Gotcha Mr. President!

In 2003, when the public furor erupted over the disclosure of a CIA operative's status, Bush said he wanted to get to the bottom of the affair. "I want to know the truth," he said at the time. "There's leaks at the executive branch, there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush said then.

"The president and the vice president must be held accountable," Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said from the Senate floor [today]. "Accountable for misleading the American people, accountable for the disclosure of classified material for political purposes. It is as serious as it gets in this democracy."

So, at last the truth, which we've suspected for a very long time is finally out. Our President has committed a crime, he and his co-conspirator, Cheney are criminals - and we all know it for a fact! But the Republican Congress is the only court which can try this case.

Bush's crime is very much worse than the peccadillo which got Clinton impeached by the Republican Congress or even Nixon's cover-up which forced his resignation!

Bush's crime ultimately has cost this country thousands of lives in Iraq and trillions of dollars which could have been used by the American people for much better purposes than to isolate our country in world opinion and put the nation on the verge of bankruptcy or worse, in the hands of the Chinese who hold most of our paper.

He has consistently lied to the American people. Isn't the punishment for being a traitor death by firing squad? I was taught that as a child in school. As an old man, perhaps I and our society have softened too much, but at the very least, certainly he should resign from office or be impeached and spend the rest of his miserable life in public disgrace!

Well, we have a Republican congress. They now know, not simply suspect, the truth, so what are they going to do about it?

What Democrat do they think they can dredge up to smear which will divert attention from our President's crime? And, oh, please don't bring up old warn-out and irrelevant "Chapaquitic Ted" as justification! Perhaps they could find something dirty on the new Democratic star, Barack Obama - US Senator for Illinois! Maybe he masturbated when he was twelve years old. That is how they pull the wool over the eyes of the stupid masses! And, I'm sure the "Christians" could make something of that - the wanton murder of millions of potential humans!

What are the so called "Christians" going to do now after backing this guy to the hilt when they knew full well that he was a loose cannon - even worse than their perpetual embarrassment, Pat Buchanan - but he was all they had. I'm sure like in the Garden of Eden they won't simply slither away!

What sort of puffery is fat-so Rush going to generate for his constituency of rednecks to keep his ratings? I'm sure he'll think of something - he always has.

So, what am I ranting and raving about? I'm going to post articles from both the Associated Press and Reuters which will explain what has just happened:

Papers: Cheney Aide Says Bush OK'd Leak
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney authorized Cheney's top aide to launch a counterattack of leaks against administration critics on Iraq by feeding intelligence information to reporters, according to court papers citing the aide's testimony in the CIA leak case.

In a court filing, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stopped short of accusing Cheney of authorizing his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the CIA identity of Valerie Plame.

But the prosecutor, detailing the evidence he has gathered, raised the possibility that the vice president was trying to use Plame's CIA employment to discredit her husband, administration critic Joseph Wilson. Cheney, according to an indictment against Libby, knew that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA as early as June 12, 2003, more than a month before that fact turned up in a column by Robert Novak.

Fitzgerald quoted Libby as saying he was authorized to tell New York Times reporter Judith Miller that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium. Fitzgerald said Libby told him it "was the only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the president's authorization that it be disclosed."

The process was so secretive that other Cabinet-level officials did not know about it, according to the court papers, which point to Bush and Cheney as setting in motion a leak campaign to the press that ended in Plame's blown cover.

In 2003, when the public furor erupted over the disclosure of a CIA operative's status, Bush said he wanted to get to the bottom of the affair. "I want to know the truth," he said at the time.

Libby's testimony puts the president and the vice president in the awkward position of authorizing leaks. Both men have long said they abhor such practices, so much so that the administration has put in motion criminal investigations at their behest to hunt down leakers.

The most recent instance is the administration's probe into who disclosed to the Times the existence of the warrantless domestic surveillance program.

On Thursday, Democrats criticized the roles of Bush and Cheney.
"President Bush must fully disclose his participation in the selective leaking of classified information," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. "The American people must know the truth."

"The president and the vice president must be held accountable," Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said from the Senate floor. "Accountable for misleading the American people, accountable for the disclosure of classified material for political purposes. It is as serious as it gets in this democracy."

Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said the White House would have no comment on the investigation. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the president has the "inherent authority to decide who should have classified information."

Libby faces trial next January on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about how he learned of the CIA identity of Wilson's wife and what he told reporters about it. The indictment says Cheney told Libby in June 2003 that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.

