Citizen Spook Wednesday, Oct 27, 2005
New analysis of pleadings filed by Fitzgerald has
revealed that his investigation has been diverted towards the Niger
document fraud.
Fitzgerald's
District Court pleadings
from June 2005
informed the court that
the investigation was-- "for all practical purposes complete" -- back
in "Fall 2004" except for the refusal of Cooper and Miller to
cooperate.
Mark Kleiman
is one of the few
bloggers who mentioned the Espionage Act before I published my two
part series on
18 USC 793
and
18 USC 794.
So today, when I came across his October 23 2005
article, --
If you meet the Special Counsel on the Yellowcake Road, no-bill him.
-- I was upset and confused by his allegation that Fitzgerald has no
authority to investigate the Niger Document Fraud:
As against the GOP
spin that he was appointed to look into violations of the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act, he has the original letter giving him "all
the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's
investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA
employee's identity" and a second letter written shortly thereafter
specifying that his authority extends to any criminal attempt to
frustrate that investigation.
But note that
none of the documents on the site gives Fitzgerald any authority over
the wider question of who made up and peddled the Nigerien yellowcake
story, or the still wider question about how the administration hyped
the threat of an Iraqi nuclear weapons acquisition program as part of
its sales pitch for the war.
Apparently
Frank Rich suggested on Meet the Press today that the case might go in
that direction. Ain't gonna happen. Surely if Fitzgerald were moving
that way, he would have asked for authority to do so, and would have
added that request and the response to it to his webpage.
In the same article he debunks the "IIPA is controlling" neocon
talking point... while also squashing Fitzgerald's authority to
investigate the Niger document fraud. He even links to Comey's
delegation letters as proof of his assertion. Although I was confused,
I felt that Kleiman is a blogger who is trying to call it by the rule
of law without any spin. Still, he hasn't analyzed the second letter
correctly.
Comey's first letter
authorizes
Fitzgerald as follows:
"I hereby delegate to
you all of the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the
Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of
a CIA employee's identity..."
Kleiman discusses
Comey's second letter
to
Fitzgerald, but he doesn't explain it properly. Kleiman wrote:
"...and a second
letter written shortly thereafter specifying that his authority
extends to any criminal attempt to frustrate that investigation."
That's not accurate. The first letter limited Fitzgerald's authority
to the unauthorized disclosure of Plame's identity, but the
second letter expands that
authority more than Kleiman gives it credit for. From the letter:
At your request, I am
writing to clarify that my December 30, 2003, delegation to you of
"all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the
Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of
a CIA employee's identity" is plenary and includes the authority to
investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws
related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as
federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to
interfere with, your investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of
justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses...
The key phrase is:
"any federal criminal
laws
related
to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure"
Fitzgerald's authority extends to the violation of any federal
criminal laws which are "related to the underlying...disclosure" of
Plame and Brewster Jennings.
So how does the creation of the fraudulent Niger documents -- a clear
violation of federal criminal law, certainly
18 USC 1001
among others --
fall under the investigation of the unauthorized exposure of Plame's
identity?
The documents
surfaced in
October 2002. Novak's column outing Plame as a CIA employee was
published on July 14, 2003. How could the Niger document fraud be
relevant to Fitzgerald's investigation? Think hard about this.
FITZGERALD HAS NO AUTHORITY TO PROSECUTE ANYBODY FOR THE NIGER
DOCUMENT FRAUD...
unless.......it's "related" to the disclosure of Plame's identity or the
exposure of Brewster Jennings.
But Fitzgerald IS looking into the Niger fraud.
Kleiman's article
includes two
updates at the bottom of the original text. The first reads:
Update
A reader points me to this
Josh Marshall post
linking to a
UPI story by Martin Walker reporting that
"Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained
documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government" and
inferring from that fact that "the CIA leak inquiry that threatens
senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of
documents on African uranium that started the investigation." Josh
vouches for Walker's credibility, and I have no reason to doubt him.
But note that the
inference doesn't follow from the fact, and is contradicted by
Fitzgerald's terms of reference. Fitzgerald may well want to bring in
the Yellowcake Road story to show motive for whatever crimes he
charges, but the charges themselves will have to be limited to blowing
Plame's cover and covering it up.
I don't agree with Kleiman here. The second Comey letter is pretty
damn broad. If Fitzgerald can show that the creation of the fraudulent
Niger documents --
or
the use of them
-- was
related
to the disclosure of Plame and Brewster
Jennings, then Fitzgerald can prosecute the violation of any federal
criminal laws involving the Niger documents.
