Because obtaining the grand jury testimony of Miller (for the first time), Cooper (for the second time), and Pincus (for the first time) was the object in pursuit of which the affidavits were filed, the affidavits obviously do not contain the secret grand jury testimony of Miller, Cooper (or Pincus) which they were resisting giving. Rather, the 8/27/04 affidavit would/does contain Libby’s (and Fleischer’s and probably Kessler’s) grand jury testimony as it related to conversations with Miller and Pincus, and the 9/27/04 affidavit would contain Rove’s grand jury testimony (as of 9/04) as it related to his conversation with Cooper and perhaps Cooper’s grand jury testimony as it related to Libby (which Fitzgerald had already obtained from Cooper on 8/23/04), possibly along with testimony about Rove from other reporters we don’t yet know about and/or from other government sources that Cooper may have spoken with. I blurred this distinction between the pre-2005 vs. post-2005 state of the government’s knowledge with regard to Miller’s and Cooper’s testimony to the grand jury, in my first comment.

I’ll just add that the WSJ can’t even accurately characterize its own company’s legal filings that are the subject of today’s editorial hackery… The full rationale and legal underpinnings for Fitzgerald’s grand jury subpoenas for testimony from Miller and Cooper are already very much in evidence in the partial 8/2004 affidavit and long Judge Tatel and binding Circuit Court opinions that are already on the public record. The WSJ definitely, and deceptively, protests too much…

Gene Osteen @
83

General Barry McCaffrey proved what a liar and political hack he is when he was Drug Czar. Anyone who thinks the truth is more important than the agenda to this guy is drinking the cool-aide

He, of all people, should know the value of not pissing upwind. The WOD was pretty analogous to the WOT in the inherent futility of it all.

What it did, however, is expose ‘ole Barry as completely delusional. Why do we put people like this in charge of soldier’s lives? He has the reasoning capacity of a plate of spaghetti.

Woo hoo! I love that mental image.

All the futility of the drug war with all the criminality of the war on Iraq twisted around like snakes on the plate with all the constant spewing of lies from the Right and topped off with the arrogant smirk of Dubya and Rover.

It’s a wicked meal nobody can consume and when the check comes the Repubs are nowhere to be seen, having distanced themselves. But, wait…is that Hillary coming up to dig in for more of the garbage.

It’s definately a wicked meal.

kdh22 @
156

McCaffery is on the board of: Dyncorp International (supplies security personnel and police trainers in Iraq and Afghanistan), McNeil Technologies ($4.6 billion dollar Army contract thru a joint deal with Dyncorp for Iraq translation and and interpretation services), HNTB Federal Services (military engineering contractor), and The Wornick Company (provides meals-ready-to-eat AKA MREs to the military).

Thanks for that info! Didn’t know his connection to the military/industrial complex but knew there had to be one. So my theory that his life-long military mindset is what causes him to say these conflicting things is debunked by his life-long commitment to worshipping the almighty dollar?

Well, I’ll be
said in Pvt. Pyle voice

AF — really interesting. You’d think NBC would feel obligated to reveal McCaffrey’s conflicts whenever they bring him on.

If NBC doesn’t mention that James Carville has consulted for Hillary Clinton when he’s on MTP criticizing Obama, why would they mention Barry McCaffrey’s multiple ties to the military-industrial complex when he comments on Iraq? Then there’s the unsettling fact that can never be mentioned enough: wholly owned by General Electric, NBC is part of the military-industrial complex too. Considering NBC in that context, maybe that’s why they’re so lax in stating conflicts of interest and avoid disclaimers.

Perhaps NBC News feels that pointing out the conflicts if interest of their guests and consultants would only serve to call attention to the inherent conflict of interest in their very existence. It’s equally possible that NBC is just plain lazy.

AF

Malkin and her ilk have grown both fat and crafty suckling at the teat of Rove.

The goal of the US is to train Iraqi security forces and THEY along with their government will fix it. THEY will fight the sectarian violend, not US forces.