The authorization by Bush and Cheney in July 2003 for disclosing sensitive prewar intelligence assessments came amid a growing public realization that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The failure to find such weapons undermined the primary rationale Bush and Cheney had used for taking the country to war.

According to Fitzgerald's court filing, Cheney, in a conversation with Libby, expressed concerns on whether a CIA-sponsored trip to the African nation of Niger by Wilson "was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."

After Wilson's 2002 trip, the former ambassador said he had concluded that Iraq did not have an agreement to acquire uranium yellowcake from Niger. The subsequent embrace of information that Iraq and Niger did have a deal for uranium was evidence that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat, Wilson said.

Wilson's public criticism on July 6, 2003, "was viewed in the office of vice president as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president, and the president, on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq," Fitzgerald stated.

In the court filing, drawn in part from Libby's own grand jury testimony before his indictment, Fitzgerald indicated that:

• A July 8, 2003, Libby conversation with the Times' Miller occurred "only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information" from a then-classified intelligence estimate on Iraq. Libby is alleged to have mentioned the CIA status of Wilson's wife in the conversation.

• Cheney's chief of staff at first told the vice president that he could not have the July 8, 2003, conversation with Miller because of the classified nature of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

• Libby "testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions" of the NIE.

• The White House aide testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then counsel to the vice president, "whom defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."

• Cheney's then-chief of staff "understood that the vice president specifically selected him to talk to the press about the NIE and Mr. Wilson on July 12, 2003." In conversations that day with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and again with Miller, Libby referred to the CIA status of Wilson's wife.

Fitzgerald's court papers are an effort to limit Libby's demand that he be given voluminous amounts of classified information to defend himself in his criminal case.
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Bush said to have cleared Iraq leak
By James Vicini Thu Apr 6

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former top White House aide testified that President George W. Bush authorized leaking classified intelligence in 2003 in the face of criticism of his Iraq policy from a former ambassador, according to court papers made public on Thursday.

Democrats seized on the news, accusing Bush of hypocrisy. The president has often denounced leaks from his administration and vowed to punish the leakers. This was the first time Bush was directly linked to this incident.

"If the disclosure is true, it's breathtaking. The president is revealed as the leaker-in-chief," said Rep. Jane Harman (news, bio, voting record) of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

The papers cited Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, as testifying to a federal grand jury that Cheney had told him that Bush authorized him to disclose information from a secret National Intelligence Estimate to a New York Times reporter in July 2003.

The disclosure arose out of a long-running investigation into the leak of CIA's operative Valerie Plame's identity. Libby testified that he was specifically directed by the vice president to reveal the intelligence information to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Libby also said he was cleared to brief the reporter about Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who had criticized Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The White House declined to discuss the disclosure. "Our policy is not to discuss ongoing legal proceedings and that policy is unchanged," said spokesman, Ken Lisaius.

Libby resigned from the administration last October when he was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leaking of Plame's name.

The information about Bush came to light in a 39-page document filed by Fitzgerald in which he argued against Libby's demand for more government documents, which his lawyers say he needs to defend himself.

Libby testified he had been authorized to disclose the information because it rebutted Wilson and Cheney thought it "very important" for it to come out.

Wilson has said White House officials deliberately leaked his wife's identity to pay him back for attacking the grounds used by Bush to justify the Iraq invasion.

'UNIQUE AUTHORIZATION' Bush had the authority to declassify the material. But the court papers quoted Libby as saying that "it was unique in his recollection" to get approval from the president, via the vice president, for such an action.

The leak occurred at a time when opponents were stepping up their criticism of the March 2003 invasion after U.S. forces had failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Libby said he brought a brief summary of the key findings when he met with Miller on July 8, 2003 at a hotel.

In Congress, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said, "President Bush must fully disclose his participation in the selective leaking of classified information."

Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), a Vermont Democrat, said, "It's time for the White House to ... just step forward and honestly state what they knew, when they knew it and what they did about it."

New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer demanded an explanation from Bush and Cheney.

"The president has said he'd fire anyone who leaked this kind of information. But it now seems that he authorized leaks just like this in the first place. The American people deserve the truth," he told reporters.

Bush has often complained about leaks in Washington and vowed to take action against those who released unauthorized information to the public.

"There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington," he said after the Plame news broke in 2003.

"There's leaks at the executive branch, there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush said then.