Discrepancies, Real And Imagined

Dan Froomkin of the WaPo does a good job of rounding up press coverage of the Plame investigation.  We are especially drawn to the Saturday WaPo article telling us that Special Counsel Fitzgerald is puzzling over discrepancies in the testimony of Rove and Libby; the article follows up to the Friday column by Mr. Froomkin with a similar theme.

From the Saturday article, we extract this area of bafflement:

Libby has testified that he learned about Plame from NBC correspondent Tim Russert, according to a source who spoke with The Washington Post some months ago. Russert said in a statement last year that he told the prosecutor that "he did not know Ms. Plame's name or that she was a CIA operative" and that he did not provide such information to Libby in July 2003.

Mike Isikoff of Newsweek purports to tell us more about Russert's saga, but it is hard to tell whether he has gone beyond the account from August 2004.  However, Isikoff has certainly removed the ambiguity from the NBC press release behind which Russert hid last week in the Liptak/Times article.  Here is what NBC said last year:

Russert told Fitzgerald that he did not know Plame’s name or that she was a CIA operative and that he did not provide that information to Libby, it said.

Ahh, but did Tim tell Libby that Wilson's wife was an analyst at the CIA?  Maybe Russert passed along a bare outline with no name and no "operative" - is NBC being cute with a carefully phrased denial?

Who knows?  In the cautious hands of Mr. Isikoff, NBC's statement morphs into this:

An NBC statement last year said Russert did not know of Plame, wife of ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, or that she worked at the CIA, and "he did not provide that information to Libby."

Well, that is certainly *not* what the NBC statement said, although they may have hoped people would draw those conclusions (and it's working!).

Tim Russert himself mentioned his involvement on "Meet The Press", although he did not exert himself to bring clarity to his role:

MR. RUSSERT:  There has to be an original source, somebody.

MR. GREGORY:  Yes.

MS. TOTENBERG:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  Even if it came from a reporter...

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...the reporter got it from someplace.

MS. TOTENBERG:  Right.  And...

MR. RUSSERT:  But I was asked what I said.  I did not know.

Well, I don't know, either.

A second discrepancy is this:

Rove has testified thathe and Cooper talked about welfare reform foremost and turned to the topic of Plame only near the end, lawyers involved in the case said. But Cooper, writing about his testimony in the most recent issue of Time, said he "can't find any record of talking about" welfare reform. "I don't recall doing so," Cooper wrote.

Steve Spruiell (One, two)  and Byron York of the NRO cover this.  Briefly: (1) there is a contemporaneous e-mail from Rove to Hadley in which Rove states that "Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare-reform story coming"; (2) Matt Cooper writes in TIME that he left a message with Rove that he wanted to talk about welfare reform; (3) Bush signed a three month extension of the welfare reform bill on June 30, so the subject was topical.  Advantage - Rove.

In any case, as a stand-alone item this sort of discrepancy is immaterial, although it may be useful to Fitzgerald as a guide to the credibility and memory of the witnesses.

A third area of concern seems to be a creative invention by the folks at Bloomberg - here is Dan Froomkin's Friday summary:

White House chief political strategist Karl Rove reportedly told the grand jury that he first learned of Valerie Plame's identity from columnist Robert Novak -- but Novak's version of the story is that Rove already knew about her when the two spoke.

Groan.  Steve Spruiell is also good on this.  Briefly, in the early accounts of Rove's testimony (Times, WaPo) the story is that Rove had previously heard that Wilson's wife was involved in sending Wilson to Niger, but that Rove learned her *name*, i.e., her *identity*, from Novak.  That hardly conflicts with Novak's claim that Rove knew the broad story previously.

CNN/TIME reviews the case, and gives us a pleasant surprise in discussing possible motives for the leakers:

What was the point of Rove or anyone else bringing up Plame in the first place? Was he saying Wilson was tainted by his close association with the CIA, whose analysts had generally been too skeptical of the Iraqi threat for the administration's taste?

The tensions between the White House and the CIA had been rising steadily in the months before the Iraq invasion, as CIA analysts complained about evidence being distorted or ignored and the White House pushed back with complaints about the quality of the intel they were getting. "I know the analyst who was subjected to withering questioning on the Iraq-- al-Qaeda links by Libby with the Vice President sitting there," says a CIA analyst. "So I think there was an anger at the CIA for not getting it and not being on board. The political side of the Administration was pissed at the CIA. So I can see how they responded to that--and Wilson--by implying he couldn't be trusted because, 'well, just look where his wife works.'"

