David Corn responds to Victoria Toensing's testimony

[sabra]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=177049

Did GOP Lawyer Mislead Congress About Plame Case?

<snip>

TOENSING: It can and it cannot. I mean, I certainly wouldn't have done it in the brouhaha that had occurred well within a week of Bob Novak's publication (of the column that outed Valerie Wilson). By the way, Bob Novak was not the first person to say she was covert. That was David Corn, who printed that she was covert. All Bob Novak did was call her an operative.

Stop the presses. I said Valerie Wilson was a "covert" officer? This is a canard that some Republican spinners have been peddling for years, in an attempt to get Novak off the hook while muddying the waters. I long ago gave up on persuading conservative ops like Toensing that this is nonsense they should drop, and I no longer routinely reply every time the silly charge is repeated. But when someone testifies falsely about you to Congress, you practically have a civic duty to call him or her on it.

...

Bottom line: I did not identify her as a "covert" officer or any other kind of CIA official. I merely speculated she was a NOC. That speculation was based on Novak's column. And given that Novak had already IDed her as a CIA "operative on weapons of mass destruction" (which happened to be a "covert" position within the agency), her cover--whether nonofficial or official--was blown to smithereens by the time I posted my article.

Toensing is engaged in a desperation-driven and misleading act of hairsplitting when she contends that Novak merely called her an "operative" and that I was the first to "print that she was covert." I never said Valerie Wilson was anything. At the time of the leak and in the following days, I did not know if she was a CIA employee of any kind. (But in our book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Michael Isikoff and I revealed for the first time what Valerie Wilson did at the CIA: she was operations chief for the Joint Task Force on Iraq, a unit with the Counterproliferation Division of the agency's clandestine operations directorate.)

So Toensing made a false statement to Congress. It was not her only one that day.

[madrchsod]

1. she`s a perfect candidate

for the soon to be vacant attorney general position

[ChairmanAgnostic]

13. oh please. don't gross me out like that. wait. . . it makes sense. oh SHIT

you are probably right. all her crappola was an audition.

[Bandit]

16. Well either her or Katherine Harris

:shrug: Or even better yet...Ann Coulter

[Justice]

2. I thought VT was more nonresponsive to the questions than a liar

She was very vague and jumpy in her answers, interrupting herself midsentence and changing gears, then acting like a lecturer instructing the questioner on fine points which weren't responsive to the question. I actually was surprised at how bad she was - I expected her to be better.

It seems to me that unless and until someone is trying to prosecute a person under that statute, that what VT has to say is irrelevant. Because I don't believe you have to prove the elements of that statute in order to paint the case that is needed to get people to resign.

I believe the only open question under the statute is whether the people that outed V Plame knew she was covert when they outed her. That has been the only open question since day one. V. Plame's point is - once a person heard I worked at the CIA, they had a duty to confirm I was NOT convert before they did anything with the information about me. I happen to agree with that statement, but know it may not be enough under the statute.

What I really think is that perhaps Cheney did know exactly where Plame worked in the CIA (because of intelligence gathering for Iraq. Perhaps Cheney did not want the CIA to come out and definitively say we can't confirm that Saadam had WMD - maybe it was an advantage that things were up in the air. So maybe Plame's outing was convenient for several reasons. Maybe it was just a complete plunder by a bunch of amateurs who had no clue what she did.

[Supersedeas]

3. the record is open for her to correct it--does she have the courage to do so

[Lex]

4. She better correct it. If not, I hope they consider perjury charges. Rule of law!

If she brazenly lied to congress under oath, she needs to be held accountable.

[Turbineguy]

5. She may not have actually "lied"

she just neglected to mention she got all her facts from Faux Noise.

[formercia]

6. It's only a lie of you know it's a lie

at the time I did not know it was a lie, Senator.

[H2O Man]

7. Good article.

I think VT purposely lied to the committee. She knew she was lying. I think Rep. Waxman knew she was lying, too. I hope there are consequences.

[Polemicist]

8. Victoria Toensing might be in trouble now...

There is no doubt she lied to Congress in her testimony. It just depends what Congress decides to do about it. Toensing has been on FoxNews saying the same crap for years. I think it's time to shut her up. A contempt of Congress citation would do nicely.And it's not just here that action would effect. With a bunch of Wingnuts lined up to testify in the future, serious action taken now against intentional dissemination, might prevent future lying on more important testimony.

Nip it in the bud, I say.

[Cha]

9. David Corn is always so

calm and eloquent in making his case.

And he has that site that he's compiled for years called "bushlies". http://www.bushlies.com

[Spazito]

10. It is good to see him respond to her lie....

I know he has done so before but, as he states above, given she repeated the lie in her sworn testimony it is important he responds yet again.

She should be disbarred for unethical behavior even if she is never charged with perjury. She is a disgrace to the profession.

[EVDebs]

11. Congress, in open session--not in camera--needs to investigate OpMockingbird

which apparently never ended.

The abuse of the CIA's legit intel could never have happened w/o the phony 'intel ops' and OSP, Chalabi-Curveballs, WHIGers, and VP Cheney peddling the old energy plan from Nixon's era

Document reveals Nixon plan to seize Arab oil fields
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/01/02/MNG8G427D61.DTL

(just sub 'Iraq' for 'Saudi Arabia')

The illegal domestic Op CHAOS and Op Mockingbird efforts allow for this kind of debacle

Op Mockingbird
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm

Domestic Surveillance:
The History of Operation CHAOS
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/lyon.html

""Given the power granted to the office of the presidency and the unaccountability of the intelligence agencies, widespread illegal domestic operations are certain. We as a people should remember history and not repeat it. It is therefore essential that the CIA be reorganized and stripped of its covert operations capability. Effective congressional oversight is also an important condition for ending the misuse of the intelligence apparatus that has plagued every U.S. administration since the formation of the CIA. A great deal is at risk our personal freedoms as well as the viability of this society. The CIA must be put in its place. Should we demand or allow anything less, we will remain vulnerable to these abuses and face the risk of decaying into a lawless state destined to self-destruction.""

Brewster Jennings, not Plame, was the intended target of the Bush secret team. Telling the truth about WMD and non-proliferation ops, when the WH WANTED examples in order to go hellbent into war, this is a no-brainer Mr. Corn.

[formercia]

14. Driven by the goals of the Overclass

It all ties in here:

http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Overclass.htm

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

12. Better send this article to Brit Hume - the false statement watchdog

Oh, Mr. Constipation is only interested in scrutinizing in Valerie Plame's testimony?

[mnmoderatedem]

15. anybody read Hubris?

I'm in the middle of it right now. Fascinating stuff...