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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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June 27th,
2008 - House Panel Seeks Bush Transcript in CIA Leak Case |
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House Panel Seeks
Bush Transcript in CIA Leak Case By Laurie Kellman Associated Press June 27, 2008 Washington - A House panel
on Friday subpoenaed Attorney General Michael Mukasey for transcripts of
interviews with President Bush and Vice President Cheney during the federal
probe into the leak of a CIA agent's identity. Signed by Judiciary
Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., the subpoena requests all documents
from the office of former Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald relating to
interviews of Bush, Cheney and their aides that were conducted outside the
presence of the grand jury investigating the leak. The subpoena requests
similar accounts of interviews with former presidential adviser Karl Rove; I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff; former White
House spokesman Scott McClellan; former presidential counselor Dan Bartlett;
and former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card. The House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee has subpoenaed some of the same documents but has
been rebuffed by the Justice Department, according to a letter released
Friday by the chairman of that panel, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Conyers also subpoenaed
Justice Department documents on a broad range of other matters, including a
phone jamming investigation in New Hampshire, the replacement of a U.S.
attorney in Minnesota and the activities of the department's Civil Rights
Division. Justice Department spokesman
Dean Boyd said the agency was reviewing the subpoena. The action was the latest
effort by congressional Democrats to shed light on the precise roles, if any,
that Bush, Cheney and their aides may have played in the leak of Valerie
Plame's CIA identity. State Department official
Richard Armitage first revealed Plame's CIA identity to columnist Robert
Novak, who used Rove as a confirming source for a 2003 article. Around that
time Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was criticizing Bush's
march to war in Iraq. Libby, who also was involved
in the leak, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. Last
July, Bush commuted Libby's 2 1/2-year sentence, sparing him from serving any
prison time. External link: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jh7ElHY9QqjAH63ueSVISAEdH4kQD91INUEG0 |