Newsday has interesting background on the subpoenas received by the White House in the Valerie Plame Wilson investigation. I have found that links to Newsday die quickly, so a "fair-use" excerpt will appear in the extension. Briefly, however:
WASHINGTON -- The federal grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity has subpoenaed records of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer's name was published in a column in July, according to documents obtained by Newsday.
Exhale - the subpoenas were issued in January, and the WH has already complied with them [Note: mostly complied, and still working on it, from the WaPo]; Newsday is just building suspense here.
Also sought in the wide-ranging document requests contained in three grand jury subpoenas to the Executive Office of President George W. Bush are records created in July by the White House Iraq Group, a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
And the subpoenas asked for a transcript of a White House spokesman's press briefing in Nigeria, a list of those attending a birthday reception for a former president, and, casting a much wider net than previously reported, records of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets.
The three subpoenas were issued to the White House on Jan. 22, three weeks after Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, was appointed special counsel in the probe and during the first wave of appearances by White House staffers before the grand jury.
...That subpoena also sought a complete transcript of a July 12 press "gaggle," or informal briefing, by then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer while at the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria. That transcript is missing from the White House Web site containing transcripts of other press briefings. In a transcript the White House released at the time to Federal News Service, Fleischer discusses Wilson and his CIA report.
Well, here is a version of the July 12 transcript; here is another at the White House website, but not where one might normally look for it [Mini-Update: The you don't see it, now you do. Seems to have been added on Friday afternoon]. Very careful and coordinated cover-up!
As to content, no obvious smoking gun.
Newsday also says this:
The subpoena with the second production deadline sought all documents from July 6 to July 30 of the White House Iraq Group. In August, the Washington Post published the only account of the group's existence.
So they did, and we were there!
We must reflect to find the deeper meaning here.
UPDATE: Some good comments.
MORE: Headscratching at the NY Times:
...Some lawyers involved in the case said on Friday that the request for additional documents may also indicate that, at least as of late January, prosecutors had not obtained concrete evidence that clearly identified who provided Ms. Plame's name to Mr. Novak. Otherwise, the lawyers said, prosecutors might not have needed to summon witnesses who were known to have testified before the grand jury in February.
...the precise significance of the subpoenas remains unclear. Of five lawyers interviewed this week about the case, none said that they understood the overall status of the investigation or whether the prosecutors had a working theory of how Mr. Novak had obtained Ms. Plame's name.
The lawyers said that they believed, however, that the prosecutors were nearing a turning point when they would decide whether to charge anyone with a crime or drop the case.
MORE: We paste in the list of those subpoenaed, and note (with a prompt from Mark Kleiman) the absence of Clifford May of the NRO. Is he not big media, do they accept his statement of non-White House sources, or was he overlooked?
[Begin Newsday Excerpt]
Subpoenas for White House
BY TOM BRUNE
WASHINGTON BUREAU
March 5, 2004
WASHINGTON -- The federal grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity has subpoenaed records of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer's name was published in a column in July, according to documents obtained by Newsday.
Also sought in the wide-ranging document requests contained in three grand jury subpoenas to the Executive Office of President George W. Bush are records created in July by the White House Iraq Group, a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
And the subpoenas asked for a transcript of a White House spokesman's press briefing in Nigeria, a list of those attending a birthday reception for a former president, and, casting a much wider net than previously reported, records of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets.
The three subpoenas were issued to the White House on Jan. 22, three weeks after Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, was appointed special counsel in the probe and during the first wave of appearances by White House staffers before the grand jury.
The investigation seeks to determine if anyone violated federal law that prohibits officials with security clearances from intentionally or knowingly disclosing the identity of an undercover agent.
The subpoenas underscore indications that the initial stages of the investigation have focused largely on the White House staff members most involved in shaping the administration's message on Iraq, and appear to be based in part on specific information already gathered by investigators, attorneys said yesterday.
Fitzgerald's spokesman declined to comment.
Report on Iraq, uranium
The investigation arose in part out of concerns that Bush administration officials had called reporters to circulate the name of the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, in an attempt to discredit the criticism of the administration's Iraq policy by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
In 2002, Wilson went to Niger at the behest of the CIA to check out reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium "yellow cake" to develop nuclear weapons. He reported that Iraq sought commercial ties but that businessmen said the Iraqis didn't try to buy uranium.
