White House: No Special Prosecutor in CIA Leak Probe (NOFACTS LIED!)

[stickdog]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usleak0930,0,1123556.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines

White House: No Special Prosecutor in CIA Leak Probe

By Ken Fireman
Washington Bureau

September 29, 2003, 8:07 PM EDT

Washington -- Facing renewed controversy over allegations that it exposed a covert agent to punish a critic, the White House Monday rejected Democratic calls for a special prosecutor to probe the matter, saying the Justice Department could handle it fairly. White House spokesman Scott McClellan also denied that chief political strategist Karl Rove played a role, saying Rove had personally assured him he was not involved. The individual who initially suggested that Rove was involved pulled back from the implication Monday, but asserted that Rove had "condoned" the leak.

(snip)

But McClellan said federal investigators had not contacted any White House staffers and that the White House was doing nothing on its own to determine if its people were involved. "If I chased every anonymous source in the media, I'd spend all my time doing that," he said.

Acting on a CIA request, the Justice Department has opened a preliminary investigation into the identification of Valerie Plame, the wife of former diplomat Joseph Wilson, as an undercover CIA operative. Plame's name and occupation were revealed in July by syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who said the information came from "two senior administration officials." It is a federal crime to reveal the identity of a covert CIA agent.

Novak said on CNN Monday that "nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this." He said the information about Plame had come out during an interview with a senior administration official about Wilson's Niger mission. But in July, Novak told Newsday, "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me."

[Booberdawg]

1. Bullshit Alert! Bullshit Alert! Bullshit Alert!

[Nevernose]

2. "If I chased every anonymous source in the media..."

If I chased every anonymous source in the media, I'd spend all my time doing that," he said.

What anonymous source? It was BOB NOVAK. Thanks, Ashcroft, for all the hard work in busting Tommy Chong -- I'm sure you'll get around to national security when you have time, right?

[homas]

3. White House Rejects Independent Counsel for Leak

Wait a minute...when did the perp get to fashion the investigation? What bullshit!

[Maddy McCall]

5. Excellent question, homas...

and, by the way, welcome to DU! :toast:

[Mandate My Ass]

7. homas, what an incredible first post

Welcome to DU. You seem to have an unerring nose for bullshit.

The perps are running the show now, but hopefully not forever. :hi:

[prolesunited]

9. They're Rethuglicans

apparently they think the are above the law.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[RainDog]

19. not to mention the way they "investigated"

Dick Durbin for nothing.

It's morning in America, and the people are waking up and smelling the b.s. coming from the White House.

[HereSince1628]

25. But 3/4 of the nation wants an independent counsel...MSNBC poll

Should an independent counsel investigate allegations of White House involvement in leaking the name of a CIA agent?

* 5427 responses

Yes, the Justice Department can't be trusted to be impartial.
75%

No, the Justice Department can do an honest job.
22%

Can't decide
3%

----
With results like that I want to believe there will be some mechanism invoked for an independent investigation.

[stickdog]

4. Original Article from July Proving Nofacts is a Lying Sack of Shit

http://foi.missouri.edu/voicesdissent/columnistnames.html

Columnist Names CIA Iraq Operative

By Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce
New York Newsday
July 21, 2003.

Washington -- The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."

(snip)

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

(snip)

Novak reported that his "two senior administration officials" told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger.

A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.

[Unknown Known]

6. This is a war of the intelligence community against neocon OSP

Let the games begin:crazy:

[Rex]

8. Well...that takes a load off of my mind

Glad to know that the WHITE HOUSE (since when did houses start thinking?) has decided "the Justice Department could handle it fairly." Great, lovely, wonderful. I can rest easy knowing that a group, led by a RW religous fanatic (AG Ashcrack) is gonna look to see if another RW __________ fanatic, that serves in the same branch, had a little boo-boo - because you all know dam well that's what they will call it.

"Whoops...let's just slap a band-aid on that boo-boo (national security breech) and get back to defending Merikua." - Ashcrack

[Brucey]

10. Just one more bad news story...

This admin is starting to smell bad to everyone except the brainwashed repugs who think Hilary is a commie spy.

[Old and In the Way]

11. The Pardons Party

This is why we need House/Senate majorities. This is sick......

