Dec 11 2005

Fitzgerald’s Ham Sandwich

Published by at 11:41 am under All General Discussions,Plame Game

Viveca Novak has done us all agreat service in her recount of events with incredibly not serious Fitxgerald. Someone needs to remind the fool imperfect memories about marginal issues from years ago is not a crime. Novak’s penning of her encounter illustrates why details and times cannot be recalled by most of us, and what it feels like for a press with loose speculations to run amok:

A new meeting with Fitzgerald was arranged for Dec. 8. Leaks about my role began appearing in the papers, some of them closer to the mark than others. They all made me feel physically ill. Fitzgerald had asked that I check a couple of dates in my calendar for meetings with Luskin. One of them, March 1, 2004, checked out. I hadn’t found that one in my first search because I had erroneously entered it as occurring at 5 a.m., not 5 p.m.

When Fitzgerald and I met last Thursday, along with another lawyer from his team, my attorney, a lawyer from Time Inc. and the court reporter, he was more focused. The problem with the new March date was that now I was even more confused–previously I had to try to remember if the key conversation had occurred in January or May, and I thought it was more likely May. But March was close enough to May that I really didn’t know. “I don’t remember” is an answer that prosecutors are used to hearing, but I was mortified about how little I could recall of what occurred when.

I would hope the press’ experience in this waste of time makes clear why we cannot trivialize and politicize free speech. There was no crime here and Fizgerald is looking the fool because has proven the old saying that any prosector can indict a ham sandwich.

What has changed in recent times is most prosecutors had too much pride in themselves and the law to indict ham sandwiches. They knew the law was too important to trivialize in this manners. Fitzgerald is not that kind of lawyer – obviously. And if Fitzgerald cannot indict Rove of perjury or obstruction of justice:

Does what I remembered–or more often, didn’t remember–of my interactions with Luskin matter? Will it make the difference between whether Rove gets indicted or not? I have no idea. I didn’t find out until this fall that, according to Luskin, my remark led him to do an intensive search for evidence that Rove and Matt had talked. That’s how Luskin says he found the e-mail Rove wrote to Stephen Hadley at the National Security Council right after his conversation with Matt, saying that Matt had called about welfare reform but then switched to the subject of Iraq’s alleged attempt to buy uranium yellowcake in Niger. According to Luskin, he turned the e-mail over to Fitzgerald when he found it, leading Rove to acknowledge before the grand jury in October 2004 that he had indeed spoken with Cooper.

Rove and his attorney discovered their assumptions, based on an inaccurate information search, were wrong and corrected the record when they found out.

The true test for Fitzgerald is to see if he has any self respect left and closes this case up. The Libby indictment was foolish enough.

Tom Maguire’s take is here. He has a great questions:

And folks who whacked Bob Woodward for failing to disclose his little leak situation to his editor had better strap themselves down and take a sedative before reading Ms. Novak’s account. My question – are Mr. Woodward and Ms. Novak the only two reporters in Washington who don’t talk to their editors about every little (and not so little) thing? Or is keeping the boss in the dark a much more common journalistic practice than the hand-wringing about Woodward might have suggested?

My guess is it is a very common practice, since reporter’s are very secretive about their sources.

19 responses so far

19 Responses to “Fitzgerald’s Ham Sandwich”

  1. Snapple says:

    This reporter seems nonplussed that she was manipulated and used as a source by Luskin, as if that is against the rules or something. If you are interviewing Rove’s lawyer, presumably you aren’t in the minor league. These reporters are taking sides. They shouldn’t be surprised if these guys play hardball with them.

    AJ–this link may be a bit off-topic, but this link does have to do with exposing Saddam’s relationships with our presumed allies and known enemies in the run-up to the war.

