CIA leak grand jury investigation

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CIA leak grand jury investigation (rel. Valerie Plame affair) is an ongoing federal inquiry "into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity," a possible violation of criminal statutes, including the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, and Title 18, United States Code, Section 793.

In September 2003, the CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate the possible unauthorized disclosure of a CIA officer’s classified identity. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself and named Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, to be "acting attorney general" for the case. Comey in turn named U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald to the case on December 30, 2003.[21]

Contents

[edit] Basic Facts

Main article: Plame affair
Further information: Plame affair timeline

In his July 14, 2003 newspaper column, Robert Novak revealed the name of an allegedly covert CIA agent. Novak identified Valerie Plame, wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, as an agency operative.[22] Wilson, a former U.S. Ambassador, criticized the Bush Administration in a July 6, 2003 editorial in The New York Times. Wilson argued that the Bush Administration misrepresented intelligence prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In his column, Novak diminished Wilson’s claims:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate. . . .[23]

On August 29, 2006 Neil A. Lewis reported in The New York Times that Richard Armitage has been confirmed to be the first and primary source of the CIA leak investigation.[1]

Fitzgerald has issued no statement about Armitage's involvement, and as of August 2006, the CIA leak investigation remains open.

On August 30th 2006, CNN reported that Armitage had been confirmed "by sources" as leaking Valerie Plame's role as a CIA operative in a "casual conversation" with Robert Novak.[2]

As yet there is no word as to how this information will affect the grand jury's investigation

[edit] Grand jury

Grand Jury sworn in on October 31, 2003. On September 26, 2003, the Department of Justice and the FBI began a criminal investigation into the possible unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding Valerie Wilson’s CIA affiliation to various reporters in the spring of 2003. I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr., a senior White House official, was indicted on October 28, 2005.

[edit] Known Grand Jury Witnesses

[edit] Cabinet

[edit] CIA

[edit] Vice-President's Office

[edit] President

[edit] White House Press Office

[edit] Other Government Officials

[edit] Media

[edit] Other

[edit] Federal Laws

Crimes

Fitzgerald's position

[edit] Attorneys of Record

[edit] Judges, Special Counsel Attorneys, Courthouses

[edit] Judges

[edit] Special Counsel Office Attorneys

  • Patrick Fitzgerald, Special Counsel, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
    • Debra Riggs Bonamici, Deputy Special Counsel, from US Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois
    • Kathleen Kedian, Deputy Special Counsel
    • James Fleissner, Deputy Special Counsel, Department of Justice (DOJ)
    • Ron Roos, Deputy Special Counsel, DoJ prosecutor -- National Security Section.
    • Peter Zeidenberg, Deputy Special Counsel, DoJ prosecutor -- Public Integrity Section.

[edit] Courthouses

Prettyman Courthouse
Enlarge
Prettyman Courthouse

Location of CIA leak grand jury

  • E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse 333 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.

[edit] Indictment of Libby

On October 28, 2005, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr., a senior White House official, was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the CIA leak investigation into the Plame affair. [24] Libby was charged with lying to FBI agents and to the grand jury about two conversations with reporters, Tim Russert of NBC News and Matt Cooper of Time magazine. According to the Indictment, the obstruction of justice count alleges that while testifying under oath before the grand jury on March 5 and March 24 2004, Libby knowingly and corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct and impede the grand jury’s investigation by misleading and deceiving the grand jury as to when, and the manner and means by which, he acquired, and subsequently disclosed to the media, information concerning the employment of Valerie Wilson by the CIA.

From January 20, 2001, to October 28, 2005, Libby served as Assistant to the President, Chief of Staff to the Vice President, and Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs. After the indictment was released to the public, Libby resigned his position in the White House.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Enlarge
Lewis "Scooter" Libby

[edit] Court Proceedings

On November 3, 2005, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby entered a not guilty plea in front of U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, a former prosecutor who has spent two decades as a judge in the nation's capital.

In his blog "Capital Games" in The Nation on February 6, 2006, citing the huge amount of classified material that has been requested by Libby's defense, David Corn speculates speculates that Libby is using Graymail as defense-tactic.[3] Libby has added the greymail expert John D. Cline to his defense team.[4]

In December 2005, Patrick Fitzgerald responded to a motion by Dow Jones & Company, Inc., to unseal all or part of the redacted portion of a United States Court of Appeals for the Distict of Columbia opinion issued on February 15, 2005. The opinion pertained to oral arguments held on December 8, 2004.[5]

On February 3, 2006, the opinion of the court was released to the public:

As to the leaks’ harmfulness, although the record omits specifics about Plame’s work, it appears to confirm, as alleged in the public record and reported in the press, that she worked for the CIA in some unusual capacity relating to counterproliferation. Addressing deficiencies of proof regarding the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the special counsel refers to Plame as “a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years”—representations I trust the special counsel would not make without support.(8/27/04 Aff. at 28 n.15.)[6][7][8]

On January 31, 2006, letters exchanged between Libby's lawyers and Fitzgerald's office concerning matters of discovery were released to the public:

