decides how to handle this unique Constitutional exercise of citizen authority.

I have seen various commentary about yesterday’s Citizenspook report alleging that the runaway Grand Jury scenario is not possible since lower courts have held that a prosecution cannot move forward without the signature of a U.S. Attorney. I submit that any lower court ruling which states that is in direct contradiction with the Constitution.

Neither the Supreme Court nor Congress has ever removed the right of Grand Jurors to return charges without a US Attorney’s acquiescence. Far from it.

Please read my previous report on the Constitutional independent authority of Grand Jurors:

TREASONGATE: The Federal Grand Jury, FOURTH BRANCH of the US Government

Justice Scalia, delivering the opinion of the court, laid down the law of the land:

“‘[R]ooted in long centuries of Anglo-American history,” Hannah v. Larche, 363 U.S. 420, 490 (1960) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result), the grand jury is mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but not in the body of the Constitution. It has not been textually assigned, therefore, to any of the branches described in the first three Articles. It “`is a constitutional fixture in its own right.’” United States v. Chanen, 549 F.2d 1306, 1312 (CA9 1977) (quoting Nixon v. Sirica, 159 U.S. App. D.C. 58, 70, n. 54, 487 F.2d 700, 712, n. 54 (1973)), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 825 (1977). ‘ ”

Furthermore,

Justice Powell, in United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 343 (1974), stated:

“The institution of the grand jury is deeply rooted in Anglo-American history. [n3] The grand jury’s historic functions survive to this day. Its responsibilities continue to include both the determination whether there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and the protection of citizens against unfounded criminal prosecutions. Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 686-687 (1972).”

Is it possible that Fitzgerald had the patriotic audacity to educate the Grand Jury as to their power to return indictments without his approval?

Is it possible that Fitzgerald anticipated interference by forces in the DOJ loyal to the people he is investigating?

Is it possible that behind the scenes the very fabric of our citizen powers to investigate the Government as Grand Jurors is under the final assault of a Government hell bent on destroying the safeguards of our delicate system of checks and balances?

Is it possible that Fitzgerald has spoken to us through Randall Samborn by sending an S.O.S. hidden in the simple quotation, No comment?

There are other possibilities, but none of them allow for all of the players to be telling the truth. I don’t believe Luskin and Corallo would say anything to the public which Fitzgerald could slam them on. Not a chance. Corallo is ex DOJ and Luskin is too skilled to do anything that stupid or unethical. So we MUST assume that Luskin and Corallo have parsed their words within the law and facts.

We don’t have to assume that Leopold and Truthout.org are telling the truth, but all things considered, I believe they have real sources or else they had to know they were committing professional suicide. Their sources could be misleading them, but we have the unique confirmation from major media reporters like David Schuster, and Chris Matthews who also believed Rove had been or was going to be indicted at about the same time Leopold first said that they were.

So if the Grand Jury acted on their own, without the signature of Fitzgerald, then Luskin’s statement that Fitzgerald doesn’t anticipate seeking charges could be true even though charges are pending against Rove. And if the pending case Luskin referred to is actually a charge against Rove, then his statement in this regard is also true.

THE PROBLEM WITH MY ANALYSIS

The problem then is what to do with Corallo and Luskin’s insistence that Rove has not been indicted which is a totally different animal then whether or not Fitz anticipates seeking charges. If the Grand Jury returned charges against Rove on their own volition, how can team Rove’s direct, unqualified insistence that Rove was never indicted square with my theory? An excellent question. Good thing I have the perfect answer. It’s called

PRESENTMENT

From TENNESSEE v. JEFFREY DWIGHT WHALEY:

The grand jury has the power to act independently of the court and the district attorney

General by instituting a criminal action by presentment. State v. Superior Oil, Inc., 875 S.W.2d 658, 661 (Tenn. 1994). In practice, the district attorney general is informed of the offense, prepares the appropriate charge, and delivers it to the grand jury where it is signed by all members of the grand jury. State v. Hudson, 487 S.W.2d 672, 675 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1972) (citing State v. Darnal, 20 Tenn. 290 (1839)). A bill of indictment, on the other hand, is sanctioned by the district attorney general and signed only by the foreperson and not the other members of the grand jury. State v. Davidson, 103 S.W.2d 22, 23-24 (Tenn. 1937).

Obviously, Tennessee law does not apply. I only cite the case to show the difference between INDICTMENTS and PRESENTMENTS. The Bill of Rights mentions both. And the Grand Jury has the Constitutional authority to return either, but as our system developed certain habits of procedure, charges brought exclusively by the Grand Jury became regularly classified as PRESENTMENTS as opposed to charges brought directly by the U.S. Attorney which are commonly referred to as INDICTMENTS.

Somebody with clout needs to ask Luskin if Rove is the subject of any PRESENTMENTS by the Fitzgerald Grand Jury. Because if the Grand Jury returned charges in the form of PRESENTMENTS, then Luskin and Corallo could steadfastly deny that any INDICTMENTS have been returned against Rove.

These people are professionals. If you give them wiggle room they will use it like a skilled Samba dancer.