All three subpoenas were sent to employees of the Executive Office of the President under a Jan. 26 memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez saying production of the documents, which include phone messages, e-mails and handwritten notes, was "mandatory" and setting a Jan. 29 deadline.
"The president has always said we would fully comply with the investigation, and the White House counsel's office has directed the staff to fully comply," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said yesterday.
The Novak column
Two of the subpoenas focus mainly on White House records, events and contacts in July, both before and after the July 14 column by Robert Novak that said "two senior administration officials" told him Plame was a CIA officer.
The third subpoena repeats an informal Justice Department document request to the White House last fall seeking records about staff contacts with Novak and two Newsday reporters, Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps, who reported on July 22 that Plame was a covert agent and Novak had blown her cover.
The subpoena added journalists including Mike Allen and Dana Priest of the Washington Post, Michael Duffy of Time magazine, Andrea Mitchell of NBC's "Meet the Press," Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball," and reporters from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Associated Press. There have been no reports of journalists being subpoeaned.
The subpoenas required the White House to produce the documents in three stages - the first on Jan. 30, a second on Feb. 4 and the third on Feb. 6 - even as White House aides began appearing before the grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C.
The subpoena with the first production deadline sought three sets of documents.
Requests for records
It requested records of telephone calls to and from Air Force One from July 7 to 12, while Bush was visting several nations in Africa. The White House declined yesterday to release a list of those on the trip.
That subpoena also sought a complete transcript of a July 12 press "gaggle," or informal briefing, by then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer while at the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria. That transcript is missing from the White House Web site containing transcripts of other press briefings. In a transcript the White House released at the time to Federal News Service, Fleischer discusses Wilson and his CIA report.
Finally, the subpoena requested a list of those in attendance at the White House reception on July 16 for former President Gerald Ford's 90th birthday. The White House at the time announced the reception would honor Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, but said the event was closed to the press. The White House yesterday declined to release the list and the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, which paid for the event, did not return phone calls. The subpoena with the second production deadline sought all documents from July 6 to July 30 of the White House Iraq Group. In August, the Washington Post published the only account of the group's existence.
A little-known group
It met weekly in the Situation Room, the Post said, and its regular participants included senior political adviser Karl Rove; communication strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; policy advisers led by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen J. Hadley; and I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Wilson alleged in September that Rove was involved in the leak but a day later pulled back from that, asserting that Rove had "condoned" it.
Hughes left the White House in the summer of 2002. Matalin, who left at the end of 2002, did not return a call for comment. Matalin appeared before the grand jury Jan. 23, the day after the subpoenas were issued.
The subpoena with the last production date repeated the Justice Department's informal request to the White House last fall for documents from Feb. 1, 2002, through 2003 related to Wilson's February 2002 trip to Niger, to Plame and to contacts with journalists.
Current White House press secretary Scott McClellan, press aide Claire Buchan and former press aide Adam Levine have told reporters they appeared before the grand jury Feb. 6. At least five others have reportedly been questioned.
MORE: The subpoena list:
A federal grand jury has subpoenaed White House records on administration contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets in a special investigation into the improper leak of a covert CIA official's identity to columnist Robert Novak last July. They include:
Robert Novak, "Crossfire," "Capital Gang" and the Chicago Sun-Times
Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps, Newsday
Walter Pincus, Richard Leiby, Mike Allen, Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
Matthew Cooper, John Dickerson, Massimo Calabresi, Michael Duffy and James Carney, Time magazine
Evan Thomas, Newsweek
Andrea Mitchell, "Meet the Press," NBC
Chris Matthews, "Hardball," MSNBC
Tim Russert, Campbell Brown, NBC
Nicholas D. Kristof, David E. Sanger and Judith Miller, The New York Times
Greg Hitt and Paul Gigot, The Wall Street Journal
John Solomon, The Associated Press
Jeff Gannon, Talon News
You were right -- it looks like the White House Iraq Group is in the middle of this.
