Henry Waxman’s back-door revelations about the Valerie Plame case
Via Think Progress, Rep. Henry Waxman is still chasing after information on how Valerie Plame Wilson was outed as a CIA employee — and, judging from the letter he released this morning (sent to Attorney General Ashcroft Gonzales Mukasey), not quite as quixotically as I’d assumed:
On December 3, 2007 , I wrote to request that you arrange for the production of documents relating to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak of the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson, including copies of FBI interview reports of White House officials. I appreciate that you have since made redacted versions of the interview reports of Karl Rove, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and other senior White House officials available to the Committee.
I am writing now to renew the Committee’ s request for the interview reports with President Bush and Vice President Cheney and to request unredacted versions of the interviews with Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Scott McClellan, and Cathie Martin. I also request that the Department provide all other responsive documents that were approved for release to the Committee by Mr. Fitzgerald.
So Fitz authorized the release of investigative files, and Mukasey actually turned some stuff over?! I hadn’t realized this.
In his interview with the FBI, Mr. Libby stated that it was “possible” that Vice President Cheney instructed him to disseminate information about Ambassador Wilson’ s wife to the press. This is a significant revelation and, if true, a serious matter. It cannot be responsibly investigated without access to the Vice President ‘s FBI interview.
It’s not really “a significant revelation,” since Libby said the same thing in his grand jury testimony, which was made public during the trial. But I guess it’s handy for keeping the pressure on.
The interviews with senior White House officials also raise other questions about the involvement of the Vice President. It appears from the interview reports that Vice President Cheney personally may have been the source of the information that Ms. Wilson worked for the CIA. Mr. Libby specifically identified the Vice President as the source of his information about Ms. Wilson. None of the other White House officials could remember how they learned this information.
The last sentence is noted solely for humor value. If only links to Needlenose 2.0 weren’t still messed up, I’d cite one of my posts on the “theory of Immaculate Dissemination.”
In his FBI interview, [press secretary Scott] McClellan told the FBI about discussions he had with the President and the Vice President. These passages, however, were redacted from the copies made available to the Committee. Similar passages were also redacted from other interviews.
There are no sound reasons for you to withhold the interviews with the President and the Vice President from the Committee or to redact passages like Mr. McClellan’s discussions with the President and the Vice President. Mr. Fitzgerald’s investigation is closed and he has indicated that it would be appropriate to share these records with the Committee. There has been no assertion of executive privilege.
Moreover, withholding these documents would create an unfortunate double standard. During the Clinton Administration, the Committee requested the records of FBI interviews with President Clinton and Vice President Gore in 1997 and 1998 as part of the Committee’s campaign finance investigation. These records were turned over to the Committee by the Justice Department without any consultation with the White House.
Obviously these quaint notions of independence and oversight are now defunct, and I presume that the Bushites have no intention of turning over anything that is genuinely incriminating. But kudos to Waxman for trying, and for exposing the lack of any fig leaf to cover their mendacity.
Tags: cheney, Plamemania, Waxman
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Don’t worry about Waxman or any of the other Democrat entertainers ( Leahy,
Schumer et al. ) doing anything to seriously hurt the Bushistas: The U.S. federal judicial and legislative branches are now part of the executive branch.
Love it or go to Gitmo.