It's not about Libby! It's not about Rove! It's not about Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson!It's all about Iraq, a fraud that Bush tried to cover up —by sacrificing Valerie Plame, if need be. It's all about keeping secret a deliberate fraud that Bush perpetrated upon the American people and the world. And Bush proved himself capable of jeopardizing lives in order to perpetuate his cover up.It doesn't get any more evil than that. The act is dastardly, impeachable, prosecutable, morally reprehensible, despicable!That there was a such a leak at all proves that Bush's order to attack and invade Iraq was and continues to be a war crime. All the black hearted lies told by Bush —and by Powell at the United Nations —were known by Bush to be lies at the time he told them. Hiding the nature of the crime and the lies told to justify it is the motive for yet another crime —the deliberate "outing" of Plame. She was targeted because her husband dared to tell the truth about just one of many lies told by Bushcho about Iraq.Bush's crime is much worse that a mere technical violation of the law —itself an act of treason. No! Bush's crime against humanity is his personal authorization of a leak by which Bush deliberately put Valerie Plame's life in jeopardy. This is clearly the act of a psychopath, the act of a petty, desperate, mean-spirited, tin horn tyrant. The moral dimensions of this crime are too easily overlooked. The "major" media is myopically obsessed with tracking down who told who what and when. What makes it all a crime is why?.Has it soaked in? George W. Bush deliberately sought to endanger the life of Valerie Plame because Ambassador Joe Wilson dared to expose just one of Bush's multiple frauds, lies, and con games. How does one characterize this act? Immature, petty, psychopathic, criminal, vindictive, evil!Now Bush is left with no defense but "...if the President does it is not illegal"! That's nonsense for a start and not worth comment. This is a nation of laws and Bush is not "the" law. If Bush says otherwise, he's lying.
Bush will try to claim that he declassified Plame's cover. More nonsense! Was Plame notified or, in any way, warned that her life would suddenly be imperiled? What consideration other than revenge would have motivated such a de-classification even if it had been undertaken in a legal manner?Any case that Bush might make will be laughed out of the court that tries Bush for his crimes. The fact is Bush didn't go through a process by which things that no longer need to be classified are thus de-classified. See: EXECUTIVE ORDER 13292 which outlines the procedures by which information is classified and de-classified —by law! Sec. 3.1. Authority for Declassification. (a) Information shall be declassified as soon as it no longer meets the standards for classification under this order.(b) It is presumed that information that continues to meet the classification requirements under this order requires continued protection. In some exceptional cases, however, the need to protect such information may be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information, and in these cases the information should be declassified. When such questions arise, they shall be referred to the agency head or the senior agency official. That official will determine, as an exercise of discretion, whether the public interest in disclosure outweighs the damage to the national security that might reasonably be expected from disclosure. This provision does not:(1) amplify or modify the substantive criteria or procedures for classification; or (2) create any substantive or procedural rights subject to judicial review.(c) If the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office determines that information is classified in violation of this order, the Director may require the information to be declassified by the agency that originated the classification. Any such decision by the Director may be appealed to the President through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The information shall remain classified pending a prompt decision on the appeal.(d) The provisions of this section shall also apply to agencies that, under the terms of this order, do not have original classification authority, but had such authority under predecessor orders. ... [Thanks to Doug Drenkow & Barry Gordon for the link to Executive Order 13292 ]Bush, however, always tries to make legal —after the fact —crimes that he's already committed. How bloody convenient!In the year 2005, when confronted by leak developments, Bush, with practiced deliberation, leaned forward, put on his best sincere face, placed the splayed fingers of his left hand on his heart, and intoned with rehearsed earnestness:
If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if that person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.It is time that Bush is held precisely to that standard. Clearly —that statement gives the lie away. Clearly —the leak had nothing whatever to do with national security but with a petty, criminal vendetta!
Bush must step down or be impeached and removed. And when he is removed, he must be charged and prosecuted in a criminal court.
Additional resources:
Did Bush Lie to Fitzgerald?An excerpt:
Lewis Libby's testimony identifying George W. Bush as the top official who authorized the leaking of intelligence about Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program raises two key questions: What did the President tell the special prosecutor about this issue in 2004 and what is Bush's legal status in the federal criminal probe?
Bush's legal danger came into clearer focus with the release of a court document citing testimony from Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff who claimed that Bush approved the selective release of intelligence in July 2003 to counter growing complaints that Bush had hyped evidence on Iraq's pursuit of enriched uranium. ...
Leaker-In-ChiefYesterday, a court filing disclosed that President Bush specifically authorized Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby to disclose classified information in an effort to discredit Joseph Wilson, a former CIA adviser whose criticisms undermined the administration's case for war. According to the 39-page document submitted by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald on late Wednesday night, Libby testified that Cheney "advised him that the President had authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions" of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (N.I.E.), the key CIA document that the administration used to persuade Congress and the American public into war. The court filing "for the first time places Bush and Vice President Cheney at the heart of what Libby testified was an exceptional and deliberate leak of material designed to buttress the administration's claim that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear weapons." While the document does not address the issue of whether Bush was personally involved in specifically leaking Valerie Plame's identity, it is clear from the timing of the leak authorization by President Bush that he was personally involved in the administration-wide effort to smear Joseph Wilson by any means necessary.