Or, more personally, was Rove suggesting that Wilson was chosen not for his expertise but because his wife was trying to help him stay in the game? Certainly Rove distorted her role when he claimed she had authorized the trip. "She was not in a position to send Joe Wilson anywhere except to bed without his supper," says Larry Johnson, a Plame classmate at the CIA who later worked on Central American issues for the agency and then moved to the State Department as a counterterrorism officer. According to a declassified July 7, 2004, report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, it was Plame's boss, the deputy chief of the CIA's counterproliferation division, who authorized the trip. He did so after Plame "offered up" her husband's name for the Niger mission, according to the report. In a February 12, 2002, memo to her boss, Plame wrote that "my husband has good relations with both the PM [Prime Minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."

That means Wilson was also shading the story: "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," he wrote in his 2004 book The Politics of Truth. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip." When asked last week by TIME if he still denies that she was the origin of his involvement in the trip, he avoided answering. But he has maintained all along that Administration officials conducted a "smear job" on him and outed his wife in revenge.

Well.  TIME has come a long way from Cooper's credulous "The War on Wilson" two years ago.

Comments

[MeTooThen]

Joe Jackson,

Ritalin.

As for my country?

Hmmm.

Well, I have provided much needed medical care to almost 20,000 of my fellow citizens, saving many hundreds of lives over the past 16 years.

Does that count?

And yes, it would be tons of people.

Hey, Joseph Charles Wilson IV and MeTooThen, together at last!

Joined in the savings of tons of people.

Yes.

It feels that good.

But enough about me, let's talk about you.

No wait, let's not.

[Joe Jackson]

MeTooThen,

Only 20,000? I've done thrice that and it didn't take me 16 years to do it.

Look, put your blood where your mouth is. If you like the war so much, either fight it or send your kids. Don't let others do the dirty work for you just to allay your fears.

[kim]

Who likes the war, Joe? We fight it so we don't have to fight others.
=================================================

[MeTooThen]

Joe Jackson,

Boing.

Troll Alarm.

End.of.Discussion.

Joe, I was almost enjoying this.

Not.Any.More.

Nope.

Won't go there.

Not with a troll.

You see, I'm a Trollophobe.

But I will say this.

Whatever, troll!

Now run along.

Really.

[kim]

Really.

Except I'm getting a little kick out of watching the bile drool out on the ground.
===================================================

[Joe Jackson]

As I've said before, I am a voice of Truth and Reason. Some of the seeds of this truth will fall on barren rock. Others will germinate but be choked by weeds. Still others will grow but will die quickly because their roots have no purchase. I just throw the seeds. I can't make soil where there is none.

[Jeff]

CT - That is fair enough, more or less, we disagree over the meaning and significance of the line you hang on. This brings me back to what tends to bother me: why couldn't the Bush administration just say, Look, the intelligence is inconclusive at best -- maybe there's even strong indications that Saddam does not represent much of a threat -- but we can't take our chances with this guy, regardless of what the intelligence says. He very well may not have WMD, WMD programs, WMD-program-related activities, but still, we can all agree he's a really bad guy, and he did some really bad stuff in the not-so-recent but also not-so-distant past, so even though the current regime appears to have Saddam nicely contained and boxed in, still we have to worry about him in general. In other words, speak honestly to the American people and then have a democratic debate about going to war.

And one important difference with your account: you say, "the point was simply that CIA analysts were being pressed for a definitive answer on Iraq's WMD programs." It seemed to me at the time and it seems to me still that CIA analysts were being pressed for a particulardefinitive answer, not just for a definitive answer one way or the other, as your characterization seems to suggest.

[kim]

You are fine, Joe, until your Quote Generator Randomly lands on one of your own. Otherwise, the fiber of your quotations is like the backing on which the warp and woof of a real conversation can be woven.
================================================

[kim]

Jeff, that really is the coversation we had, the Senate debated it and approved all seven or so reasons for war. Then Joe Wilson came along with his lies, the Democrats thought it was the mortal stroke against Bush, and we've not been able to have a decent political conversation since.

