Friday, October 21, 2005

Endgame?   White House Defense Shaky in CIA Leak Case By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 25 minutes ago Even if White House aides leaked a covert CIA officer's identity, they were simply passing along information they'd already heard from the news media, the administration's supporters maintain in a defense that looks increasing shaky as new evidence accumulates. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald now knows that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, met three times with a New York Times reporter before the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, that Libby initiated a call to NBC newsman Tim Russert and that Libby was a confirming source about the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson for a Time magazine reporter. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove has testified that it's possible Libby was his source before Rove talked to two reporters about the CIA operative. Where Libby first heard the information still isn't publicly known, but a full three weeks before Plame's name first showed up in print, Libby was telling New York Times reporter Judith Miller that he thought Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, according to Miller's testimony. While Libby maintains that he didn't know Plame's name until it was published in the news media, the now-public evidence suggests Libby at least was aware that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and that he spread the information. Prosecutors must determine whether it was part of an effort to undermine the credibility of Plame's husband. Leaking the identity of a covert agent can be a crime, but it must be done knowingly. Plame's name was first made public by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July 2003, eight days after Wilson published an op-ed piece in The New York Times saying the Bush administration had manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs to justify going to war. Novak's column said Plame worked for the CIA and that she had suggested her agency send Wilson, a former ambassador, on a mission to Africa that raised questions about the prewar intelligence. Until this week, "the news media did it" was a standard defense among Republicans trying to protect the Bush administration from the political fallout of Fitzgerald's criminal investigation. Loyalists said that even if White House aides had passed on information, they didn't get it from classified sources and were simply repeating what they heard from journalists. In grand jury testimony shown to Rove, Libby said he had told Rove about information he had gotten about Wilson's wife from Russert, according to a person directly familiar with the information. Prosecutors, however, have a different account from Russert. The TV network has said Russert told authorities he did not know Wilson's wife's identity until it was published and therefore could not have told Libby about it. Russert also says that it was Libby who initiated the contact with him. In Miller's case, she was interviewing Libby on June 23, 2003, for a story on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when the vice president's chief of staff suggested a CIA tie for Wilson's wife, Miller has said. "This was the first time I had been told that Mr. Wilson's wife might work for the CIA," Miller wrote in a first-person account over the weekend. Miller said this week that she never wrote a story about Wilson's wife because "it wasn't that important to me. I was focused on the main question: Was our WMD intelligence slanted?" Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press.   Possible cover-up a focus in CIA leak case-lawyers By Adam Entous 53 minutes ago Prosecutors investigating the outing of a covert CIA operative opened a Web site on Friday to post possible indictments next week and were said by lawyers in the case to be focusing on whether top White House aides tried to conceal their actions from investigators. Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser, and Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, are at the center of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Plame's identity was leaked to the media after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, challenged the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq. The lawyers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Fitzgerald appeared likely to bring charges next week in the nearly two-year leak investigation. The CIA leak grand jury, which expires on October 28, convened on Friday with two of the lead prosecutors present, but it was unclear what issues they were working on. Fitzgerald is expected to meet with the grand jury for a possible vote on indictments as early as Tuesday or Wednesday. Lawyers involved in the case said prosecutors have likely already started laying out their final case to jurors, either for bringing indictments or to explain why there was insufficient evidence to do so. After the grand jury broke up, the two prosecutors, lugging giant legal briefcases, left the courthouse without comment. In what some lawyers interpreted as a sign Fitzgerald would bring indictments, the Justice Department created a special Web site for the leak investigation at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html. "It raises the prospects" of indictments, one lawyer in the case said, arguing it was doubtful Fitzgerald would launch the site if he had no intention of taking action. Others in the case suggested it could be part of an effort by Fitzgerald to increase pressure on potential targets to cut a deal. "We're all grasping at straws," one lawyer conceded. Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, dismissed all the speculation. "I caution you not to read into it," he said. While Fitzgerald could still charge administration officials with knowingly revealing Plame's identity, several lawyers in the case said he was more likely to seek charges for easier-to-prove crimes such as making false statements, obstruction of justice and disclosing classified information. He also may bring a broad conspiracy charge, the lawyers said. Legal sources said Rove may be in legal jeopardy for initially not telling the grand jury he talked to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about Plame. Rove only recalled the conversation after the discovery of an e-mail message he sent to Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, had no immediate comment. Luskin said earlier this week that Rove "has at all times strived to be as truthful as possible and voluntarily brought the Cooper conversation to Fitzgerald's attention." Libby could be open to false statement and obstruction charges because of contradictions between his testimony and that of New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other journalists. Miller has testified she discussed Wilson's wife with Libby as many as three times before columnist Robert Novak publicly identified her. Libby has said he learned of Wilson's wife from reporters, but journalists have disputed that. Wilson says White House officials outed his wife, damaging her ability to work undercover, to discredit him for accusing the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war in a New York Times opinion piece on July 6, 2003. Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited 5:50:19 PM    comment []

News from the 'wood. . .It's good!!!   Nicholl finalists named   Recent features penned by fellows include 'Ring Two,' 'Brothers Grimm'   By LAURA GREFE, Variety.com   The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has announced 10 finalists for the 2005 Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. As many as five finalists may go on to win individual $30,000 fellowships, which recipients are expected to use to produce a feature-length screenplay during the fellowship year. Finalists were chosen from 5,879 submissions. The Nicholl Committee will be chaired by 1992 Nicholl Fellow Susannah Grant and includes writers John Gay, Fay Kanin and Hal Kanter; cinematographers John Baily and Steven Poster; editor Mia Goldman; thesp Eva Marie Saint; exec Bill Mechanic; producers Gale Anne Hurd, David Nicksay and Buffy Shutt; and agent Ron Mardigian. Recent features penned by Nicholl fellows include 1996 fellow Ehren Kruger's "The Ring Two," "The Skeleton Key" and "The Brothers Grimm" and Grant's "In Her Shoes" and "Erin Brockovich." This year's finalists are "Masterpiece," Shannon Elizabeth Slater, Somerset, U.K.; "Chalk," Weiko Lin, Los Angeles; "The Days Between," Morgan Read-Davidson, Downey, Calif.; "Dogwoods," Robert Zameroski, Stevenson Ranch, Calif.; "Fire in a Coal Mine," Seth Resnik, West Hollywood, and Ron Moskovitz, Los Angeles; "Pirates of Lesser Providence," Colleen Cooper De Maio, Los Angeles; "Ring of Fire," Gian Marco Masoni, Santa Monica; "Sane," Robin Brown, Santa Monica; "No Country," Michael D. Zungolo, Philadelphia; and "The Last Wish Girl" Lauren Sheppard, Austin, Texas. Like this article? Variety.com has over 150,000 articles, 40,000 reviews and 10,000 pages of charts. Subscribe today! http://www.variety.com/emailfriend 8:22:37 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 Michael D. Zungolo. Last update: 11/1/2005; 8:22:55 AM.