Subpoenas for White House (Newsday) re: plame scandal

[Renew Deal]

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.
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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usleak053695946mar05,0,4860143.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines

[hlthe2b]

1. This is re: Plame story.... NOT the Senate Records Theft...

So many scandals, so little time!

[terryg11]

2. I want the admin. to testify under oath

right now that they know nthing of this leak so that later when things come out they can be brought up on federal charges

at least put them in front of a grand jury. Why is this group so scared of testifying or talking? obviously don't want the truth to cme out.

[Virginian]

3. VP doesn't fly on Air Force One.

The Vice President has his own plane code name, Air Force Two. He never flies with the President. This treason might go somewhat higher than Cheney's office. It could go all the way to the top. Outing a CIA agent is treason and TREASON IS AN IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE. If Dubya is involved, this needs to come out before the election so the die hard Republicans can understand that they may be voting to elevate the Speaker of the House to the Presidency.

It is very important to take back the House especially in light of this possibility.

[blm]

4. Yes. People forget Bush was a longtime political strategist.

He gets treated like he's not part of the political machinations, but, I am CERTAIN that he is.

He traveled around the country with Lee Atwater and Karl Rove in the 70s and 80s. He is a ruthless, dirty trickster from WAY back.

[Raster]

8. i don't think he's that smart...

...I think he was just a rich, spoiled, brat who was shuffled around to work on this and that campaign, probably more to keep him out of trouble that anything else. According to most of the accounts of his "Alabama period", all $hrub did was drink horrendous amounts and talk about chasin' nookie.

Nothing I've read about $hrub, and I've read alot, indicated that anyone on the dark side ever took his ass serious until they realized that if he shut his mouth and did what he was told to do, he made the PERFECT puppet boy. No one has ever said $hrub was an intellectual. I realize that's a stretch for even the right, but hmmmm...

[blm]

10. Not saying he's smart. He's sneaky and nasty, though.

Perfect traits for a political operative.

[Beetwasher]

5. What I Find Interesting Is the Subpoena for the Ford Party

The only reason they would do this is if they had a lead about something that's connected to that, otherwise why would they focus on that party? That tells me someone is talking and giving them info on where to look for certain important pieces of information.

[Timefortruth]

6. Could chimp be one of the leakers?

Is that what they're after?

[Lindsay]

7. Wilson said he suspected Rove.

And doesn't Rove regularly travel with the preznit?

[randr]

9. Does anyone know if the subpoenas were answered on time?

[Stephanie]

11. Please read AZCat's thread in GD - he found the transcript

AZCat found the press gaggle transcript that was subpoenaed according to the article. The WH deleted the link to it but left the page up and AZCat used his powers of deduction to find it. The page is still up as we speak.

*edit*

AZCat's thread link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1196551&mesg_id=1196551

Found WH page link:

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

Excerpt from the transcript:

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.