Bolton Scoop from the Washington Note

[Jane Austin]

SCOOP: John Bolton Was Regular Source for Judith Miller WMD and National Security Reporting

TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports.

The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.

It's all "thickening."

-- Steve Clemons

http://thewashingtonnote.com/

[Pirate Smile]

1. Did Judy have a knack for picking sources or what? Chalabi, Bolton.

She loves propaganda artists and the NYT prints it as the best "news" in the country.

How pathetic!

[Son of California]

2. wow

weird how everything starts to tie together after a while.

[Supersedeas]

3. a small network of worms Bolton Rove Miller Libby Fleischer Cheney Dimson

[Pirate Smile]

4. Here is the summary of info from Daily Kos:

The Plame Floodgates Open
by Hunter
Fri Jul 22nd, 2005 at 13:24:15 PDT
It's only been a few days since the Supreme Court nominee was hurriedly announced in an attempt to get Karl Rove off the front pages. Since then, all hell has broken loose.

Bloomberg is reporting that Rove and Libby both gave testimony to the grand jury that flatly conflicts with the testimony given by those they said they talked to.

We now know that the Top Secret memo most consistent with the talking points that Rove and Libby told reporters was seen in the hands of Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in the days before the leak occurred. And that Fleischer told the grand jury he never saw it.

Update <2005-7-22 16:38:29 by Hunter>:

This is, to use the most calm and soothing phrase possible in such circumstances, extremely f---ing bad for the administration. It shows the broad outlines not just of multiple perjury charges, but indeed of linked conspiracy charges against a number of administration officials.

We know that there are members of the administration familiar with the attack against Plame/Wilson who have been talking to prosecutors. At least, we can assume they've been telling prosecutors at least as much as they've been telling the press, or we'd have a whole passel of reporters likely joining Judith Miller in her Fortress of Suddenly Discovered Integrity. The fact that other administration officials have been giving their side of the story perhaps poses the most serious risk of all for Rove and others -- because it wouldn't be very difficult, for people in the right places, to shatter what little plausible deniability Rove, Libby, Fleischer, and others have been clinging to.

That branch may already be broken, in fact. I don't think it's possible to exaggerate the amount of legal danger here for Rove in particular, and Fleischer and Libby as well. The special counsel is likely trying to solidify how, exactly, Rove learned the information in the memo, since it's looking increasingly implausible that reporters told him, and looking more probable that Rove and Novak "agreed" on a storyline after the fact (reports are now saying that Rove's and Novak's stories don't quite match, too, further raising the stakes.) Note, however, that it may not matter whether the grand jury can fully identify how he came by the information. Rove has now been identified as confirming the classified info to both Novak and Cooper; that in and of itself represents a likely crime under the Espionage Act.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/22/162415/235

[Beetwasher]

5. From NSA Intercepts to Bolton to Rove/Libby/Fleischer to Novak/Miller etc.

A nice, clear chain for Fitz to follow! Prosecutors just LOVE those sorts of things.

Dollars to donuts says the NSA intercepts Bolton requested, that the Dems demanded during his confirmation, contained Plame's name/status.

If Fitz has those (via subpoena, and he very well might) then the admin. is in deep, deep trouble.

[Jane Austin]

6. Remember when Voinavich invited Senators to come by his office to

see the evidence he had against Bolton?

I think it was part of the tearful speech he gave against Bolton on the Senate floor.

He wouldn't say what he knew that so convinced him that Bolton would be bad for his children and grandchildren, but I wonder if he had the NSA intercept information and it related to the Plame investigation.

That might be why he didn't feel free to talk about it on the Senate floor.

[Jane Austin]

7. Kick

n/t

[dave29]

8. They knew there were no WMD's

and they outed a top agent who was working to protect our country against WMD's in their zeal to go to War against Saddam Hussein.

[Jane Austin]

9. If Bolton was the source for Miller

do you suppose he did it on his own or from collusion with somebody higher up.

It sounds like his style to just do it on his own.

[dave29]

10. considering how unusual it is that he requested those intercepts

and the probability that these intercepts were related to Plame case (conjecture on my part)... it would seem odd for him to be acting alone considering how "in step" he is with the NeoCon line. He has been in step with Cheney, Libby, Rove since the beginning. Bolton, like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush and Rove have something in common: none of them play well with others, and they will say whatever they have to to get what they want.

[Al-CIAda]

11. Well, lets look at the result. Bolton is a current nominee to the UN.

The criminals in the WH clearly like his work.


The Voinavich incident is something to mention.

[PurityOfEssence]

12. Well, it was after the fact, but you're right in tune with reality

Touting the need to keep us safe, they totally disregarded what was necessary to keep us safe in order to "roll up" other longstanding annoyances, as Rumsfeld said.

The outing of Plame was after we'd "conquered" Iraq. If the most dangerous thing facing us was proliferation of WMDs, then they showed themselves to be simple gangsters: they made us much more vulnerable to adversaries by scuttling our own counter-intelligence efforts on those same weapons. If they cared about us, they would have gone after our enemies. They didn't; they took advantage of our fear to make us even more scared so they could justify attacking THEIR enemies. Saddam had nothing to do with fundamentalist Muslim terrorism, and we knew it. This was all just an excuse to settle old scores, and it was launched through lies.

Meanwhile, our true enemies were safe and grew in strength. By attacking Iraq, it proved our greed-based immorality on a huge scale, and sent untold thousands of moderates to take arms against us.

They've betrayed us consistently; their only motivation is to secure their own place in a collapsing world. Save Israel, steal all the world's oil, control the fulcrum of the Middle East, and use ongoing fear to crush all opposition. It seems to be working somewhat.