“Judith Miller? Even if she did tell Rove - not likely in my opinion - where did she get the information? We are missing a name and I expect it yet to surface. I believe it is the unknown name for which Miller refuses to divulge and is in jail. There may be a reason for this, which would become clear once the name is revealed.
”What has to be asked and answered is - "what was the reason for the outing of Plame"? If it was to penalize someone who went against the Bush ideology and plan, it would make sense. But why would Judith Miller do it? Even if she was dumb and blindly accepted the administrations march to war, why now do something that smacks of treason?”
After the supreme court refused to hear her final appeal, New York Time reporter Judith Miller has been jailed for contempt of court for refusing to comply with a court order to testify before the grand jury investigating the outing of Valarie Plame.
Remember, Judith Miller never published an article identifying Ms. Plame, or otherwise addressing the matter. None-the-less, the information she possesses relative to the outing of Plame is apparently considered to be very important to special counsel Fitzgerald’s investigation, an opinion shared by a number of judges who have reviewed the matter.
Also, keep in mind that the Washington Post reported on July 6 that "Sources close to the investigation say there is evidence in some instances that some reporters may have told government officials -- not the other way around --….” A similar report ran in the L. A. Times on July 9th.
Plame was identified by administration officials to punish her husband, Joseph Wilson, who had put the lie to the Niger yellowcake uranium canard and tried repeatedly to inform administration officials that their repeated citations of Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Niger were simply wrong. Wilson even attempted to contact National Security Advisor Rice, who ignored his information and kept on lying about the matter.
Finally, after telling his story on background to a number of journalists didn't stop the Bush administration yellowcake lies, Wilson published his now famous July, 2003 NYT op-ed, which elicited the venality of the Rovian smear machine. Certainly, the outing was retribution meant to punish Wilson; but it was also intended to warn off others who weren’t toeing the party line.
I think someone in the administration, other than Rove or “Scooter” Libby, Chaney’s number one hatchet man, provided Judith Miller with Plame’s identity and I think it is that person for whom Miller has gone to jail. I think Miller then passed the information around to other administration officials.
There have been reports in recent days about a 2003 State Department memo, prepared weeks before Wilson’s NYT op-ed appeared, which, reportedly, discusses Wilson’s Niger mission and the identity of his wife. So weeks before Plame’s identity was first published, by administration water carrier Robert Novak, any number of State Department officials would have access to the memo identifying Plame. John Bolton and his posse work in the State Department and the outing of Plame as retribution certainly is consistent with Bolton’s style. Of course there are any number of other true believers in the State Department who, like all true believers, can justify their venal means because their end is so right.
So I think that some ideologue in the State Department informed Judith Miller of Plame’s identity; and Miller, being close to the neo-cons, dutifully “carried” the information around to other administration officials. Remember, it was Miller, in her often breathless reports, who passed on as fact every lie she was told by Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi exile neo-con darling, about Iraqi WMDs and terrorist connections. It was Miller who shamelessly lent the credence of the NYT to the lies upon which Bush sold the conquering of Iraq to the U. S. public.
Miller would have no reason to go to jail to protect Rove, since, of course, he’s already been fingered. So Miller is protecting someone else, not based upon her journalistic ethic, I suspect; but, rather, to conceal one or more felonies, perhaps which she as well as others have committed.
Finally, remember that various judges, who have instructed Miller to name her source, have commented that there is ample evidence to indicate that serious crimes have been committed. So I think that this case is more than about some venal hack publicly identifying Plame; and that, perhaps, charges of conspiracy and perjury are under consideration.
Read Time magazine’s timeline of the Plame Name Game
Update: Read a great Justin Raimondo piece on the subject
Update 7/19/05: From Bloomberg News Service 7/18/05 Read the entire article This points toward a potential problem for Rove in the direction of Fitzgerald's investigation. It now has expanded beyond its original mission -- to determine if the 1982 law was violated -- to encompass whether any White House officials, including Rove and Fleischer, have testified falsely about the case or obstructed justice by trying to cover up their involvement in the leak, according to people familiar with the case who cite a pattern of questioning by Fitzgerald. In addition, there is strong reason to believe that Fitzgerald is hunting big game, according to several legal experts. They say that is demonstrated by the fact that he has done something that no federal prosecutor has done in 30 years: send a reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, to jail for refusing to divulge with whom she spoke about the Wilson-Plame case. ``You wouldn't expect him to go to these lengths unless he thought he had something serious to look at,'' said Randall Eliason, the former chief of the public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington. ``You don't compel reporters to testify or jail reporters unless you have a pretty good reason.'' Tatel's Opinion That ``pretty good reason'' was highlighted by U.S. Appellate Judge David Tatel in his Feb. 15 opinion concurring that Miller and Cooper must testify in the Plame case. Tatel noted that the vast majority of the states, as well as the Justice Department, ``would require us to protect reporters' sources as a matter of federal common law were the leak at issue either less harmful or more newsworthy.'' However, he added, ``just as attorney-client communications made for the purpose of getting advice for the commission of a fraud or crime serve no public interest and receive no privilege, neither should courts protect sources whose leaks harm national security while providing minimal benefit to public debate.'' -- With reporting by Laurie Asseo in Washington. Editor: Fireman, Kraus Further update: 7/19/05 The Washington Post reorts that Fitzgerald may pusue criminal contempt charge against Miller
No comments:
Post a Comment