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Libby: Bush OK'd Secret Intel Leak

shemp

a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
shemp
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Libby: Bush OK'd Secret Intel Leak

(CBS/AP) Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

Before his indictment, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information and that it was Mr. Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say.

According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

In the past, Mr. Bush has denounced leaking to the media.

There was no indication in the filing that either Mr. Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....
 
But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.
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I call for a full investigation of the source of every secret leaked to the press. We'll start with the CIA leased aircraft and the NSA program of wiretapping al Qaeda's American contacts. After we get all the ones who did it without the legal ability to declassify documents we'll see what ought be done with the ones who did it with that ability.

And let's change that headline to:

Libby: Cheney: Bush OK'd Formerly Secret Intel Leak.
 
Since the president can basically do whatever he feels necessary in a time of war, doesn't this let everyone off the hook?
 
kalen said:
Since the president can basically do whatever he feels necessary in a time of war, doesn't this let everyone off the hook?
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Actually, no. Because this doesn't have the tiniest thing to do with the hook. This has nothing to do with the Plame investigation or with Libby's indictment. All it did was establish that Libby passed on information which, prior to the President declassifying it, was secret. The reason the prosecutor asked it is that if the President had not declassified the information the prosecutor could have established that Libby was the kind of guy who passed on secrets, something which would be probative in determining his culpability in the Plame matter.
 
Republican apologists have a real hard time dealing with their own problems. The reaction here include.

Hey, look over there, they did it.
"Don't forget to wipe up when you're through."

Grow up, accept that fact that all that's wrong in this country is not someone else's fault, your party has problems as well. My word...
 
kalen said:
Since the president can basically do whatever he feels necessary in a time of war, doesn't this let everyone off the hook?
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I will spell out the issue larger for everyone:

In the past, Mr. Bush has denounced leaking to the media.
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But we also have this: (bolding mine)

According to interviews with the National Journal, two senior government officials in recent days said that Libby has also asserted Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war.
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So, in other words, Libby was given carte blanche to leak ANYTHING he thought would help Bush's case to go to war. Who the hell is Scooter Libby to make decisions on what and what not to release? And why would anyone be stupid enough to give him carte blanche to make such decisions. If he did indeed have this leeway, one can make a case that this authority to act as a loose cannon led to the Plame leak.
 
In the past, Mr. Bush has denounced leaking to the media. [\quote]

Yeah, but he's the president. It could have been a cunning plan with grave implications for national security reasons. You know, 9-11.
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So...
Shemp sez that the national journal sez that an unnamed government official sez that libby believed some stuff...and "in other words", this "belief" carte blanche to leak ANYTHING.

Desperate times, indeed.

what's the real situation?

Bush declassifies "stuff", as is his job.

The Plame Affair wasn't such stuff.
 
shemp said:
So, in other words, Libby was given carte blanche to leak ANYTHING he thought would help Bush's case to go to war. Who the hell is Scooter Libby to make decisions on what and what not to release? And why would anyone be stupid enough to give him carte blanche to make such decisions. If he did indeed have this leeway, one can make a case that this authority to act as a loose cannon led to the Plame leak.
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The problem is that there's still plenty of plausible deniability to go around. All they have to do is state that Lewis Libby had worked in the government for 22 years. He was a trusted advisor of Cheney's. They authorized him to disclose pertinent information that was not a threat to national security. Unfortunately Libby, of his own volition, became overzealous and leaked confidential information that was a threat to national security. The President and Vice President are simply too busy to keep up with the affairs of every staff member. They never imagined that Libby would go so far, and so on.

I don't buy it, but its an easy claim to make.
 
Jesus, I guess if I get my hands on some classified papers, I'll just release them and claim that I was doing it to support the war.

Here's the point: This classified information was released for POLITICAL purposes. The President can release classified information, but releasing it for POLITICAL purposes is not the same as releasing it to boost NATIONAL SECUITY.
 
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I'm not an expert in this area of law, but I don't think that Bush can just wave his magic presidental wand (no doubt Clinton's was much bigger) and make previously classified material public. Doesn't he have to at least fill out a form? Sign something? Some kind of official act, paper trail, that sort of thing? So that the next guy to come along knows that the material is no longer classified? I don't see why his status as the president immunizes him from liablity for disclosure of classified information if he fails to follow the proper declassification procedures.
 
shemp said:
Here's the point: This classified information was released for POLITICAL purposes. The President can release classified information, but releasing it for POLITICAL purposes is not the same as releasing it to boost NATIONAL SECUITY.
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It might be the same thing in the mind of the President. You know, 9-11.
 
JamesDillon said:
I'm not an expert in this area of law, but I don't think that Bush can just wave his magic presidental wand (no doubt Clinton's was much bigger) and make previously classified material public. Doesn't he have to at least fill out a form? Sign something? Some kind of official act, paper trail, that sort of thing? So that the next guy to come along knows that the material is no longer classified? I don't see why his status as the president immunizes him from liablity for disclosure of classified information if he fails to follow the proper declassification procedures.
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You are correct, and there is a paper trail.

All previously classified documents/details have both a declassified date and authority.
 
If true....isn't that illegal? Even if you are the President?

Or, perhaps - to draw a historical parallel - it is illegal, but not if you are the President?
 
kalen said:
Since the president can basically do whatever he feels necessary in a time of war, doesn't this let everyone off the hook?
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Presumably the President, being the head of the Executive branch, and thus implementer of the laws, gets to decide what's national security and what's not, so it would probably be legal for him to do so. Smarmy, but legal.

Now the political fallout would be another matter...
 
CFLarsen said:
If true....isn't that illegal? Even if you are the President?

Or, perhaps - to draw a historical parallel - it is illegal, but not if you are the President?
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What are you referring to CFL?

The president can and does declassify information on a continious basis. Nothing unusual about that. It requires no justification other than his whim, his signiture, and a date.
 
Rob Lister said:
What are you referring to CFL?

The president can and does declassify information on a continious basis. Nothing unusual about that. It requires no justification other than his whim, his signiture, and a date.
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Sure, but, per my post above, where's the document with Bush's signature declassifying Ms. Plame's covert status? If we have that, I agree that this is purely a political rather than a legal matter. Without it, it seems in my relatively uninformed opinion that, assuming Bush did give the order to leak her identity, he could well have violated the law.
 
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