US forces will stay in Iraq to help the Iraqis fight the foreign jihadists (Al Quaeda), and to provide logistical, air, medical, training… support to the Iraqi military in their effort to end the sectarian violence.

And in achieving this goal the US is about 70% there and within a year will have achieved success.

“It seems that even comparatively credible, realistic military analysts cannot bring themselves to accept the painful conclusion that sometimes it’s better to just back away from an unmitigated disaster, and rethink what we’re doing, than to continue trying to fix it with the same approaches that failed before.”

Actually, I think there is a somewhat bigger problem at work here: Americans (especially military type Americans have a very hard getting their minds around the idea that there are some things that are so fucked up that they can’t be fixed, even by us can-do Americanos. I know–I worked at the Pentagon with these folks (as the house liberal in the OSD General Counsel’s Office). The by-word is and has been for a long time “mission oriented.”

Still in all, if McAffery is saying stay the course. one can only imagine what lapdogs like Pace and Patraeus are saying.

Their is a huge gap between them todaely and between the likes of Charlie Rangel. Rangel was asked by a caller on NPR yesterday whether we can’t still win by pouring in more troops (this guy suggested 270,000!). Rangel responded:

“WIN WHAT??”

I’ve been tracking the Dow Jones & Company’s Motions to Unseal (thanks to cboldt’s efforts to get the December 2006 Motion and the government response on-line). Their third such Motion – regarding the same redacted Circuit Court Tatel opinion the others addressed – was filed by Dow Jones and the Associated Press on March 7th – the day after the Libby verdict was announced (the Appeals Court had denied their second, very untimely 12/06 Motion without prejudice pending the outcome of the ongoing Libby trial).

I’ve also tracked back the underlying affidavits at issue. Here’s what I’ve deduced:

About 4 of the 8 pages of Tatel’s redacted original 2/05 Opinion were released 2/06 after Dow Jones filed their first Motion to Unseal in 11/05 right after the Libby indictment. At the same time, the Circuit Court asked Fitzgerald to release as much of his sealed affidavits from which Tatel drew his information as possible. Fitzgerald did so, and the result was that about half of one of two affidavits at issue was also released 2/2006.

That partially released affidavit is dated 8/27/04, and was filed under seal in the District Court in opposition to Judith Miller’s and (I believe) Walter Pincus’s Motions to Quash grand jury subpoenas (and would involve Libby testimony and Fleischer testimony as their sources). The portion released related to Miller’s testimony about Libby (and vice versa), much of which was revealed by the Libby indictment. The rest of that affidavit would appear to primarily relate to Pincus, and may or may not include grand jury testimony that did not come out at trial.

The second affidavit that Tatel (and the District Court) relied on, is dated 9/27/04, and none of it was released in 2/2006 – apparently because its contents very much related to still-secret grand jury testimony. That affidavit appears to primarily relate to testimony by Karl Rove and Matthew Cooper, and was filed in response to Cooper and TIME’s Motions to Quash their (Rove-related) grand jury subpoenas.

I haven’t read the latest Motion or the government’s response [the government responded 3/22 with another sealed ex parte affidavit (which piques my interest, if the government is not ready to release those older affidavits), and Dow Jones replied on 3/30]. So this WSJ editorial is the first hint of what the government’s response was to Dow Jones’s third Motion. I’ve assumed that a great deal of the second, unreleased affidavit is still unable to be released by Fitzgerald, under, and due to, grand jury secrecy rules about not-yet-public testimony – in this case from Rove, and from Cooper about Rove (and maybe others). So that would prove nothing one way or the other, about any investigation-related reason the government might have for objecting to the release of more sealed testimony from the 2004 affidavits. The same Rule 6(e) reason may apply to the portion of the other affidavit that apparently relates to Pincus (who I believe may never have publicly ‘confessed’ to moving to quash his subpoena, although that’s apparently what he did). The 4 remaining redacted pages of Tatel’s Opinion are simply reciting information contained in one or both of the underlying Fitzgerald affidavits.

