Karl Rove and the Domino Effect

Larry Johnson (former CIA): "It sickens me to be a Republican to see this"

Wilsongate is more than about Rove, Wilson, Plume and the CIA.
This could be the real beginning of the end of the Bush Administration -before 2004

Update: NSC Robert Joseph-Alan Foley-Valerie Plume connection points on Lewis Libby as "Mastermind" (10/02)
FBI Narrowing List of CIA Leak Suspects (10/02)

Update: Johnson identified Office of Leaker (10/01)
Johnson: "Leak risks US security" (Guardian 10/02)

Photos: Karl Rove and PNAC-Lewis Libby (is "Scooter" behind the leak campaign?)

By Ewing2001, October 1st

"CIA on Defcon 1", "White House under attack", "Karl Rove's name leaked to Julian Borger" (Guardian).

These are only a few news snippets, which arrived on the news desks within the last 24 hours.
"Traitorgate" finally became mainstream and it's still only a piece of the Puzzle of Iraqgate and the Cover-up of 9/11.

The independent media sources and news blogs are actually now 10 times faster than ever before.

While the Neocon buddies still try to import their latest spin, "Wilson is doing all this to support John Kerry", noone's really listening to this kind of distraction anymore.

Let's concentrate on the real smoking guns.

Here is a summary about all highlights:

Joshua Micah Marshall, columnist of The New Republic, The New York Post, The New York Times, Newsday, Salon and many other outlets, released on late tuesday a White House Memo, which asked for any "contacts with reporters Knut Royce, Timothy M. Phelps, or Robert D. Novak, or any individual(s) acting directly or indirectly, on behalf of these reporters."

Knut Royce works for Newsday and is one of the last investigative mainstream journalists, in business long time before Woodward + Bernstein wrote about Watergate.

Phelps, also Newsday, recently wrote about the secret meetings of Harold Rhode, Douglas Feith's top Middle East specialist, and Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst , with former Iran-Contra Suspect Manucher Ghorbanifar.

If both received the same information about Valerie Plume, then it's getting really interesting. Both are critics of the Bush Administration

Interestingly, another DIA analyst, Larry Johnson, is very upset these days.

Already two days ago, on CNBC, he accused the Bush administration of lies regarding Iraq Evidence and profiting from Insider Business. He mentioned Douglas Feith's company Feith + Zell.

On Tuesday, Johnson was on PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer.

From the PBS- Transcript, Larry C Johnson is talking about Valerie Plume:

"This not an alleged abuse. This is a confirmed abuse. I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been under cover for three decades. She is not as Bob Novak suggested a "CIA analyst." Given that, i was a CIA analyst for 4 years. I was under cover. I could not divulge to my family outside of my wife that I worked for the CIA unti I left the Intelligence Agency on Sept. 30, 1989.

At that point I could admit it. The fact that she was under cover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous. She was put undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an area where people she works with overseas could be compromised...

I say this as a registered Republican. I am on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear, of an individual who had no relevance to the story.

Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it because the entire intent was, correctly as Amb. Wilson noted, to intimidate, to suggest that there was some impropriety that somehow his wife was in a decision-making position to influence his ability to go over and savage a stupid policy, an erroneous policy, and frankly what was a false policy of suggesting that there was nuclear material in Iraq that required this war. This was about a political attack. To pretend it was something else, to get into this parsing of words.

I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this."

But it's getting worse.

Even Newsmax wrote already about Wilsongate, only two days, after they pushed the John Pilger story.

"The CIA is furious over the 'politicization' of the identity of one of their agents. CIA Director George Tenet has asked the Department of Justice to investigate and bring criminal charges. "

...Now, here is a key question: who in the White House was so angry with Wilson for 'blowing the whistle' that they authorized these six phone calls? Certainly no one can believe that low-level aides would even know that Plame was a CIA agent let alone feel free to have a concerted 'leaking campaign.'

...Whoever authorized the Plame leak could possibly go to jail for this willful act of lawbreaking. And those who actually called the six reporters could also go to jail - unless they cop a plea and rat out others.

...Leaking and blackmail have always been a part of governing inside the Beltway. But it has been one of this Administration's unexplained curiosities why President Bush has kept Clinton's CIA Director - especially after so many massive intelligence failures: 9/11; our failure to get Osama; our failure to prove the existence of WMD before the war; our failure to get Saddam; and our failure to find WMD in the six months since the end of the war...

...Many have wondered if Tenet has 'something' on the Bushes. Now many more are wondering who made those six phone calls - and who authorized them?