[cliss]

12. Heh heh

Well, No-fact's story is going to be a little hard to rescind at this point, since Ambassador Wilson beat him to it. EVERYBODY and their uncle knows that '2 senior White House officials' were calling every journalist they could find in their little Rolodex phone file. I remember reading about some other journalist who said the same thing

...a little late to be changing your story, eh, No-fact? What a Keystone.

By the way, WELCOME TO THE DU, Homas! Isn't this a great place. I don't even bother to read the news at Yahoo any more. I just go here and 'get the facts'.

[MinnFats]

13. This has Rove's greasy fingerprints all over it.

He is the Haldeman, ERlichman and Colson of this administration, all rolled into one. Of course, they all did time.
But don't you agree --- Rove would be so reckless and vindictive just to settle a score and silence other voices, without regard to the long-term damage? Fucking idiots.

[JackSwift]

14. The WH committed an ethical breach by

signaling to Ashcroft what his decision should be. The Clinton WH never stated official positions on any kind of Justice department decisions on individual cases of any kind to avoid the appearance of impropriety. So have most administrations. During Watergate, that was what was so alarming about the Saturday Night Massacre in which a number of Justice Department officials resigned rather than fire the special prosecutor. They finally found a whore in Solicitor General Bork (yes, later Judge Bork) to do the dirty work. It's my suspicion that particular whoring is what truly galvanized opposition against his supreme court appointment.

[Judi Lynn]

15. "Solicitor General Bork," good grief, I had never heard this.

Didn't know Bork was part of the Washington landscape then.

Thanks so much for the illumination.

[MinnFats]

16. you're right about Bork.

he branded himself after Nixon's AG, Elliott Richardson, and then his chief deputy, Wm Ruckleshaus (probably spelling that incorrectly) refused to take part in the bloodletting.
But then, Nixon was prepared to go through the whole fucking Justice Department in order to find someone who would fire Archie Cox.
Nixon also, in a way, sealed his own fate at that time....
Think the Bush Jr. white house will collapse in similar fashion? there is hope.
One can see Bush, a la Nixon in accepting resignations from Haldeman and Erlichman, calling Rove "one of the finest public servants I have known.

[MaineDem]

20. Wow, I think you just hit on something

The White House is the entity to be investigated. The DOJ will be doing the investigation. THe WH has told DoJ what they should be doing. Well now, I think this is a major ethical, and maybe criminal, breach.

Thank you for bringing this up.

They're all slime.

[sandnsea]

17. FBI House lie detectors

Why aren't they demanding it in the White House like they did with Congress?

[havocmom]

26. Excellant point. If they can demand Congress Critter take lie detector

to find a leak that didn't involve an act of treason...

This would be a grand topic of discussion for everyone to take up with their reps in D.C. and local editoral pages!

In case you need some contact info:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

[Jackpine Radical]

27. What good do you think a lie detector would do?

Lie detectors are not only unreliable in general, they're pretty much useless with psychopaths like the current White House crowd.

The National Academy of Science about a year ago published their statement in which they pointede out the lack of credible evidence on lie detector validity.

[SoCalDem]

18. Can the Justice dept be picketed against???

Maybe there needs to be a constant and growing protest EVERYDAY..right in front of the DoJ building.. It would probably be shunted away to an "undisclosed location", but really this CANNOT just "go away"..

I hope there in enough blood in the water to keep the press interested, but I also know how these folks work :(

[plcdude]

24. o you make me

so jealous. Enjoy and don't worry we'll keep the place busy while you are gone.

[DoYouEverWonder]

21. This is great

they can't keep up with their own bullshit anymore.

The more they deny, deny, deny and lie, lie, lie, the deeper they dig their own graves.

I am so looking forward to America after this cabal is gone. We may prove to the world that we really are a great country after all.

[Dhalgren]

22. You're right, we can prove it,

but we have to vote someone into office who is not a "business as usual" Democrat. We have to get some one in there who will shake this place to its foundations - proving that we can clean our own house. We also need for this dirty, slimey business to be so abhorant to the people that they will vote Republicans out in droves - at least the senate...at least the senate. Anyway, I can dream.

[AntiCoup2K4]

23. But even if Rove is forced to "resign"

Is his "resignation" going to be any more serious than that of Karen Hughes or Perle? Nope. that's not enough. If this is a crime, and Poppy Bush certainly used to say so, then throw the bastard behind bars and allow NO contact between him and anyone else in the Fraudministration. Hell, put him in the glass cage that Ken Starr had Susan McDougal in. And then watch the "re"election campaign disintegrate. :evilgrin: