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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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September 22nd,
2008 - Cheney’s Testimony in Valerie Plame Leak Case Classified |
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Cheney’s
Testimony in Valerie Plame Leak Case Classified, DOJ Says By Jason Leopold The Public Record September 22, 2008 The Department of Justice,
in refusing to release Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview transcript with
the special prosecutor who investigated the leak of covert CIA operative
Valerie Plame Wilson said for the first time last week that contents of Cheney’s
interview have been classified. In a letter sent Thursday to
Citizens of Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the government
watchdog group that filed a Freedom of Information Act request last month
seeking access to the transcript, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) said
the documents have been withheld, in due part, because it contains
information “protected from disclosure by the National Security Act.” “We are withholding the
records...because they are protected by the deliberative process,
presidential communications, and law enforcement investigative privileges,”
states the Sept. 18 letter sent by OLC attorney Paul Coborn to CREW chief
counsel Anne Weissman. “We are also withholding them...because the records
were compiled for law enforcement purposes and their production “could
reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.” “The
Department is concerned that releasing the records could interfere with
future Department investigations by discouraging voluntary cooperation. “Finally, we are withholding
portions of the records...because they are classified and contain information
protected from disclosure by the National Security Act of 1947.” In a separate development, a
federal judge on Saturday ordered Cheney to preserve all documents during his
seven years as vice president. CREW sued the vice president challenging
Cheney's narrow interpretation of his obligations under the Presidential
Records Act, based in large part on his claim that he is not part of the
executive branch. In granting CREW's request for a preliminary injunction,
the court rejected the arguments of the White House that they were preserving
all vice presidential records, which they defined narrowly to include only
functions "specially assigned" to the vice president by the
president and his duties as president of the Senate. Henry Waxman, the Democratic
chairman of the he House Oversight and Government Reform Committee,
subpoenaed Attorney General Michael Mukasey in June for Cheney’s interview
transcript as well a copy the transcript of President George W. Bush’s
interview with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and the grand jury
testimony of Karl Rove, Bush’s former top aide. But Mukasey did not state
that the either of the transcripts contained classified information when he refused
to comply with Waxman’s subpoena. Mukasey advised Bush to assert his
executive privilege powers to block release of the transcripts. “I am greatly concerned
about the chilling effect that compliance with the [House Oversight]
Committee's subpoena would have on future White House deliberations and White
House cooperation with future Justice Department investigations,” Mukasey
wrote in a letter to Bush on July 16. Yet Patrick Fitzgerald, the
special prosecutor who spent three years investigating White House officials’
role in the Plame leak, said in a letter sent to Waxman in July that the
interviews he conducted with Bush and Cheney in 2004 were not protected by
grand jury secrecy rules and could arguably be turned over to Congress if
authorized by the Justice Department. Moreover, Fitzgerald said
that in his capacity as special counsel he did not enter into a pre-arranged
agreement with the White House to keep secret Bush and Cheney’s interview
transcripts. “I can advise you that as to
any interviews of either the President or Vice President not protected by the
rules of grand jury secrecy, there were no "agreements, conditions and
understandings between the Office of Special Counsel or the Federal Bureau of
Investigation" and either the President or Vice President
"regarding the conduct and use of the interview or interviews,”
Fitzgerald’s July 3 letter addressed to Waxman says. Fitzgerald has turned over
to Waxman’s committee “FBI 302 reports” of interviews with CIA and State
Department officials and other individuals involved in the CIA leak, Waxman
said in a letter to Mukasey last December. But “the White House has
been blocking Mr. Fitzgerald from providing key documents to the
Committee," including transcripts of Fitzgerald’s interviews with Bush
and Cheney, Waxman said. Two senior DOJ officials
knowledgeable about the CIA leak investigation said Saturday that officials
in the Office of the Vice President issued a request to the DOJ recently to
classify Cheney’s transcript. However, the DOJ officials did not know the
exact timing of when the DOJ classified portions of the transcript. A DOJ
spokesman did not return calls for comment Saturday. House Judiciary Committee
Chairman John Conyers has also been actively pursuing the interview transcripts.
In June, he issued a subpoena to Mukasey for a wide-range of documents
related to Fitzgerald’s probe and was also rejected. Conyers and Waxman’s
interest in the CIA leak case was revived with the publication in June of
former White House press secretary McClellan’s memoir which suggested Bush
and Cheney played a larger role in the matter than they have admitted
publicly. Conyers was set to hold a
vote Sept. 10 on a contempt citation for Mukasey for refusing to turn over
the subpoenaed documents to his panel but decided to “defer” the matter when
the DOJ reluctantly released 681-pages of documents related to a voter identification
law implemented last year in the state of Georgia that the Michigan Democrat
had sought. But in a letter sent to
Conyers Sept. 9, Keith Nelson, a deputy attorney general, did not say that
Cheney’s interview transcript was classified. Nelson said he could not
release the document because Bush had already asserted executive privilege. Senior Bush administration
officials disclosed Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to several journalists in
June and July of 2003 amid White House efforts to discredit her husband,
former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for challenging Bush’s use of bogus
intelligence to justify invading Iraq. Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA
employment was revealed in a July 14, 2003, article by right-wing columnist
Robert Novak, effectively destroying her career. Two months later, a CIA
complaint to the Justice Department sparked a criminal probe into the
identity of the leakers. Initially, Bush professed
not to know anything about the matter, and several of his senior aides,
including political adviser Karl Rove and the vice president’s chief of staff
I. Lewis Libby, followed suit. However, it later became
clear that Rove and Libby had a hand in the Plame leak and that Bush and
Cheney had helped organize a campaign to disparage Wilson by giving critical
information to friendly journalists. On June 24, 2004, Fitzgerald
interviewed Bush for 70 minutes about the Plame leak. The only other member
of the Bush team in the room during the meeting was Jim Sharp, the private
lawyer that Bush hired, according to a press briefing by then-press secretary
Scott McClellan. Fitzgerald had interviewed a
couple of weeks earlier, Cheney. According to sources
knowledgeable about the vice president’s testimony, Cheney was specifically
asked about conversations he had with senior aides, including Libby, and
queried about whether he was aware of a campaign led by White House officials
to leak Plame’s identity. It is unknown how Cheney
responded to those questions. Cheney retained a private attorney, Terrence
O’Donnell. At the time of Waxman's
comments, Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation was still underway, leading to
Libby’s indictment in October 2005 and his subsequent conviction in March
2007 on four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. During closing arguments at
Libby’s trial, Cheney was implicated in the leak, as Fitzgerald acknowledged
that Cheney was intimately involved in the scandal and may have told Libby to
leak Plame's status to the media. Fitzgerald told jurors that
his investigation into the true nature of the vice president's involvement
was impeded because Libby obstructed justice. Libby's attorney, Theodore
Wells, told jurors during his closing arguments that Fitzgerald had been
trying to build a case of conspiracy against the vice president and Libby and
that the prosecution believed Libby may have lied to federal investigators
and to a grand jury to protect Cheney. “Now, I think the
government, through its questions, really tried to put a cloud over Vice
President Cheney," Wells said. Rebutting Wells, Fitzgerald
r told jurors: "You know what? [Wells] said something here that we're
trying to put a cloud on the vice president. We'll talk straight. There is a
cloud over the vice president. He sent Libby off to [meet with New York Times
reporter] Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. At that meeting - the
two-hour meeting - the defendant talked about the wife [Plame]. We didn't put
that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant obstructed justice
and lied about what happened." External link: http://www.pubrecord.org/component/content/340.html |