A formal assessment has not been done of the damage caused by the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s status as a CIA employee, and thus we possess no such document. In any event, we would not view an assessment of the damage caused by the disclosure as relevant to the issue of whether or not Mr. Libby intentionally lied when he made the statements and gave the grand jury testimony which the grand jury alleged was false.[9][10]

On March 17, 2006, Patrick Fitzgerald filed the government's response to a motion by Scooter Libby's defense team to dismiss the indictments.[11][12]

On April 5, 2006, Patrick Fitzgerald filed the government's response to a motion by Scooter Libby's defense team on issues of discovery:

Nor would such documents of the CIA, NSC and the State Department place in context the importance of the conversations in which defendant participated. Defendant’s participation in a critical conversation with Judith Miller on July 8 (discussed further below) occurred only after the Vice President advised defendant that the President specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the NIE. Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller – getting approval from the President through the Vice President to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval – were unique in his recollection. Defendant further testified that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by the Vice President to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson. Defendant was instructed to provide what was for him an extremely rare “on the record” statement, and to provide “background” and “deep background” statements, and to provide information contained in a document defendant understood to be the cable authored by Mr. Wilson. During the conversations that followed on July 12, defendant discussed Ms. Wilson’s employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time). Even if someone else in some other agency thought that the controversy about Mr. Wilson and/or his wife was a trifle, that person’s state of mind would be irrelevant to the importance and focus defendant placed on the matter and the importance he attached to the surrounding conversations he was directed to engage in by the Vice President.[13] [14]

(On April 12, 2006, Fitzgerald issued a correction to some of the information in the government's motion.[15])

A handwritten note above Joe Wilson's editorial by Vice President Dick Cheney.Cheney wrote: "Have they done this sort of thing before?" "Send an amb(assador) to answer a question?" "Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? "Or did his wife send him on a junket?"
Enlarge
A handwritten note above Joe Wilson's editorial by Vice President Dick Cheney.Cheney wrote: "Have they done this sort of thing before?" "Send an amb(assador) to answer a question?" "Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? "Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

On May 12, 2006, Fitzgerald filed the Government's response to the Court's inquiry regarding news articles the Government intends to offer as evidence at the trial:

The June 12, 2003, Washington Post article by Mr. Pincus (to whom both Mr. Wilson and the defendant spoke prior to publication of the article) is relevant because Mr. Pincus’ questions to the OVP sparked discussion within the OVP, including conversations between the defendant and the Vice President regarding how Mr. Pincus’ questions should be answered. It was during a conversation concerning Mr. Pincus’ inquiries that the Vice President advised the defendant that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. (To be clear, the government does not contend that the defendant disclosed the employment of Ms. Plame to Mr. Pincus, and Mr. Pincus’s article contains no reference to her or her employment.) The article by Mr. Pincus thus explains the context in which the defendant discussed Mr. Wilson’s wife’s employment with the Vice President. The article also served to increase media attention concerning the then-unnamed ambassador’s trip and further motivated the defendant to counter Mr. Wilson’s assertions, making it more likely that the defendant’s disclosures to the press concerning Mr. Wilson’s wife were not casual disclosures that he had forgotten by the time he was asked about them by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and before the grand jury.[16][17]

Transcripts of Libby's grand jury appearances have also been released.[18]

On May 16, 2006, a transcript of court proceedings before Judge Reggie B. Walton was released. According to that transcript, Libby's lawyers sought communications between Matthew Cooper and Massimo Calabresi, authors of an article published by Time (magazine)|Time]] on July 17, 2003, entitled, "A War on Wilson?" Libby's lawyers contend that Massimo called Joe Wilson after Cooper learned from Karl Rove that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Libby's lawyers also told the judge they have an email Cooper sent to his editor describing a July 12, 2003 conversation with Libby in which there is no mention of Plame or her CIA status. Electronic mail was sent to Cooper's editor on July 16, 2003, "four days after his conversation with Mr. Libby and 5 days after his conversation with Mr. Rove, about the article they are planning to write in which they are going to mention the wife. And the e-mail says -- talks about him having an administration source for the information about Ms. Wilson." Libby's lawyers, thus, sought communications between Massimo and Cooper to determine if Cooper conveyed to Massimo that Libby was a source as well for the information on Wilson's wife:

