HUGE development in Plame case: subpoena widened to Air Force One calls

[AngryYoungMan]

From tomorrow's Newsday:

WASHINGTON -- The federal grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity has subpoenaed records of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer's name was published in a column in July, according to documents obtained by Newsday.

Also sought in the wide-ranging document requests contained in three grand jury subpoenas to the Executive Office of President George W. Bush are records created in July by the White House Iraq Group, a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

And the subpoenas asked for a transcript of a White House spokesman's press briefing in Nigeria, a list of those attending a birthday reception for a former president, and, casting a much wider net than previously reported, records of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets.

The three subpoenas were issued to the White House on Jan. 22, three weeks after Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, was appointed special counsel in the probe and during the first wave of appearances by White House staffers before the grand jury.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usleak0305,0,2896503.story?coll=ny-top-span-headlines

Also Calpundit (www.calpundit.com) and Talking Points Memo (www.talkingpointsmemo.com)

[grannylib]

1. Yeeeeeeeeeeeee-freakin'-haaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.....

get these fuckin' bastards...let's see this story develop some really strong legs 'long about October, to help take the wind outta Georgie-boy's sails as he prepares to trot out Osama...

[aquart]

2. Let me catch my breath.

Are they looking at impeachable offense?

[bpilgrim]

3. here's the transcript... ----------------------- LINK

Q Ari, the President often speaks of accountability. Does he feel accountability is achieved in this circumstance? Or how do you address that issue?

MR. FLEISCHER: Let me explain to you the President's thinking on this. A greater, more important truth is being lost in the flap over whether or not Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. The greater truth is that nobody, but nobody, denies that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. He was pursuing numerous ways to obtain nuclear weapons. The United States never said that he had nuclear weapons. We have said that he was pursuing them. It should surprise nobody that Saddam Hussein was seeking to acquire the means to produce from a variety of sources and a variety of ways.

He had previously obtained yellow cake from Africa. In fact, in one of the least known parts of this story, which is now, for the first time, public -- and you find this in Director Tenet's statement last night -- the official that -- lower-level official sent from the CIA to Niger to look into whether or not Saddam Hussein had sought yellow cake from Niger, Wilson, he -- and Director Tenet's statement last night states the same former official, Wilson, also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official, Wilson, meet an Iraqi delegation to discuss expanding commercial relations between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales.

This is in Wilson's report back to the CIA. Wilson's own report, the very man who was on television saying Niger denies it, who never said anything about forged documents, reports himself that officials in Niger said that Iraq was seeking to contact officials in Niger about sales.

What did the President say in the State of the Union? He said: according to British reports, Iraq is seeking uranium from Africa. And the intelligence cited two other countries, in addition to Niger.

So, again, the larger truth, was Saddam Hussein a threat, in part because he was seeking nuclear weapons, in addition to what we know and have said about chemical and biological.

Now, if you ask, how is the President approaching this, what's the President's approach, the President sees this as much ado, that it's beside the point of the central threat that Saddam Hussein presented.

more...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030712-11.html

thanks to a fellow clever DU'er AZCat :toast:

peace

[goclark]

4. Yes!

We all know there are lots and lots of lies buried deep within Georgie Boy's little band of thieves.

Keep the pressure on to keep digging!

How many ways can you spell BUSHGATE!

[lazarus]

5. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x400338