Do you see why I despise Joe Wilson so much?
==============================================

[Jeff]

No, kim, that's not the conversation we had. If it were, there just would not have been and there would not be so much discussion of WMD, alleged Iraq-al Quaeda ties, and so on. The president's defenders would just have no reason to push those points; they would be irrelevant. But they're not.

I won't even touch the tremendous causal power you attribute to Wilson's op-ed. To say nothing of the implication -- do you accept it -- that before Wilson came along Democrats were participants in a decent political conversation?

[kim]

Look, the conversation went on. It was about 80-20 that Saddam needed taking out. It was only the 'apparent' failure of 'one' of the rationales for war that has incorrectly slanted public perception of what went on. That 'appearance' was created by Joe Wilson's lie.

Post-war reports by Duelfer and Rossett have confirmed that Saddam was even more dangerous than feared. You do not argue with that, do you? Or whether or not Saddam needed to be removed? Let's hear it.
=================================================

[Karl]

Didn't everyone reading this thread already know that Joe J. was throwing his seed all over the place?

[docob]

"As I've said before, I am a voice of Truth and Reason."

What an impossibly self-important statement!

You'd be amusing if your chickenhawk bullshit didn't drag you into the category of despicable.

[kim]

Maybe with a little of that manure, and some work, he could cultivate a little area, nurture his seed, and so on.

Just sayin'
===================================================

[kim]

Jackson and the Beanstalk.

Fee, fie, fo, fum.
I smell the blood of a liberum.
==================================================

[Jeff]

kim, could you please specify and/or link to the parts of the reports that you refer to, which you say confirmed that Saddam was even more dangerous than we feared. And please explain your criteria, and the facts that meet them, for the claim that Saddam needed to be removed. Then maybe we can argue about it. Thanks.

[kim]

You see it in black and white. Saddam have WMD = Danger. Saddam no have WMD = No Danger.

I'm speaking of looking at it with a little nuance.

Case A: Saddam monitored, no-flied, in poss. of WMD, possibly sneaking it to terrorists.

Case B: Saddam consistently, singlemindedly, preserving all WMD capability possible, conserving the means to regain WMD capability(Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological) and intending to use them surreptitiously with terrorists and publicly, nationally, in conjunction with his not pusillanimous armed forces.

Case A was what we thought of Saddam pre-war. Case B was actual fact pre-war. Which was a more dangerous Saddam? The perception or the reality?

Now given that, and Bush was given less, you would agree to invade, is that not so?

I've also claimed for awhile that Bush is a lucky man. Even though large scale WMD have not yet been found, Saddam was even more evil and dangerous than we feared.

And that's the way it is.
=================================================

[jukeboxgrad]

LES: "Did the conversation just happen to 'turn' by itself, or did Cooper bring up her husband's trip to Niger?"

According to Cooper, he mentioned Wilson and then Rove mentioned Plame. Luskin very noticeably declined to deny this. Instead he offers some pathetic and highly questionable spin but he says nothing to dispute the essential facts ("Rove did not mention her name to Cooper ... This was not an effort to encourage Time to disclose her identity. What he was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren't true." [link]).

[jukeboxgrad]

DWILKERS:

First you said "Its hard to see anyone getting prosecuted for outing Plame when she appears to have been already 'out' for years."

Then you said: "we still don't know why Miller is in jail, and I think there has to be a really compelling reason for a Federal Judge to lock her up - not just refusing to talk but refusing to talk about something *important*."

Here's what the judge said: "the information she [Miller] was given and her potential use of it was a crime" (link).

I think this remark by the judge is the answer to your second comment, and also indicates the incorrectness of your first comment.

TM: "a simple, non-conspiratorial explanation for the importance of Judy Miller would be that Libby said 'I first heard about Plame from Russert or Miller'."

Note what the judge said: "the information she [Miller] was given and her potential use of it was a crime" (link).

This tends to create the impression that there is concern about what Miller heard, not what Miller said.

[jukeboxgrad]

METOOTHEN: "Would RovEvil give his consent to Miller for her to reveal to all the world that he 'outed' Plame?"

Rove did already give that consent, in the form of a blanket waiver. But Miller seems to be taking the same position that Cooper took, that such waivers are coerced and therefore not genuine.