...This Plame leak now threatens to become a huge story - involving lawbreaking, revenge, abuse of power and the inevitable cover-up. Plus the 10 Democrats running for President and the media are going to have a field day with it.

Yep, 'tis true: payback is a bitch..."

AP released a statement by Tom Daschle:

"We don't have confidence in John Ashcroft ... and we know without a doubt that somebody broke the federal law."

AP also added an important info:

" The [Justice] department notified the counsel's office about 8:30 p.m. Monday that it was launching an investigation but said the White House could wait until the next morning to notify staff and direct them to preserve relevant material, McClellan said."

That means, the Justice Department gave people a several-hours head start to destroy evidence.

Channelnewsasia brought the best point:

" The incident has echoes of the David Kelly case in Britain, where the weapons expert was named and shamed after the administration realised he had told the media that the Iraq dossiers were “sexed up”. Dr Kelly later committed suicide."

Something more will happen. If it turns out, that Rove was behind the smear campaign, and maybe Ari Fleischer "Number 2" (real reason for his resignment?), then it won't stop at them.

We're now right in the White House.

The next questions have to be asked to Cheney and Bush.

Other media highlights at ABC News-The Note -Sept. 30

Updates

Bush Vows Action if Aides Had Role in Leak

WP -September 30

...Wilson said a producer from another network told him about the same time, "The White House is saying things about you and your wife that are so off the wall that we won't use them." Wilson said the series of similar calls he received, which included four journalists from three networks, stopped on July 22, after he appeared on NBC's "Today" show and said the disclosure of his wife's maiden name could jeopardize the "entire network that she may have established."

Bush aide accused of CIA leak

Guardian -Wednesday October 1, 2003

Julian Borger in Washington

...President Bush's closest political adviser, Karl Rove, was yesterday at the centre of a criminal investigation into allegations that he leaked the name of a CIA agent in an attempt to suppress criticism of the administration's Iraq policy, in what is fast becoming the administration's worst scandal since coming to office.

...Reporters at Time magazine and NBC News and a handful of others were also tipped off about Ms Plame, and Democrats claim the source in each case was Mr Rove. According to some accounts, Mr Rove, did not mention Ms Plame by name but referred to "Wilson's wife" being a CIA employee.

...Mr Novak and the other journalists involved have refused to name their sources. Their lawyers are expected to claim protection from the law under the first amendment of the constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech.

But a 1972 supreme court ruling, Branzburg v Hayes, states "the first amendment does not relieve a newspaper reporter of the obligation that all citizens have to respond to a grand jury subpoena and answer questions relevant to a criminal investigation".

The Rove-Ashcroft Conflict of Interest

Capitol Hill Blue

By NICHOLAS M. HORROCK, UPI - Aug 20, 2003

...Ashcroft was not an accidental choice for attorney general. Before Sept. 11, his conservative credentials on judicial nominees, enforcing federal pornography laws and protecting gun owner's rights were good. Karl Rove, Bush's trusted political adviser, had handled Ashcroft's political campaigns and Majority Leader of the Senate Trent Lott, R-Miss., favored his nomination.

Dems Seek Independent Probe of CIA Leak

AP -October 1

Congressional Democrats called anew Wednesday for an independent investigation of the White House to find out how an undercover CIA officer's identity was revealed.

Larry Johnson, ex-CIA identified Office of Leaker (10/01)

"The leak was to punish Wilson, to disparage him with the suggestion of nepotism."

FBI Narrowing List of CIA Leak Suspects

AP -Thu, Oct 02, 2003

...The FBI spent Wednesday assembling a team of experienced agents to handle the investigation, which probably will include interviews with senior members of President Bush's staff.

Overseeing the investigation is John Dion, a 30-year career prosecutor who has headed the counterespionage section at the Justice Department since 2002. FBI agents from the counterintelligence and inspections division and from the Washington field office will do the legwork.

The FBI, which can use grand jury subpoenas to compel disclosure of any evidence, has regularly used polygraph tests in investigations involving classified information. Asked if White House staff members would submit to lie detector tests if requested, spokesman Scott McClellan called the question "hypothetical."

... Newsday Editor Howard Schneider said the newspaper had not been contacted by the Justice Department and that its reporters were continuing to pursue the leak story.

...An ABC-Washington Post poll found 69 percent of Americans, including 52 percent of Republicans, believe a special counsel should be appointed. A substantial majority, 72 percent, said it's likely that someone in the White House leaked the classified information, but only 34 percent think it's likely Bush knew about the leak beforehand.

Leak risks US security, says ex-CIA official