    LINK

    “FOR THE SECOND TIME IN recent weeks the Department of Defense has denied a request from The Weekly Standard to release unclassified documents recovered in postwar Iraq. These documents apparently reveal, in some detail, activities of Saddam Hussein’s regime in the years before the war….As a consequence, the ongoing debate over the Iraq war and its origins is taking place without crucial information about the former Iraqi regime and its relationships with presumed U.S. allies and known U.S. enemies. “

  2. Snapple says:

    The lady reporter Novak writes:
    “I began spending a little more time than usual with Luskin as I tried to keep track of the investigation. But how it all bought me a ticket to testify under oath to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald still floors me. ”

    She sounds a little out of her league to be interviewing Rove’s lawyer.

    I wonder if the administration is wanting to get these reporters into court so their schemes can be exposed.

    The press is supposed to be the guardians of our democracy, but if reporters are the operatives for a partisan opposition–or worse–then they should not be surprised if they get bloodied.

    If their partinost draws them into the active measures of people who are making money off the likes of Saddam, then they should be shocked, shocked to find themselves in the dock.

  3. Snapple says:

    Correction: then they should NOT be shocked, shocked to find themselves in the dock.

  4. mary mapes says:

    AJ
    Timing is everything, even desperate timing I guess

    French Told CIA of Bogus Intelligence

    Dec. 10, 2005

    “PARIS — More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa, the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation….

    …However, the essence of Chouet’s account — that the French repeatedly investigated the Niger claim, found no evidence to support it, and warned the CIA — was extensively corroborated by the former CIA official and a current French government official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The repeated warnings from France’s Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure did not prevent the Bush administration from making the case aggressively that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons materials.”

    There are more nuggets in the story but what is striking…this info runs totally counter to the Senate Intelligence Report (i.e. The French were NOT debunking).

    I found it intriguing that desperate Chouet is NOW saying that Rocco only OFFERED to sell them to Francs. Conventional reporting has been that Italy was the ONLY (besides US) country that didn’t buy them…and just who IS the Retired CIA official who would have knowledge of the French secret communiqués coming from “Chouet, who directed a 700-person intelligence unit specializing in weapons proliferation and terrorism. ”

    AJ I think that people are scared. Is it any wonder, since the FBI and Italian Intelligence are working together?

  5. Plame Game – Missing the Story

    What story? You know, the old “who told who what about the covert operative that wasn’t covert therefore no law was broken so what in the hell is Fitzgerald still sucking up our tax dollars for in this boondoggle? story.

  6. Seixon says:

    How convenient that Mr. Chouet hasn’t come forward with this until now. You know, when his former intelligence agency, and by extension himself, are under threat of being perceived as the producers or peddlers of this faulty intelligence.

    I loved his rebuttal to why the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director for Nonproliferation contacted the USA in the end of November 2002 about them having intelligence showing Iraq had attempted to get uranium from Niger. It was in essence “well, they didn’t know what they were talking about, we didn’t share this info with them”.

    So you might ask, who told them that they had intelligence showing this? Did Foreign Affairs just make it up out of nothing? Hardly.

    I think it’s time we pushed the CIA to declassify a lot more of that SSCI report to see just how involved the French were in this, and why Chouet is conducting an immense push-back campaign only now.

  7. mary mapes says:

    push-back campaign only now.

    you think the “re-opening” of the investigation has anything to do with it?

  8. The Heretik says:

    KARL ROVE PRISON B***H

    MORE OF THE MAXIMUM from Karl Rove behind bars. The latest in The Heretik’s exclusive jail house interview: all about the other Novak. KARL ROVE May god bless or damn reporters like Viveca Novak. A reporter who leaves herself

  9. axiom says:

    You would think that once Mitterand was defeated in the French elections that Chouet would be more vocal in his communications with the United States. True, the Chirac government was now running French foreign policy, they were still publicly against an invasion of Iraq as was the Mitterand government.

    However, I still do not think the French were privately against this war. They stood to gain as much from an invasion as any other nation. They wanted to do business in Iraq and replacing Saddam was the best way to increase that business without having to face obstruction at the UN from the UK/US group.

    All the talk after the fact is just to enhance the public message prior to invasion.

  10. Snapple says:

    Dear TOTHEBOTTOM,

    So what are you saying? That these nomadic Tuaregs are moving the uranium on their caravan routes through the desert to Libya?

