Ed*ard Teller @ 49

They’ll create a new foundation for Scooter. It might be called the “Protecting our Foreign Intelligence Assets From Inside the Beltway Foundation.”

Scooter will be Chairman. The board will have Ollie North, John Poindexter, Elliot Abrams, Michael Ledeen and others on board. Jonathan Pollard and Larry Franklin will be corresponding members.

Did I leave any important board members out?

Where’s Dick Armitage?

can’t forget Doug Feith either.

Yes, a vicious White House operative is a “patsy”. We should pity the poor soul. After all, the lies and intrigues he willingly took part in only resulted in about half a million deaths. Poor, poor Scooter.

He is not a “fall guy”. He did not volunteer to take the rap. Others told lies too, no doubt, and still are. He’s just the only one Fitz had enough evidence on to convict.

Not sure if he didn’t “willingly” volunteer. After all Cheny wrote to Scotty that “not going to protect one aide while sacrificing the guy that
the Pres. was asked to put his neck in the meatgrinder…”

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0307.html

Top Republican aide implicated in attorney firing probe
RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday March 7, 2007

A senior aide to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) has been implicated in the controversial firing of eight U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration, which Democrats believe may have been politically motivated, The Hill reports.

Senate Democrats, having launched a probe into the matter, heard testimony before the Judiciary Committee in which former US Attorney John McKay “said that Ed Cassidy, then-chief of staff to Hastings, called him in 2004 to ask whether he was investigating allegations of voter fraud after a Democrat won the Washington state governor’s race in a third recount,” Susan Crabtree writes for The Hill.

(snip)

Cassidy is now a Senior staff-person to Top Tubthumplican, John Boehner!

A bit more on how Cassidy gets paid for having multiple jobs at the same time- talk about double-, triple-, and quadrupl-billing!

http://www.legistorm.com/perso…..13436.html

Dover Bitch @ 72

Would somebody with expertise please explain (debunk) the talking point that “classified” is not the same as “covert” and therefore there could be no underlying crime?

Fitzgerald has been very precise about saying that her name was being actively protected by the CIA. But I think it’s a bullshit quibble by bullshit merchants. My gut sense is that Fitz didn’t prosecute the underlying crime primarily because he knew that he’d be smothered in graymail.

Methinks the ladies doth protect too much.

That Tweety is reading out the Burdick verdict on pardons is pretty telling.

If Plame wasn’t in a highly classified position then Toensing or members of the MSM could simply ask…what was Valerie Plame’s job at the CIA…and did she travel abroad on CIA business within 5 years of Novacula’s “exposure”…and they would be told what her job was and a definitive NO!

As pointed out by Libby in his testimony before the GJ…he knows lots of CIA employees that don’t have their identities classified. That fact seems to escape Toensing and her fellow myrmidons – they should tell us precisely what Plame did in the CIA and show us the letter they received from the CIA stating such!

Dover Bitch @ 72

Would somebody with expertise please explain (debunk) the talking point that “classified” is not the same as “covert” and therefore there could be no underlying crime?

O’Beirne just said it and Vicky said it on CNN yesterday (she said Fitz knows the difference and was careful to say “classified”).

If you are covert, that fact would be classified. Therefore, unless the CIA declassified that information (like in the CIPA process) and they did not, Pat cannot say that Plame was covert or Pat would be unlawfully divulging classified information.

Ergo, all Pat can lawfully say is that her status is classified

Unclassified CIA employees can reveal that they work for the CIA.

For example…from the same FEC records that Plame listed Brewster Jennings & Associates we see that there are many CIA employees that have no issues with stating their employment with the Agency.

http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-…..3020372053

http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-…..4020020076

http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-…..3020191349

One can find lots of CIA employees, analysts, directors, and other non-covert employees that state the CIA is their employer. They don’t put down a cover firm.

BUT PLAME HAD A COVER…AND LISTED IT ON HER FEC FORMS. SHE WAS COVERT.

Would somebody with expertise please explain (debunk) the talking point that “classified” is not the same as “covert” and therefore there could be no underlying crime?

O’Beirne just said it and Vicky said it on CNN yesterday (she said Fitz knows the difference and was careful to say “classified”).

“Classified” incorporates “covert”. All “covert” agents have classified identities. Thus revealing those identities is a crime if willfully done. The IAPA law protects “covert agents” and sources if they have SERVED (they need not be stationed or live) overseas within five years of exposure. But the CIA may decide that because a person’s work is critical to ongoing covert activities or that revealing their identity may pose risks to their contacts their identity must remain classified.

The IAPA is rarely used, and the current case actually demonstrates the flaws in its composition. If it is intended to protect covert agents from exposure it really makes it difficult…as it seems that the leaker must actually know that the agent is being exposed, that they served overseas within the last five years, and that the exposure was with the intent to harm the US and benefit their enemies.

So if a government official does it for other motives (to get political leverage, to get personal revenge, or perhaps even for money) then the law may not apply. If the leaker gave a name off a classified document…and it wasn’t specified when the agent served abroad or if they were ever “covert” within the last five years…the “knowledge” criteria may not hold.

Thus this specific law is so poorly written that it virtually allows leakers carte blanche
with leaking scores of names with the “I didn’t know” or “I had noble intentions” defense.

That’s why Fitz avoided using that law and constantly referred to Plame’s Classified status instead. The CIA doesn’t want to threaten ongoing overseas operations by specifying when and where Plame served. But the fact that they have allowed discussion of her last station assignment in Belgium to be revealed…and that fell just outside the 5 year “boundary”~ and yet they will not discuss anything more recent~ might indicate that she has served abroad within 5 years of the Novak “outing”. They still keep a tight lid on her activities and this must mean that her more recent tasks were quite important to many ongoing covert activities.

Her neighbors said she travelled abroad “frequently” on business.

Unclassified workers at the CIA actually have no problems listing “CIA” on their campaign contributions forms. It would only be those working with covers that required a cover organization.

Hate to be a naysayer, but I think it’s doubtful that Junior will refuse to pardon Libby. Remember Cheney’s note, the crossed-out “this pres” before “asked Scooter to stick his head in the meat grinder”? If Libby sings to Fitzgerald, it will be a song in which Bush will figure prominently in the lyrics. That’s why he’ll get the pardon.

I think that Cheney was referring to himself when he wrote “this pres.” Then he crossed it out when he remembered that Scotty and other White House staffers would see Cheney referring to himself as “this pres” rather than “His Dread Lord.”

The only one who could interfere with that is Karl Rove. For there to be a conflict, Rove and Cheney would have to vehemently disagree over the direction for the party post-2008. Or for there to be an even greater controversy that would require letting Libby take his lumps. Unhappily for Libby, candidates for that mount daily. Iraq, Walter Reed, the US Attorney firings, etc.

Libby’s pardon is about Cheney retaining his extensive network. Cheney has every reason to make a hard sell for the pardon to ensure that network survives. Apart from retaining power, Cheney needs it to avoid trailing liability. He has taken no prisoners and knows that potential disaster lurks on every hard drive in Washington.

Unswerving loyalty and support for his people – Rumsfeld still maintains an office and govt-paid staff just down the road from the Pentagon – is all that stands between Cheney and either continuing power and wealth, or disaster.

[Mod Note; FWIW, we like to stay away from the subject of the potential activities of potential cellmates.]

If you were Libby, would you be counting on a pardon?
I think Libby will make a deal.
.