I'll admit that Kleiman has a point about motive. If the exposure of
Plame was done as motivation to bitch slap Joe Wilson, than the
creation of the Niger documents -- which must have happened in late
2001 -- is barely related to the exposure of Plame and Brewster
Jennings in July of 2003.
As much as I want to see the Niger fraud punished, I'm not sure Fitz
can make it work on that basis. But if he's got something on them he
should run with it and if it's powerful stuff the judges will give him
a wide berth. And rightly so.
Now to the second update at Kleiman's blog:
Update
Kevin Drum has a theory about the motivation for the outing of Valerie
Plame Wilson, and that theory seems to fit the facts:
the W.H.I.G. thought that Joseph Wilson had proof that the Yellowcake
Road documents were forgeries before the 2003 State of the Union
address." I still doubt that Fitzgerald has the authority to bring
charges about the forgery, as opposed to the outing.
I disagree with both Kleiman and Drum. If the Bush syndicate thought
Wilson had proof that the Niger documents were fraudulent and they
outed Plame to intimidate him from speaking out, then I believe that
would be sufficiently "related" to the disclosure of Plame's identity
to allow Fitzgerald to prosecute. Kleiman is wrong.
But Wilson apparently isn't in possession of any other information
other than what he reported in the Times Op Ed of July 6, 2003. He
makes no such allegations and he's certainly not been shy about
speaking up.
Furthermore, Drum's argument is a bit farfetched in that Wilson had
already published his Op Ed -- spilling what he knew about the Niger
deal on July 6, 2003. It's that same argument that keeps coming back,
but makes no sense -- the Bush team bitch slapped Joe Wilson to get
back at him.
If they were trying to intimidate Wilson... they were too late in
doing the job. This don't fly. The motive isn't there for the Bush
freaks to subject themselves to the ultimate terms of the Espionage
Act -- life sentence or death sentence under 18 USC 794.
We know --
from
Fitzgerald's 75 page brief
--
filed with the Court of Appeals -- that Fitzgerald was interested in
the Niger documents and Wilson's trip to Niger. From the Fitz brief:
[page 15]
In the Op-ed piece,
Wilson, a retired career State Department official, asserted that he
had taken a trip to Niger at the request of the CIA in February 2002
to investigate allegations that yellowcake uranium had been sought or
obtained by Iraq from Niger.
[page 19]
On September 13, 2004,
the grand jury issued subpoenas to Cooper and Time seeking: "testimony
and documents relating to conversations between Cooper and official
source(s) prior to July 14, 2003, concerning in any way: former
Ambassador Joseph Wilson; the 2002 trip by former Ambassador Wilson to
Niger;
[page 73]
Specifically, the
information sought is focused on testimony and documents related to
communications occurring during a limited time period, which
specifically concern former Ambassador Joseph Wilson; the 2002 trip by
former Ambassador Wilson to Niger; Valerie Plame Wilson; or Iraqi
efforts to obtain uranium. Given the limited scope of the information
sought by the subpoenas and the general nature of the investigation,
it is obvious that there is a real possibility that the information
sought will be relevant and of substantial importance to the
investigation, as required by § 50.10(f).
The key phrase in that passage is "of
Iraqi efforts to obtain Uranium". It's interesting that
Fitz lists Wilson's trip to Niger and Iraqi efforts to obtain Uranium
as separate subjects of inquiry.
We also know that when the Court of Appeals decided against Cooper and
Miller
the court's 83 page
opinion contained
eight redacted pages of evidence provided to the court by Fitzgerald.
Judge Tatel stated:
Were the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security
or more vital to public debate, or had the special counsel failed to
demonstrate the grand jury's need for the reporters' evidence, I might
have supported the motion to quash.
[Please see the previous CS article,
Treasongate:
US Court of Appeals: Special Counsel's Showing Decides
The Case"]
Also, let me throw in a comment directly from Fitzgerald taken from
page 44 of the pleadings filed with the Court of Appeals:
If anything,
the public's interest is heightened in this case, because the crimes
being investigated have national security implications, and the
subjects of the investigation are government officials with access to
sensitive government information.
It's very possible that Fitzgerald first looked into the Niger trip
while developing motive for retaliation against Wilson. The pleadings
certainly indicate that he was investigating that theory. From page
45:
Cooper and Time are being asked to identify a
confidential source, given the nature of the relevant communications -
namely, the alleged disclosure of sensitive government information for
the purpose of political advantage or retaliation against a critic of
the administration...