  11. mary mapes says:

    Snap,
    What does that mean? I think that is the closest interpretation as I can see.

  12. tothebottom says:

    Link 1

    Link 2

    Link 3

    edited by AJStrata

  13. tothebottom says:

    [PDF] THER OUNTRIES OF FRICA
    File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
    through Agadez. The 651-km section of the road between. essentially all Precambrian
    basement—mostly granite. Arlit and Tahoua is called the “uranium road. …
    minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/ pubs/country/1994/9247094.pdf

    [PDF] Evr409 RA BIA-NIGER 2004-9.qxd
    File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
    Agence d’Agadez. BP 148 – Agadez. Tél. : (227) 44 04 05. Fax : (227) 44 04 80
    … Principale source de devises, l’uranium (3200 tonnes produi- …
    http://www.belgolaise.com/documents/fr/ actu/rapp_annu/2005/05_rapport_2004_bianiger.pdf

    [PDF] Exploitations et état des ressources naturelles au Niger
    File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
    les pays d’Afrique centrale (Cameroun et Gabon surtout) et la Libye, … Arlit,
    la ville de l’uranium, située au nord d’Agadez: 16 506 hab. …
    http://www.ibimet.cnr.it/Case/document/env_nig.pdf

  14. tothebottom says:

    google
    Agadez Gabon uranium

  15. sbd says:

    Having fooled the entire world into believing that the government of Libya was not producing WMD, Gadaffi got even bolder and purchased the right to Uranium in exchange for oil.


    GADDAFI EXTENDS INFLUENCE WITH OIL DEAL The Times September 14, 2002

    Copyright 2002 Financial Times InformationAll rights reservedGlobal News Wire – Europe Intelligence Wire  Copyright 2002 The Times  The TimesSeptember 14, 2002LENGTH: 466 wordsHEADLINE: GADDAFI EXTENDS INFLUENCE WITH OIL DEALBYLINE: Daniel McGrory BODY: WITH a flick of his pen, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has taken another step to becoming the richest and most powerful leader in Africa.The Libyan dictator is reported to have signed a lucrative deal with the Central African Republic giving him the sole right to exploit oil and mineral resources for 99 years. The colonel has been secretly negotiating for months with the republic, which is rich in gold, diamond, oil and uranium. Revelations of the colonel’s latest monopoly deal came as the Libyan regime renewed its $ 360 million (Pounds 230 million) contract to supply Zimbabwe with oil in exchange for a massive stake in the nation’s main assets.Neighbouring governments are perturbed at the colonel’s takeovers, complaining that the continent’s most valuable resources are being bought on the cheap. The West is monitoring the acquisitions closely.Colonel Gaddafi’s officials in Tripoli say that this is simply his way of supporting his African brothers, using Libya’s oil money to bail them out.Western diplomats believe that it is a blatant attempt to buy votes and influence countries in the proposed African Union. One senior envoy described it as the colonel’s "new colonisation of Africa".Gail Wannenburg, of the South Africa Institute for International Affairs, said: "Colonel Gaddafi is buying favours. He wants to dominate the new African Union and during his recent trip across southern Africa he was handing out money left, right and centre."The colonel has reportedly taken a stake in Mozambique’s oil infrastructure, made investments in Namibia and Malawi that have yet to be fully revealed, as well as increasing his stake in Zimbabwe. "He is also reported to be paying off the debts of up to ten countries and will pay their dues to this new union, which he wants based in Tripoli," Ms Wannenburg said. "There will be economic benefits, but the priority is influence."The deal with the war-torn Central African Republic comes a year after Libyan troops crushed an army revolt and is seen as a reward for ensuring that President Patasse stays in power. Libyan units remain to protect the President.In the capital, Bangui, Andre Nalke Dorogo, the Minister of Mines, said yesterday that the agreement with Libya had been signed in June. It is a snub to the French interests that have dominated its former colony since independence in 1960. France withdrew its troops in 1998 after helping to control a series of mutinies.Mr Dorogo said that the republic would benefit from the taxes paid by the Societe Africaine Libyenne d’Investissement, which was created to oversee exploration of resources.Paul Bellet, the main opposition leader, said he was angry that this deal had not been approved by parliament and it could not stand until it was.JOURNAL-CODE: FTMSLOAD-DATE: September 16, 2002

  16. sbd says:

    Let me try to clean that up a bit.