PLEASE COPY LINK AND REPOST EVERYWHERE

By Justin Rood - June 13, 2006, 11:29 AM

TPM Muckraker

Responding to news that Karl Rove’s lawyers say they’ve been notified the Bush adviser won’t get charged in the Plame leak investigation, Reader AB asks, “is it reasonable for them to publish the letter from Fitzgerald to prove that their statement says is, in fact, true[?]”

We thought it was a good question — noting, however, that news reports conflict on whether Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, received a letter from Fitzgerald. Luskin himself stated he was “formally advised,” but does not state how.

I called Luskin at his office and told him I was interested to know precisely how Fitzgerald had notified him of his decision. “I’m really not going to add anything to what’s in the statement,” Luskin told me.

Why not? I asked. “The reason is, that’s what we’ve decided to do.” (There’s a $500-an-hour answer for you.)

Luskin’s office sent me a copy of his earlier statement. It reads — in its entirety — as follows:

Washington, DC-Robert Luskin, Attorney for Karl Rove today released the following statement:”On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove.

“In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation. We believe that the Special Counsel’s decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove’s conduct.”

So what’s the deal? Is Luskin bluffing? If he got a letter, why won’t he say so, and release it?

We don’t know. It’s extremely unlikely Luskin would fake something like this — it would demand a wrathful retaliation from the prosecutor, something no defense lawyer in his right mind would do. Perhaps Fitzgerald sent a letter that, while letting Rove off the hook, catalogs a number of sins Luskin would rather not publicize. Perhaps Rove got the assurance as part of a cooperation deal. Who knows.

All we can say for sure is that for the moment, Rove’s apparently in the clear. And Luskin’s not talking.

Update: An earlier version of this post said that no news outlets had reported that Fitzgerald notified Luskin in writing; in fact, the New York Times reported Luskin received a letter from Fitzgerald, while others reported it was in a phone call.

Late Update: Rove’s not cooperating with anybody or anything, spokesman tells Prospect.

So far only Luskin has peeped about the communique between Fitzgerald. No one else has apparently seen it.
As usual, still more questions than answers

By Marc Ash, Wed Jun 14th, 2006 at 06:52:40 PM EDT :: Fitzgerald Investigation

Regarding Mr. Luskin’s Statements

By Marc Ash,

Tue Jun 13th, 2006 at 10:48:36 AM EDT ::

Fitzgerald Investigation We are stunned by the magnitude of the reaction to the article we published yesterday morning. We have put our cards on the table. We invite Mr. Luskin to do the same.

To clarify: The entire basis for the information that “Rove has been cleared” comes from a verbal statement by Karl Rove’s attorney. No one else confirms that.

As Karl Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin is bound to act - in all regards - in Rove’s best interest. We question his motives.

To all those bloggers, forumists and mainstream media (MSM) pundits who thought you were tearing Jason Leopold a new one by ripping into him on his Rove indictment story - think again.

Here’s a fork, a knife and a spoon - the crow has been boiling all week. You can kindly leave a gratuity for Jason by dropping a comment before you tip back and drink the last, tepid, vestige of gruel left in your bowl. For those who were unneccessarily nasty, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

Thanks

The Chef

Eat Crow dot Org is an Empire Burlesque website.

Contact us by email.

By Marc Ash,Wed May 17th, 2006 at 12:52:48 PM EDT :: Fitzgerald Investigation

For the past few days, we have endured non-stop attacks on our credibility, and we have fought hard to defend our reputation. In addition, we have worked around the clock to provide additional information to our readership. People want to know more about this, and our job is to keep them informed. We take that responsibility seriously.

Here’s what we now know: I spoke personally yesterday with both Rove’s spokesman Mark Corallo and Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin. Both men categorically denied all key points of our recent reporting on this issue. Both said, “Rove is not a target,” “Rove did not inform the White House late last week that he would be indicted,” and “Rove has not been indicted.” Further, both Corallo and Luskin denied Leopold’s account of events at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm that represents Karl Rove. They specifically stated again that no such meeting ever occurred, that Fitzgerald was not there, that Rove was not there, and that a major meeting did not take place. Both men were unequivocal on that point.

We can now report, however, that we have additional, independent sources that refute those denials by Corallo and Luskin. While we had only our own sources to work with in the beginning, additional sources have now come forward and offered corroboration to us.

We have been contacted by at least three reporters from mainstream media - network level organizations - who shared with us off-the-record confirmation and moral support. When we asked why they were not going public with this information, in each case they expressed frustration with superiors who would not allow it.

We also learned the following: The events at the office building that houses the law firm of Patton Boggs were not in fact a very well-guarded secret. Despite denials by Corallo and Luskin, there was intense activity at the office building. In fact, the building was staked out by at least two major network news crews. Further, although Corallo and Luskin are not prepared to talk about what happened in the offices of Patton Boggs, others emerging from the building were, both on background and off-the-record. There were a lot of talkers, and they confirmed our accounts. We do have more information, but want additional confirmation before going public with it.

THE 24 HOUR THING

We reported that Patrick Fitzgerald had, “instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order….” That does not mean that at the end of that 24-hour period, Fitzgerald is obliged to hold a press conference and make an announcement. It just means that he has given Rove a 24-hour formal notification. Fitzgerald is not obliged to make an announcement at any point; he does so at his own discretion, and not if it compromises his case. So we’re all stuck waiting here. Grab some coffee.