Jason Leopold: Bush at Center of Intelligence Leak

9 April 2006

Bush at Center of Intelligence Leak ByJason Leopold t r ut h o u t | Report From:http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040606Y.shtml Thursday06 April 2006

Attorneys and current and formerWhite House officials close to the investigation into theleak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson saidThursday that President Bush gave Vice President Dick Cheneythe authorization in mid-June 2003 to disclose a portion ofthe highly sensitive National Intelligence Estimate toWashington Post reporter Bob Woodward and former New YorkTimes reporter Judith Miller.

These current and formerWhite House officials are among the 36 witnesses who havetestified before a grand jury and have been cooperating withthe special counsel's probe since its inception.

Theofficials, some of whom are attorneys close to the case,added that more than two dozen emails that the vicepresident's office said it recently discovered and handedover to leak investigators in February show that PresidentBush was kept up to date about the circumstances surroundingthe effort to discredit former Ambassador JosephWilson.

The sources indicated that the leak probe is nowwinding down, and that soon, new information will emergefrom the special counsel's office that will prove PresidentBush had prior knowledge of the White House campaign todiscredit Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador JosephWilson, who accused the administration of "twisting"intelligence on the Iraqi threat in order to win publicsupport for the war.

The new information that surfacedlate Wednesday places President Bush at the center of theprobe for the first time since the investigation into theleak began more than two years ago and raises new questionsas to whether Bush knew in advance the lengths to whichsenior White House officials went to discredit Wilson.

Inthe court filing, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgeraldwrote that Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis"Scooter" Libby, "testified that he was specificallyauthorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the keyjudgments of the classified NIE to [former New York Timesreporter Judith] Miller on that occasion because it wasthought that the NIE was 'pretty definitive' against whatAmbassador Wilson had said and that the Vice Presidentthought that it was 'very important' for the key judgmentsof the NIE to come out."

"Defendant further testified thathe at first advised the Vice President that he could nothave this conversation with reporter Miller because of theclassified nature of the NIE. Defendant testified that theVice President later advised him that the President hadauthorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions ofthe NIE," the filing further states. "Defendant testifiedthat he also spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to theVice President, whom defendant considered to be an expert innational security law, and Mr. Addington opined thatPresidential authorization to publicly disclose a documentamounted to a declassification of the document. Defendanttestified that he thought he brought a brief abstract of theNIE's key judgments to the meeting with Miller on July 8.Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among otherthings, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was'vigorously trying to procure' uranium. Defendant testifiedthat this July 8th meeting was the only time he recalled inhis government experience when he disclosed a document to areporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of thePresident's authorization that it be disclosed. Defendanttestified that one of the reasons why he met with Miller ata hotel was the fact that he was sharing this informationwith Miller exclusively."

In October 2003, three monthsafter Plame Wilson's CIA status and identity were unmaskedin print by columnist Robert Novak, President Bush saidpublicly that it was unlikely that the individual who leakedher name would ever be found.

"I mean this is a town fullof people who like to leak information," Bush said during apress conference on Oct. 7, 2003. "And I don't know if we'regoing to find out the senior administration official. Now,this is a large administration, and there's lots of seniorofficials. I don't have any idea."

Details of PresidentBush's involvement in the effort to counter the formerambassador's claims came in a court document filed lateWednesday evening in US District Court in Washington bySpecial Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, which was firstreported by the New York Sun newspaper.

President Bushretained a private attorney when he was interviewed in theleak probe two years ago, specifically about whether he knewabout it or had authorized it.

According to four attorneyswho over the past two days have read a transcript of thePresident Bush's interview with investigators, Bush did notdisclose to either investigators or the special counsel thathe had authorized Cheney or any other administrationofficial to leak portions of the NIE to Woodward and Milleror any other reporter. Rather, these people said thepresident said he frowned upon "selective leaks."

Bushalso said during the interview two years ago that he had noprior knowledge that anyone on his staff had been involvedin a campaign to discredit Wilson or that individualsretaliated against the former ambassador by leaking hiswife's undercover identity to reporters.

The 39-page courtdocument Fitzgerald filed late Wednesday included previouslyunreported testimony given to a grand jury by Cheney'sformer chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby wasindicted in October on five-counts of perjury, obstructionof justice, and lying to investigators about how hediscovered Plame Wilson's identity.

Libby testified thatCheney had received explicit instruction from President Bushto declassify a portion of the October 2002 NIE that saidIraq tried to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium orefrom Niger and share that information with reporters likeMiller and Woodward, whose previous work proved to besympathetic to the administration and would help todiscredit Wilson, according to the court document andattorneys and current and former administration officialsclose to the investigation.

Libby's "participation in acritical conversation with Judith Miller on July 8(discussed further below) occurred only after the VicePresident advised defendant that the President specificallyhad authorized defendant to disclose certain information inthe NIE," the Fitzgerald's filing states. "Defendanttestified that the circumstances of his conversation withreporter Miller - getting approval from the Presidentthrough the Vice President to discuss material that would beclassified but for that approval - were unique in hisrecollection."

"Defendant further testified that on July12, 2003, he was specifically directed by the Vice Presidentto speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then thecommunications person for the Vice President) regarding theNIE and Wilson," the court filing states. "Defendant wasinstructed to provide what was for him an extremely rare "onthe record" statement, and to provide "background" and "deepbackground" statements, and to provide information containedin a document defendant understood to be the cable authoredby Mr. Wilson."

On June 27, 2003, two weeks before Libby'smeeting with Miller and disclosing to her portions of theNIE, Libby met with Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize-winningreporter, and leaked the portion of the NIE that dealt withIraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Niger, which was first reported by this reporter inMarch.

A week or so earlier, Woodward met with twoother government officials, one of whom told him in a"casual" and off-handed manner that Wilson's wife worked forthe CIA.

Woodward said the meeting with Libby and theother government officials had been set up simply as"confidential background interviews for my 2004 book 'Planof Attack' about the lead-up to the Iraq war, ongoingreporting for the Washington Post and research for a book onBush's second term to be published in 2006."

Woodwardwrote a first-person account for the Washington Post afterhe gave a sworn deposition to Fitzgerald about informationhe had learned about Valerie Plame Wilson. It was a shockingrevelation at the time. Woodward had publicly discounted theimportance of the Plame Wilson leak and had referred toFitzgerald as a "junkyard dog" prosecutor. He then revealedin November that he had been told about Plame Wilson's CIAemployment in June 2003 - before any other journalist.

TheWatergate-era journalist wrote that when he met with Libbyon June 27, 2003, "Libby discussed the October 2002 NationalIntelligence Estimate on Iraq's alleged weapons of massdestruction, mentioned "yellowcake" and said there was aneffort by the Iraqis to get it from Africa. It goes back toFebruary '02. This was the time of Wilson's trip toNiger."

The information in the NIE about Niger was stillconsidered highly classified and extremely sensitive, andalthough Woodward had been the recipient of classifiedinformation on other occasions during the course ofgathering material for his books, the data he was providedwith concerning the NIE had been authorized by Cheney inorder to rebut Wilson. Woodward never wrote a story for thePost about the intelligence information he wasgiven.

President Bush signed an executive order in March2003 authorizing Cheney to declassify certain intelligencedocuments. The executive order was signed on March23, 2003, four days after the start of the Iraq war, and twoweeks after Wilson first appeared on the administration'sradar.

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Jason Leopoldspent two years covering California's electricity crisis asLos Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason hasspent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIAleak investigation, and is a regular contributer to t r u th o ut.
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