    Global News Wire — Europe Intelligence Wire
    Copyright 2002 The Times
    September 14, 2002

    HEADLINE: GADDAFI EXTENDS INFLUENCE WITH OIL DEAL
    BYLINE: Daniel McGrory
    BODY:
    WITH a flick of his pen, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has taken another step to becoming the richest and most powerful
    leader in Africa.
    The Libyan dictator is reported to have signed a lucrative deal with the Central African Republic giving him the sole right to exploit oil and mineral resources for 99 years. The colonel has been secretly negotiating for months with the republic, which is rich in gold, diamond, oil and uranium.
    Revelations of the colonel’s latest monopoly deal came as the Libyan regime renewed its $360 million (Pounds 230 million) contract to supply Zimbabwe with oil in exchange for a massive stake in the nation’s main assets.
    Neighbouring governments are perturbed at the colonel’s takeovers, complaining that the continent’s most valuable resources are being bought on the cheap. The West is monitoring the acquisitions closely.
    Colonel Gaddafi’s officials in Tripoli say that this is simply his way of supporting his African brothers, using Libya’s oil money to bail them out.Western diplomats believe that it is a blatant attempt to buy votes and influence countries in the proposed African Union. One senior envoy described it as the colonel’s “new colonisation of Africa”.
    Gail Wannenburg, of the South Africa Institute for International Affairs, said: “Colonel Gaddafi is buying favours. He wants to dominate the new African Union and during his recent trip across southern Africa he was handing out money left, right and centre.”
    The colonel has reportedly taken a stake in Mozambique’s oil infrastructure, made investments in Namibia and Malawi
    that have yet to be fully revealed, as well as increasing his stake in Zimbabwe. “He is also reported to be paying off the debts of up to ten countries and will pay their dues to this new union, which he wants based in Tripoli,” Ms Wannenburg said. “There will be economic benefits, but the priority is influence.”
    The deal with the war–torn Central African Republic comes a year after Libyan troops crushed an army revolt and is seen as a reward for ensuring that President Patasse stays in power. Libyan units remain to protect the President.
    In the capital, Bangui, Andre Nalke Dorogo, the Minister of Mines, said yesterday that the agreement with Libya had
    been signed in June. It is a snub to the French interests that have dominated its former colony since independence in 1960.
    France withdrew its troops in 1998 after helping to control a series of mutinies.

    Mr Dorogo said that the republic would benefit from the taxes paid by the Societe Africaine Libyenne d’Investissement, which was created to oversee exploration of resources. Paul Bellet, the main opposition leader, said he was angry that this deal had not been approved by parliament and it could not stand until it was.

    SBD

  17. sbd says:

    Axium,

    France did not want the US to invade Iraq and get rid of Saddam because he was their ally and fueled the French hope that the “Petrodollar” would die a sudden death once the sanctions were lifted. Back in 2000, Saddam decided to strike back at the US by demanding all “oil for food” sales of Iraqi oil be sold in Euros rather than the dollar. Ten Billion dollars were exchanged into Euros from the escro account of the French BNP Paribas sometime before September 11, 2001. Saddam made off like a bandit after the attack as the dollar fell and the Euro rose. If Opec were to switch the oil currency to the Euro, the US economy could be compared to that of a third world country, practically over night.

    Read this essay which makes the case, although with a bias to the left as far as the justification for the war.

    Revisited – The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq:
    A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth

    SBD

  18. Snapple says:

    There are two articles today that suggest that they are going after Rove. I am so depressed. The bad guys are really trying to hobble our ability to defend our country.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512140829.asp

    http://www.newsobserver.com/114/story/377675.html

    And for something really scary, check out this blogger–probably it is the infamous Ward Churchill. http://www.tryworks.blogspot.com