BUSH AUTHORIZED LEAKING DESPITE REPEATED ASSURANCES TO THE CONTRARY: Throughout the past two and half years, while the investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity has been ongoing, Bush has made numerous public statements indicating his desire to crack down on leakers. For instance, on September 30, 2003, Bush said, "There's just too many leaks, and if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is." He added, "I want to tell you something -- leaks of classified information are a bad thing." And on October 28, 2003, the president said, "I'd like to know if somebody in my White House did leak sensitive information." Bush never indicated that he was engaged in leaks, instead casting "himself as a disinterested observer, eager to resolve the case and hold those responsible accountable." The new revelations by Fitzgerald, however, demonstrate Bush was personally authorizing highly-sensitive intelligence leaks and has therefore been engaged in a cover-up about the extent of his own involvement in the leak case. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, "The president has always stood so strong against leaks. If he leaked himself, he should explain why this is different than every other leak."
BUSH WAS INVOLVED IN THE CAMPAIGN TO SMEAR WILSON: "The White House did not challenge the prosecutor's account of Bush's and Cheney's role in orchestrating the effort to discredit Wilson yesterday." Previously, the administration claimed it had not engaged in a smear campaign against Wilson. Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's attorney, previously claimed that the facts were being spun "in an ugly fashion to make it seem like people in the White House were affirmatively reaching out to try to get them to report negative information about Plame." But Fitzgerald made clear that Libby's disclosure took place as the result of "a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House, to repudiate" Wilson's claims, adding, "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson." Bush has now been placed at the center of those efforts. (The Progress Report has previously documented why Wilson was smeared -- simply put, because his public criticisms of the administration set into motion a series of events that were not only politically damaging but began to expose how the nation was misled into war. See our timeline.) "If the disclosure is true, it's breathtaking. The president is revealed as the leaker-in-chief," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA). While it is clear that Bush was engaged in the campaign to "punish" Wilson, it is unclear what knowledge he had of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame. At the very least, Bush should now be asked when he personally learned of Plame and whether he authorized the leak of her covert identity.
N.I.E. BOLSTERED WILSON'S ARGUMENT: Libby testified that he was given specific authority by the president to "disclose certain information in the N.I.E." to former New York Times reporter Judith Miller and others. The administration decided to disclose only "relevant portions" for a very obvious reason -- disclosure of the full N.I.E. would have undermined the administration's argument and bolstered Joseph Wilson's. Recall, Wilson attacked Bush's 2003 State of the Union claim that Iraq was acquiring uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon. Wilson wrote in July 2003, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat," specifically stating he saw no evidence of a uranium transaction. The N.I.E. bolstered Wilson's claim. The CIA gave "low confidence" to the uranium claim and said "we cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore." The estimate further said the intelligence on Iraq's uranium acquisition was "inconclusive."
BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S DEFENSE FULL OF LEAKY HOLES: At the heart of the White House and Libby's defense of their actions is the claim that a March 2003 executive order allows both the president and vice president to unilaterally declassify intelligence documents. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated yesterday that Bush has "inherent authority to decide who should have classified information." The White House maintains Bush's decision to disclose classified information means he declassified it. But it was unclear if that was the President's intention in this case. First, the action to leak the October 2002 N.I.E. was apparently done "without notifying Cabinet officials or others in the administration, including the CIA authors of the National Intelligence Estimate," raising questions about whether a real declassification ever occurred. Moreover, as Fitzgerald writes in the court filing, then-deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was engaged in a process to get the N.I.E. officially declassified at the same time Libby was leaking classified portions of the N.I.E. to reporters. On July 18, 2003, the administration decided to officially disclose the contents of the full N.I.E. at a White House press briefing, "suggesting the information had not been declassified until that time." Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, argued on National Public Radio yesterday, "At a minimum, it is grossly improper for the president to order a subordinate to disclose a highly classified document to an uncleared reporter and then have that document treated as continuing to be classified."
CASE AGAINST LIBBY NOT AFFECTED: The new disclosures do not affect the legal case against Scooter Libby. Libby is on trial for having allegedly lied to FBI investigators and the federal grand jury about how he learned of Plame's identity. As special prosecutor Fitzgerald said at his October 2005 press conference announcing the indictments against Libby, "At the end of the day what appears is that Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true. It was false." The court filing reasserts that the "central issue at trial will be whether defendant lied when he testified that he was not aware that Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the CIA prior to his purported conversation with Tim Russert about Mr. Wilson's wife on or about July 10, 2003."