The Newsday story opens up a lot of interesting lines:
Was the Air Force One telephone used to out Plame while Bush was on his 5 day Africa trip? If so, this scandal starts to get uncomfortably close to Bush. We know that Ari and Condi travelled with Bush. Who else was on the plane?
Five reporters are named, including a couple of new ones.
Since the Ford birthday celebration on July 16 was an occasion to honor Alan Greenspan, it is probable that Andrea Mitchell was there. Maybe someone from WHIG took her aside an whispered in her ear about Plame being "fair game."
Posted by: rlm | March 05, 2004 at 12:42 PM
The Novak column was published on the 14th; the Corn response came out on the 16th. Ms. Plame really was "fair game" at that point, although the investigation also covers reporters from TIME and Newsday, who reported a bit later.
I can feel my thinking cap not working here. I can't guess why someone from the Vice-President's staff would be on the trip, which seems to help Libby; OTOH, the Air Force One telephone logs might just be sought to complete the file, so to speak. And if Libby (back in Washington?) talked to Rice or Bush, so what? They surely have other things to chat about beside Amb. Wilson.
Looks like I picked a bad day to give up crystal meth.
Posted by: TM | March 05, 2004 at 01:18 PM
Super coverage! I'm not sure what it all means, but this is definitely the place to get the scoop. Thanks, TM.
Posted by: Cecil Turner | March 05, 2004 at 05:08 PM
And a "Welcome back" to Mr. Turner himself. I'm taking heart from the fact that this story isn't grabbing you as key-critical, either.
Posted by: TM | March 05, 2004 at 05:26 PM
Newsday has just posted a follow-up story. And I think it's bigger than you realize.
The Fleischer briefing is supportive evidence that there was a conscious discredit-Wilson strategy before the Novak column saw print. And if any of those Air Force One calls were to certain reporters ...
Posted by: stiffled | March 05, 2004 at 09:23 PM
Sorry Swopa, I don't see it. Fleischer pointed out some of the same glaring inconsistencies in Wilson's story we've been belaboring for months. (E.g., "Niger" isn't the same as "Africa," and "pursued" isn't the same as "bought.") If there's anything incriminating about the gaggle, it's that Fleischer clearly isn't very well-versed on the subject, and appears to have had material provided by someone else.
Posted by: Cecil Turner | March 05, 2004 at 10:40 PM
That's a good point, "stiffled". Fleischer mentions Wilson at the July 7 press briefing; Tenet describes the Wilson report on July 11; and then Fleischer is a lot more critical of Wilson on July 12, and refers to Tenet's report.
If Tenet's report signaled open season on Wilson, it's easy to believe some of the African trippers were involved in at least discussing how the Wilson angle should be presented. OTOH, Ms. Rice, July 13, doesn't slam Wilson.
As an aside, the July 12 transcript has found its proper home on the WH website. Spooky.
Posted by: TM | March 05, 2004 at 11:15 PM
Another note -- the official White House line, as quoted by Joshua Marshall and the WaPo, is that they are "still in the process of complying fully" with the subpoenas.
Posted by: stiffled | March 06, 2004 at 12:02 AM
Well, a "nothing to worry about" argument would be that we always knew the WH phone logs and contacts would be subpoenaed; once we are reminded that a big chunk of the WH staff was on the African trip, those phone records come into play too.
*Very* modest support for the "no big deal" theory comes from this description of Air Force One communications, the gist of which seems to be, the sytem seems to connect back to the WH switchboard, which then completes the call to the wider world. If that is still true, the relevant phone records would be with the WH switchboard in Washington anyway, and what is taking so long to comply?
Posted by: TM | March 06, 2004 at 08:29 AM
TM,
White House communications is a zoo, especially on a trip. For example, they have to be ready to run a nuclear war from wherever the President is, and that requires a bunch of complex, highly encrypted comm links. They also have to switch into the State Department comm links for the diplomats. All the logs are classified, and it's all very sensitive. AIUI the brains of the system are all back at the White House, but in any event it's not a simple matter of running down to the local phone company. Like the earlier requests for daily briefings, these very quickly run into high-level national security considerations, and those who don't appreciate that are unfamiliar with the process.
Posted by: Cecil Turner | March 06, 2004 at 09:44 AM