The point that needs underscoring, however, is that these efforts by Miller, Cooper, TIME, etc., to avoid complying with grand jury subpoenas under cover of the “First Amendment” never had a realistic chance of succeeding due to the clear, binding precedent of the Branzburg SCOTUS decision (as nolo points out at #72). The (admitted) m.o. of the media, however, is to make endless objections and appeals should any reporter get subpoenaed, in order to try to discourage the government from requesting testimony from reporters in the first place. So they try to run out the clock, and run up the legal bills, even knowing their chances are slim to none to carve out a dangerous exception for the 54,000 “reporters” in this country who would be excused from providing testimony to grand juries in good faith federal criminal investigations. The “free press” ought to be held accountable for this cynical abuse of our justice system. But Dow Jones & Co., Inc., has the money to play this game for just as long as they feel like it, and then some.

nolo’s very clear Branzburg excerpt drives the point home:

“. . .THE FIRST AMENDMENT DOES NOT RELIEVE A NEWSPAPER REPORTER OF THE OBLIGATION THAT ALL CITIZENS HAVE TO RESPOND TO A GRAND JURY SUBPOENA AND ANSWER QUESTIONS RELEVANT TO A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION, AND THEREFORE THE AMENDMENT DOES NOT AFFORD HIM A CONSTITUTIONAL TESTIMONIAL PRIVILEGE FOR AN AGREEMENT HE MAKES TO CONCEAL FACTS RELEVANT TO A GRAND JURY’S INVESTIGATION OF A CRIME OR TO CONCEAL THE CRIMINAL CONDUCT OF HIS SOURCE OR EVIDENCE THEREOF. . .”

http://noeasyanswer.blogspot.c…..libby.html

Bullshit
The war a lie=Insanity
The Surge=Insanity
(War)(Surge)(bush cheney)=complete and utter incompetent chaos

McCaffery is on the board of: Dyncorp International (supplies security personnel and police trainers in Iraq and Afghanistan), McNeil Technologies ($4.6 billion dollar Army contract thru a joint deal with Dyncorp for Iraq translation and and interpretation services), HNTB Federal Services (military engineering contractor), and The Wornick Company (provides meals-ready-to-eat AKA MREs to the military).

Thanks for that info! Didn’t know his connection to the military/industrial complex but knew there had to be one. So my theory that his life-long military mindset is what causes him to say these conflicting things is debunked by his life-long commitment to worshipping the almighty dollar?

Well, I’ll be
said in Pvt. Pyle voice

AF — really interesting. You’d think NBC would feel obligated to reveal McCaffrey’s conflicts whenever they bring him on.

Susan in Iowa @ 21

Feingold was his usual serious thoughtful self on Olbermann last night. He pointed out that when he first called for a timeline, he was derided. Now he has support, and is keeping the pressure on.

Obama sounds great but lacks gravitas when it comes to tough issues. Like Hillary, he seems to be polling, then deciding what he believes. Watching an Edwards rally in NH on CSPAN, the biggest applause line was when he told people that he was not going to speak in generalities, but was going to stand up for what he believed in, and say what he would do as president. I am not an Edwards supporter, but he really hit a chord with me, too.

The most depressing thing in this post is the thought that our leaders are going along with something they do not believe in out of “respect for the generals.” Give me a break. Petraeus is there because his predecessors thought the current strategy would not work and said so. If they had any respect for the generals, they would listen to them.

I am so glad Feingold never fails to point out his prescience in August of 2006. Dems need to be reminded of their shameless cowardice in running away from him at that time.

Listening to him last night, calling things as they are, namely, that this administration has completely lost touch with reality, and doing it so eloquently and without equivocation, I’m sitting there thinking what an excellent President this man would make! Oh lord, I could be proud to be an American again!

It seems to me that Russ Feingold is the kind of bold, tough, smart leader that we need as President of the United States of America. Americans would be proud of him as he would give them genuine reason to be proud.