The interesting difference between the Cooper situation and the Miller situation is this. In the former, Luskin said "if Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source, it's not Karl he's protecting" (link).

The interesting thing is that Luskin has never made such a statement about Miller. I wonder why not? (For those who claim Miller is protecting someone other than Rove, how do you explain this?) Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Luskin put his foot in his mouth once (by making that statement with regard to Cooper), and doesn't want to compound the error. I also imagine that Miller (and the NYT) isn't pressing Rove/Luskin for a personal waiver (like the one Cooper eventually got) because they are not eager for the world to find out they have been covering for Rove.

By the way, this is consistent with the philosophical statements coming from the NYT, which sort of boil down to "you have to protect your source even if he's evil."

"I am sure she [Plame] would have a lot to say about how Joseph Charles Wilson IV got the Niger trip; whether she was or was not NOC; to whom she told she was NOC or not; yes, these and other questions are relevant and substantive that would seem likely needed to be answered by the Special Prosecutor as part of his finding of facts."

Then how odd that she hasn't been called (as far as we can tell).

[jukeboxgrad]

KIM: "Let's have a little background on Joe from those who have dealt with him over the last 30 years. Surely he didn't just latlely start into lying and dishonestly promoting himself."

Then how odd that prior to 7/03 no one on the right had a mean word to say about him, as far as I can tell.

"an unnamed official who thought the Plame outing was 'clearly' revenge"

Not just any old "unnamed official," but rather a "senior administration official" (link).

Then again, if you'd like a named source, there's this: "There was no need to leak this name; it was done only as an act of political revenge to make sure that other critics did not come forward."

By the way, your MO is quite transparent: you arbitrarily dismiss all sorts of evidence while you repeat specious assertions backed by no evidence whatsoever. Not impressive.

"the 'apparent' failure of 'one' of the rationales for war"

You're attempting to rewrite history by claiming WMD was merely "one" of the rationales for war. It was by far the leading rationale. Bush's famous pre-war address focused mostly on WMD, with barely a few words of lip-service regarding the "power of freedom." Also focusing very heavily on WMD fear-mongering, and with only passing mention of "freedom," was the prewar SOTU.

"Which was a more dangerous Saddam?"

I realize in your topsy-turvy world that a Saddam who merely wanted to have WMD (the reality) is more dangerous than a Saddam who actually had them (the scary fairy tale we were told).

[kim]

JBG: What kind of response is that for curiosoity about Joe's past? Anybody know anyone who has worked with him?

Your 'senior administration official' is still unnamed. Does anyone seriously think anymore that this was 'clearly' for revenge. Dunderhead.

My MO has been to follow my intuition through this. The facts most people have been hashing adnd dicing don't belong in this recipe. We'll see whose cake comes out of the oven.

I'm not attempting to rewrite history. Wilson was.

The facts of the case, as outlined in Duelfer and Rosett make it obvious thtat Saddam was a more dangerous character than we imagined. I'm sorry you can't see it that way. But I suspect you haven't ever had a serious thought about Saddam.
=============================================

[kim]

One benefit of my little exaercise is to get you to admit that we had imagined Saddam as a dangeraous character pre-war. Now remember that this perception was not just because of the possibility of WMD.

Oh, now, remember Saddam. The Iraqi blogs will be full of him for the next few months. Will our papers?
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[Les Nessman]

" LES: "Did the conversation just happen to 'turn' by itself, or did Cooper bring up her husband's trip to Niger?"

According to Cooper, he mentioned Wilson and then Rove mentioned Plame. "

So Cooper confirms that he himself turned the subject to the Wilson issue. I thought I'd heard that, too.

[jukeboxgrad]

" So Cooper confirms that he himself turned the subject to the Wilson issue. I thought I'd heard that, too."

Just to be clear: I don't think there's any question that Cooper raised the subject of Wilson (in Cooper's conversation with Rove). There is a dispute about whether or not the conversation began on another subject (welfare reform). I don't think that's terribly important.

I think what is most important is that it was Rove who brought up Wilson's wife. Cooper says this clearly, and Luskin has tacitly acknoweldged this (he has certainly declined to dispute it, although he disputes various other aspects of Cooper's account).

[Lancelot Link]

Yo, Mr. JOM, your "Steve Spruiell (One, two)" links aren't working for me.