....Be sure to check out the Seixon Blog. Who is on Jason Leopold like a fly on stink.
......Michael Barone in this post on his Official Secrets blog, is preparing the press for the real possibility of criminal liability as several leak investigations come to a close. He is reponding the Washington Post's attempt to absolve itself from culpability, calling the possible prosecution of journalist "a dangerous road", to which Michael rightly replies:
"It is a dangerous road." I agree. But of course it was the press, led by the editorialists of the New York Times, that bayed loudly for investigation and prosecution of government officials who disclosed the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, even though it was far from clear that there was any violation of the statute in question, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. The press, or large parts of it, is all for prosecution—even if it leads, as it did, to the jailing of then New York Times reporter Judith Miller—if such a prosecution will hurt the Bush administration. On that one, it was the press that was hurtling down "a dangerous road." The Times and Post reporters and editors who published the stories I referenced above are at the very least in the same legal position as Judith Miller; that is, they are witnesses to acts that are in violation of statute and may be jailed for contempt if they refuse to testify against those who illegally disclosed classified information. At worst, they stand in the same legal position as the two former AIPAC officials, who received the information and passed it along to others—and perhaps are in a worse position, since those two defendants argue, quite possibly plausibly, that they did not know that the information they received was classified, while the Times and Post editors clearly did have such knowledge. There's a strong argument against prosecuting the press on these grounds, that doing so is going down "a dangerous road." But the press, which after all has knowledge of the Franklin and former AIPAC officials' prosecutions and the fact that Congress has not repealed the statutes responsible for them, has been going down "a dangerous road," too.
......On the raid of Rep. William Jefferson - the 500,000 man, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has come to his defense saying the raid was "unconstitional", to which I said, "He's full of crap". Yet I wondered why Hastert seemed so quick to defend Jefferson.
Well, it turns out that it may be that he's "hearing footsteps" down the hall, although he and the DOJ deny he's under any probe. Note the ABC report is based on "anonymous sources" and broken orinally by "Is that a click I hear on this line?" Brian Ross - ace leak..., er, ace reporter for ABC.
I'll say it again. I'm a PROUD Republican and staunch Conservative, but I detest corruption no matter what side of the isle it's on. As such I've put out a few feelers on this story to see what is going on, but my instincts are buzzing. We'll see.
.....Lastly, this story is just hitting the wires, that Vice President Cheney "could be" called to testify in the upcoming trial of Scooter Libby. This is going to send Keith Olbermann through his pointy little tin hat, but it's all anti-climatic. First, it's was already known that Cheney could be called to testify - in fact he said it himself, so this is another case of "old news".
But here's to sticking the proverbial fork into moonbat speculation.
"Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald suggested Cheney would be a logical government witness because he could authenticate notes he jotted on a July 6, 2003, New York Times opinion piece by a former U.S. ambassador critical of the Iraq war.
Fitzgerald said Cheney’s “state of mind” is “directly relevant” to whether I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s former top aide, lied to FBI agents and a federal grand jury about how he learned about CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity and what he subsequently told reporters....
In his grand jury testimony, Libby said Cheney was so upset about Wilson’s allegations that they discussed them daily after the article appeared. “He was very keen to get the truth out,” Libby testified, quoting Cheney as saying, “Let’s get everything out.”
Yeah, sounds just like what someone who is hiding something would say.....
Waiting on the Minuteman's take on this, but this is "ho-hum....nothing to see here, move along.
UPDATE II: Brian Ross give a Dan Rather "The story is true damn it!" immitation. Levin at National Review responds
"ABC News is looking very stupid tonight..."
Indeed they are.
"Jason Leopold line one......it's Mr. Ross"
UPDATE: On que - the Minuteman responds.
Interesting: "REFIGHT THE INTEL WAR: Fitzgerald has been trying to limit the discussion to Libby's state of mind and avoid a long exposition of the entire Niger trip. Fine, but Sara points out he may have hurt himself by introducing Cheney's exhortation to get "all" the news out:
Hasn't he now opened the door for all that to come in and isn't that great news for the defense?
Hey, I think so - surely Libby ought to be able to explain what was meant by "all" - but I'm not the judge. Still, keep an eye out for this defense come-back in the next go-around."
Agreed - release the hounds!
iraq Politics News bush war on terror spying patriot act nsa CIA mary O. mcCarthy porter goss kappes negroponte Plame
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