AND I SUBMIT TO YOUR HONOR THERE IS -- AS YOU CAN SEE, THE CREDIBILITY OF MR. COOPER WITH RESPECT TO HIS DESCRIPTION THAT MR. LIBBY CONFIRMED MR. PLAME'S EMPLOYMENT BY THE C.I.A. IS GOING TO BE VERY MUCH AT ISSUE IN THIS CASE. AND THAT IS WHAT CASES ARE ALL ABOUT. AND WE SHOULD BE ENTITLED TO ANYTHING THAT MR. COOPER HAS SAID OR THAT OTHERS HAVE SAID OR DONE, SUCH AS MR. MASSIMO TALKING TO MR. WILSON ON THE BASIS OF WHAT COOPER SAID. AND THAT KIND OF INFORMATION IS DIRECTLY RELEVANT TO THE CROSS-EXAMINATION, AND WE SUBMIT THAT IT SHOULD BE ENFORCED. AND CERTAINLY WE HAVE ESTABLISHED SPECIFICITY WITH RESPECT TO THAT. THE OTHER THING I WOULD SAY IS THIS IS THE FIRST I HAVE HEARD THAT TIME HAS A DOCUMENT THAT REFERS TO MS. PLAME. NOW, PERHAPS, THAT'S MR. COOPER'S COMMUNICATION WITH MR. MASSIMO, OR PERHAPS IT IS MR. MASSIMO'S NOTES WITH MR. WILSON. I DON'T KNOW, BUT CERTAINLY IF THERE IS A DOCUMENT THAT DOES REFER TO MS. PLAME PRIOR TO JULY 14, WE SUBMIT THAT THAT'S RELEVANT AND SHOULD BE PRODUCED AS WELL. THAT'S ALL I HAVE ON TIME AND COOPER, YOUR HONOR.[19]

On May 26, 2006, Judge Walton ruled on the motion:

However, upon reviewing the documents presented to it, the Court discerns a slight alteration between the several drafts of the articles, which the defense could arguably use to impeach Cooper. This slight alteration between the drafts will permit the defendant to impeach Cooper, regardless of the substance of his trial testimony, because his trial testimony cannot be consistent with both versions. Thus, unlike Miller, whose documents appear internally consistent and thus will only be admissible if she testifies inconsistently with these documents, Cooper’s documents will undoubtedly be admissible. Because of the inevitability that Cooper will be a government witness at trial, this Court can fathom no reason to delay the production of these documents to the defendant, as they will undoubtedly be admissible for impeachment.

For the reasons discussed above, this Court will grant reporter Judith Miller’s motion to quash, and grant in part and deny in part the remaining motions. Therefore, at the appropriate times as designated in this opinion, those documents subject to production must be produced to the defendant so that they can be used as impeachment or contradiction evidence during the trial. In addition, based on the facts of this case, this Court declines to recognize a First Amendment reporters’ privilege. And, the Court concludes that any common law reporters’ privilege that may exist has been overcome by the defendant.[20]

[edit] New grand jury

After a six week break, Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald presented information to a new grand jury on December 8, 2005. Fitzgerald continues to investigate possible criminal charges against senior White House adviser Karl Rove. The term of the previous grand jury expired on the day it indicted Libby.[25]

In separate interviews, Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak and Robert D. Luskin, the attorney for presidential adviser Karl Rove, were questioned under oath about a conversation the longtime friends had over drinks in the first half of 2004. The questions focused on Luskin and Novak discussion about Rove's potential exposure in the probe.[26]

In the Dec. 19, 2005 edition of Time Magazine, Viveca Novak chronicles her involvement in the CIA leak investigation, including her two interviews with Special prosecutor Fitzgerald. During the first interview, V. Novak met with Fitzgerald on Nov. 10 for about two hours in her lawyer's office.[27]

Karl Rove is the only person known to have testified formally before the new grand jury. Rove testified on April 26, 2006 for the fifth time in the case. On June 12, 2006, Rove's attorney stated that he had been formally notified by Fitzgerald that Rove will not be charged with any crimes.[21]

[edit] Government Letters or Memoranda

Letter from James B. Comey, Acting Attorney General, to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney:

By the authority vested in the Attorney General by law, including 28 U.S.C. 509, 510, and 515, and in my capacity as Acting Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 508, I hereby delegate to you 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 I direct you to exercise that authority as Special Counsel independent of the supervision or control of any officer of the Department.[28]

[edit] Notes

  1. ↑ Letter from James B. Comey, Acting Attorney General, to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney Dec. 30, 2003. United States Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel
  2. ↑ Errant former ambassador.Novak, Robert (July 15, 2004). Townhall.com
  3. ↑ What I didn't find in Africa. New York Times Wilson, Joseph (July 6, 2003). reprinted at Common Dreams News Center
  4. ↑  Libby Indictment
  5. ↑  Libby Indictment
  6. ↑  New Grand Jury in CIA Leak Case Hears From Prosecutor Washington Post Carol D. Leonnig December 8, 2005
  7. ↑  Time Reporter Testifies in Leak CaseWashington Post Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei December 9, 2005
  8. ↑  What Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald TIME Magazine Viveca Novak Dec. 19, 2005
  9. ↑  Rove Testifies 5th Time on Leak Washington Post Jim Vandehei April 27, 2006

[edit] References

  1. ^ [1].
  2. ^ [2].
  3. ^ David Corn, "Will Scooter Libby Graymail the CIA?", The Nation February 6, 2006, accessed November 19, 2006.
  4. ^ [3].
  5. ^ [4]
  6. ^ [5].
  7. ^ [6].
  8. ^ [7].
  9. ^ [8].
  10. ^ [9].
  11. ^ [10].
  12. ^ [11].
  13. ^ [12].
  14. ^ [13]
  15. ^ [14].
  16. ^ [15].
  17. ^ [16].
  18. ^ [17].
  19. ^ [18].
  20. ^ [19].
  21. ^ [20]
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[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

[edit] U.S. Court Sites

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