But I've stumbled onto
something in Fitzgerald's District Court pleadings which I haven't
seen mentioned elsewhere:
Fitzgerald filed
the
"GOVERNMENT'S
MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO JOINT MOTION FOR SCHEDULING CONFERENCE"
with the US District Court in June 2005. And this memo
cryptically implied that his investigation -- except for receiving the
testimony of Cooper and Miller -- had been completed in "Fall 2004".
From page 8:
The Special Counsel seeks to bring the ongoing
investigation, which he began in December 2003, to as swift a
conclusion as possible.
By fall 2004, the Special Counsel's
investigation was for all practical purposes complete
except for the testimony of petitioners.
(Emphasis added.)
Now consider that Fitzgerald has very recently requested the official
dossier on the Niger forgeries from Italian authorities. From
UPI:
NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that
Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained
documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.
Fitzgerald's team has
been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian
parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian
journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the
government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam
Hussein with Yellowcake uranium.
So, knowing
that Fitzgerald is digging into the Niger conspiracy, the question now
becomes:
What theory of the case sufficiently relates the
unauthorized disclosure of Plame's identity to the Niger fraud under
Comey's specific delegation of authority?
It wasn't Wilson
who was getting close to exposing the villains of the Niger document
fraud, but it might have been PLAME and her cohorts in BREWSTER
JENNINGS.
Under this
scenario, if the Bush syndicate had created the forgeries, pushed them
into the world and used them to defraud Congress, the military and the
people, then outing Plame and Brewster Jennings to stop the spooks
from fingering them -- for lying about the grounds to go to war --
would certainly be sufficiently related under the terms of
Fitzgerald's authority.
If you really
think about, it's one of the most plausible scenarios which would
allow Fitzgerald to aggressively investigate the Niger fraud. If this
was the case, there's two possible conclusions:
- Plame was outed because she was getting too close to
fingering the Niger document conspiracy making her and Wilson genuine
victims of espionage.
OR
- Plame outed the spooks getting close to the Niger
documents to protect the Bush syndicate. Then they fabricated the
outing of Plame to cover her ass -- making her and Wilson guilty of
espionage.
Those are the
only two scenarios I can imagine that would allow Fitzgerald -- under
the specific powers delegated to him -- to aggressively prosecute
those involved with creating and using the fraudulent Niger documents.
There may be other scenarios, but I haven't thought of them yet.
If Plame was not
guilty of espionage, and was a true victim in this, the facts would be
different. Wilson's book would be different. His testimony before the
Senate would have been different and Plame would have been forced to
come forward and tell her story.
Furthermore, if
Plame was truly a "victim" of this conspiracy, then her husband would
be demanding prosecutions under the Espionage Act instead of being the
main cheerleader for the applicability of the IIPA.
And why didn't Joe
Wilson write his Op Ed before the soldiers were shipped off to the
slaughter?
Think about the
support he's garnered by speaking out against Bush's war. Had he
stepped up to the plate before our soldiers were killed, before the
war began, the war might never have been authorized and funded. In the
face of Wilsons's allegations, Congress could not have approved the
war resolution. All of the antiwar sentiment he's drummed up now would
have been an extremely potent remedy to the solution of war.
He waited until the war began. 2000 soldiers later he wants to
be a hero.
Something is rotten in the house of Wilson.
http://citizenspook.blogspot.com/
citizenspook@hotmail.com
The Controlling Law - Big Trouble
For The White House Staff
The Controlling Law, Part 2: THE DEATH PENALTY, 18 USC 794
and the shift from GWOT to GSAVE
Total Media BLACK OUT of 18 USC 794, Federal Espionage Statute
How The White House, Wilson, Novak,
Corn & Plame Conspired
The Federal Grand Jury, FOURTH BRANCH
of the US Government
The US Attorney General's Office AND President Bush
Have NO
LEGAL AUTHORITY To Remove Patrick Fitzgerald As Special Counsel
The Challenge of 18 USC 794...
Prior High Profile Convictions Under 18 USC 794
US Court of Appeals: Special Counsel's Showing Decides
The Case
Iraq War fraud could lead to State court prosecutions for murder of
American soldiers
NIGER DOCUMENT FRAUD --Wilson and Plame May Be on
Fitzgerald's Radar for Treason Related to the Niger Document Conspiracy
Wilson Is In Cahoots With Bush Crime Family
Project Perfect Storm:
Citizen Activism against Felony Murder Resulting
from Fraud that Led to the Iraq War
July 18th Chicago Subway/Dirksen Federal Courthouse
Bomb plot
involving British MI6 assets -Part 1:Chicago Police Implicated in Cover
up?
July 18 Chicago Subway/Dirksen Federal Courthouse
Plot
Involving British MI6-Part 2: CTA Officials Deny Chicago Police Accounts
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