Plame CIA leak Lawsuit in Court - Lawyers questioned by Judge

This is a follow up on The Plame Case

1. Joe Wilson was sent to Niger on a diplomatic mission to see if then Iraq President Hussein was trying to buy weapons grade Uranium to use in Weapons of mass destruction.

2. He came back and reported that it was not true

3. President Bush went on to claim it was true (despite the knowledge that it was not.)

4. Joe Wilson wrote an editorial in the New York Times saying he told the White House that it was not true.

5. Angered Vice President Cheney working with political adviser Karl Rove instructed Cheney's assistant Libbey to leak the fact that Joe Wilson was married to an undercover CIA agent (Valerie Plame)

6. A Republican Attorney was called to see if their was any illeagle activity in the handling of this matter and found and charged Libby with basically obstructing justice. Libby was found guilty. No one was criminally charged with outing the CIA agent.

7. The CIA agent has pubically sued Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove and former State Department official Richard Armitage and Libby.




White House players (from left): Rove, White House Counsel Dan Bartlett, the vice president’s chief of staff Lewis Libby, and Dick Cheney


Other Iraq War News post on this subject

23 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby = The Guilty Scapegoat

Piecing together the story of the weapons that weren't

Wolfowitz Emerges as Key Figure in Intel Manipulation

Video Documentary- Part 4 on the Neocons

Joe Wilson's Op-Ed for New York Times

Joe Wilson -Background information

George Tenent is still at the Center of the Storm
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White House Lawyer Criticize Plame Suit



WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and two other Bush administration officials belittled Valerie Plame's lawsuit Thursday over the disclosure of her CIA identity.

At a nearly-three-hour court hearing, Cheney's lawyer said Plame was making "fanciful claims" in what amounted to "a fishing expedition."

Plame says her constitutional rights were violated by Cheney and his now-convicted former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, as well as White House political adviser Rove and former State Department official Richard Armitage.

Her suit is "principally based on a desire for publicity and book deals," said Michael Waldman, who represents Armitage.

The case is "about egregious conduct by defendants that ruined a woman's career," countered Plame's lawyer, Erwin Chemerinsky.

Several administration officials, including Armitage, Rove and Libby, disclosed Plame's identity to reporters in 2003. That disclosure came after Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Evidence at Libby's trial showed that Cheney told Libby about the CIA employment of Wilson's wife more than a month before she was outed.

U.S. District Judge John Bates questioned both sides closely.

"Why would these government officials have any kind of protection for these disclosures" about Plame's classified CIA status? the judge asked.

Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, arguing on behalf of all the defendants, said there is no allegation that any of them knowingly disclosed classified information.

The Justice Department has asked Bates to drop an invasion of privacy count in the suit because government officials cannot be sued personally for such claims when acting in their official capacity.

"There is nothing these officials could have said that could go beyond the scope of their employment?" asked Bates.

Not in the context of the Plame affair, replied Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Bucholtz. What the suit alleges amounts to a government policy dispute in which the defendants tried to discredit Plame's husband, Bucholtz said.

Plame's lawyer responded that the scope of employment ends where the outing of Plame's CIA identity begins.

Plame's identity was exposed eight days after her husband publicly suggested in The New York Times and on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the administration distorted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

To be allowed to pursue their effort to collect compensation, Plame's lawyers must show that Cheney and the other defendants are not immune from such suits.

The vice president "has a lot of the same attributes and considerations that relate to the president," Bucholtz argued, seeking to apply presidential immunity to the vice president.

The judge expressed concern the case might have to delve into classified information comparing Plame's circumstances with those of other CIA officers.

That's a "reasonable prospect," replied Bucholtz.

Chemerinsky pointed out that the government overcame classified information issues in the Libby case, which resulted in his conviction for lying to investigators about how he learned of Plame's identity and what he did with the information.




This up-to-date electronic book on CD-ROM provides the best collection available anywhere of official Federal government information and documents on the subject of the criminal investigation into the possible unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding Valerie Wilsons CIA affiliation to various reporters in the spring of 2003. The investigation is being headed by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. On October 28, 2005, the grand jury indicted senior White House official I. Lewis Libby on obstruction of justice, false statement and perjury charges for allegedly lying about how and when in 2003 he learned and subsequently disclosed to reporters then-classified information concerning the employment of Valerie Wilson by the Central Intelligence Agency. Libby was charged with one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements in a five-count indictment returned today by a federal grand jury as its term expired, announced Justice Department Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. The defendant, also known as Scooter Libby, has served since January 20, 2001, as Assistant to the President, Chief of Staff to the Vice President, and Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs. The charges allege that Libby lied to FBI agents who interviewed him on October 14 and November 26, 2003; committed perjury while testifying under oath before the grand jury on March 5 and March 24, 2004; and engaged in obstruction of justice by impeding the grand jurys investigation. The indictment alleges that Libby had frequent access to classified information and frequently spoke with officials of the U.S. intelligence community and other government officials regarding sensitive national security matters. With his responsibilities for national security matters, Libby held security clearances giving him access to classified information. Libby was obligated by federal criminal statute, regulations, executive orders, and a written non-disclosure agreement not to disclose classified information to unauthorized persons, and to properly safeguard classified information against unauthorized disclosure. According to the indictment, 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 Wilsons CIA affiliation to various reporters in the spring of 2003. In January 2004, the grand jury investigation began examining possible violations of criminal laws prohibiting disclosing the identity of covert intelligence personnel (The Intelligence Identities Protection Act), improperly disclosing national defense information, making false statements to government agents, and perjury. A major focus of the grand jury investigation was to determine which government officials had disclosed to the media prior to July 14, 2003, information concerning Valerie Wilsons CIA affiliation, and the nature, timing, extent, and purpose of such disclosures. This CD-ROM uses next-generation search technology that allows complete indexing and makes all files on the disc fully searchable. The disc contains information on key characters including: I. Lewis Scooter Libby
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The disc has nearly 58,000 pages reproduced using Adobe Acrobat PDF software and Reader software is included. Advanced search and indexing features are built into our reproduction, providing a complete full-text index. This enables the user to search all the files on the disk at one time for words or phrases using just one search command! The Acrobat cataloging technology adds enormous value and uncommon functionality to this impressive collection of government documents and material. There is no other reference that is as fast, convenient, comprehensive, and portable! Our news and educational CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs are privately compiled collections of official public domain U.S. government files and documents - they are not produced by the federal government. They are designed to provide a convenient user-friendly reference work, utilizing the benefits of the Adobe Acrobat format to uniformly present thousands of pages that can be rapidly reviewed, searched by finding specific words, or printed without untold hours of tedious research and downloading. Vast archives of important public domain government information that might otherwise remain inaccessible are available for instant review no matter where you are. This book-on-a-disc format makes a great reference work and educational tool. There is no other reference that is as fast, convenient, comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and portable - everything you need to know, from the federal sources you trust.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070517/cia-leak-lawsuit