Lying us into a war and the cover up- CHENEY

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Hand-written notes by the Vice President surface in the Fitzgerald
Probe

By: Michael Isikoff , Newsweek
Published: May 13, 2006 at 13:25
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The role of Vice President Dick Cheney in the criminal case stemming
from the outing of White House critic Joseph Wilson's CIA wife is
likely to get fresh attention as a result of newly disclosed notes
showing that Cheney personally asked whether Wilson had been sent by
his wife on a "junket" to Africa.

Cheney's notes, written on the margins of a July 6, 2003 New York Times
op-ed column by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, were included as part
of a filing Friday night by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the
perjury and obstruction case against ex-Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby.

The notes, Fitzgerald said in his filing, show that Cheney and Libby
were "acutely focused" on the Wilson column and on rebutting his
criticisms of the White House's handling of pre-Iraq war intelligence.
In the column, which created a firestorm after its publication, Wilson
wrote that he had been dispatched by the CIA without pay to Niger in
February, 2002 to investigate an intelligence report that Iraq was
seeking uranium from the African country for a nuclear bomb. Wilson
said he was told Cheney had asked about the intelligence, but the White
House subsequently ignored his findings debunking the Niger claims.

In the margins of the op-ed, Cheney jotted out a series of questions
that seemed to challenge many of Wilson's assertions as well as the
legitimacy of his CIA sponsored trip to Africa: "Have they done this
sort of thing before? Send an Amb. [sic] to answer a question? Do we
ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife
send him on a junket?"

It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for Cheney's own notes to
be made public. The notes-apparently obtained as a result of a grand
jury subpoena-would appear to make Cheney an even more central witness
than had been previously thought in the criminal probe. Fitzgerald's
prosecution has created continued problems for the White House. Karl
Rove, the President Bush's chief political advisor, recently made his
fifth grand jury appearance in the case and remains under scrutiny
while Fitzgerald weighs whether to file criminal charges against him.
For now, Libby is the only figure charged in the case.

Lea Ann McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president, declined to
comment on the newly disclosed notes. "We continue to cooperate in the
investigation as we have since its inception," she said.

Fitzgerald first alleged that Cheney had questioned whether Wilson's
trip was a "junket" in a court filing last month. In that filing,
Fitzgerald also asserted that the vice president, acting with the
approval of President Bush, had authorized Libby to disclose portions
of the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to rebut some
of Wilson's claims.

But the notes provide significant new context to that assertion. They
show the vice president personally raised questions about Wilson's trip
right after the publication of the Wilson column-and five days before
Libby confirmed to Time reporter Matt Cooper that he had "heard" that
Wilson's wife, former CIA agent Valerie Plame, had played a role in
sending him to Africa.

Libby, questioned by the FBI and by federal prosecutors in two grand
jury appearances, denied providing that confirmation to Cooper and
insisted he had heard about Wilson's wife a day or two earlier from NBC
TV Meet the Press host Tim Russert-an account that Fitzgerald charged
in an indictment last October was a lie. Fitzgerald in his court filing
indicated he plans to introduce a copy of Cheney's annotated version of
the Wilson column to show the vice president's interest in the
circumstances surrounding Wilson's trip WAS an important matter to
Libby that week and explains many of his actions. Those actions,
according to the indictment, include discussing Plame's employment at
the CIA-a matter Fitzgerald has said was classified at the time-with
New York Times reporter Judy Miller on July 8, 2003.

Fitzgerald also said in his court filing that he plans to introduce a
copy of Robert Novak's July 14, 2003 newspaper column that first
identified Plame as a CIA "operative" who worked issues related to
weapons of mass destruction. Fitzgerald said he will do so in order to
introduce evidence about a series of conversations that he argued could
undercut one of Libby's principal defenses: that he had no reason to
believe Plame's employment was a sensitive matter and therefore had no
reason to lie to the grand jury about when and with whom he spoke about
it.

According to Fitzgerald's filing, on the day that the Novak column was
published, a CIA official was asked in Libby's presence by another
Cheney aide whether he had read the column. The CIA official had not.
But shortly thereafter, the unidentified CIA official discussed in
Libby's presence "the dangers posed by disclosure of the CIA
affiliation of one of its employee as had occurred in the Novak
column," Fitzgerald wrote.

This evidence, Fitzgerald added, "directly contradicts" the assertion
by defense lawyers that Libby "had no motive to lie" to the FBI and to
the grand jury because he "thought that neither he nor anyone else had
done anything wrong." Instead, Fitzgerald asserts, "the evidence about
the conversation concerning the Novak column provides a strong motive
for the defendant to provide false information and testimony about his
disclosures to reporters."

A spokeswoman for Libby declined comment on the filing.

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