Fitzgerald Cited Missing Emails During Plame Probe (Truthout)

[marmar]

Fitzgerald Cited Missing Emails During Plame Probe
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 13 April 2007

In late January 2004, Patrick Fitzgerald, the US attorney appointed as special prosecutor to investigate whether White House officials knowingly leaked the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, sent a letter to then-acting Attorney General James Comey. Fitzgerald was seeking confirmation that he had the authority to investigate and prosecute suspects in the leak case for additional crimes, including evidence destruction.

The leak investigation had primarily been centered on an obscure law that made it a felony for any government official to knowingly disclose the identity of an undercover CIA officer.

Comey responded to Fitzgerald in writing on February 6, 2004, confirming that Fitzgerald had the authority to prosecute those crimes, including "perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses."

Fitzgerald wrote Comey in part because he had become suspicious that White House political adviser Karl Rove had either hidden or destroyed an important document tying him to the leak and the effort to discredit Plame's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. The document Fitzgerald believed Rove had destroyed or withheld was an email Rove sent to Stephen Hadley, then deputy national security adviser, in early July 2003. That email proved Rove had a conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about issues related to the CIA leak. Rove did not disclose that conversation when he was first interviewed by the FBI three months after he had emailed Hadley.
...(snip)...

The Washington Post, citing an unnamed source, reported that Rove had sent the email to Hadley from his government account and it was "unclear" why the email did not turn up during a search in 2003.

Whether Fitzgerald knew in late January or early February 2004 about the existence of Rove's email to Hadley is unknown. Neither Fitzgerald nor his spokesman would respond to questions about the leak investigation.

During two of his five appearances before the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson leak, Rove testified that the first time he discussed Valerie Plame with other journalists was after syndicated columnist Robert Novak revealed her identity and CIA status in July 2003. Rove did not disclose that he had actually been a source for Cooper, whose story about Plame's work for the CIA was published less than a week after Novak's column was published.

When Fitzgerald applied pressure to Cooper to testify about the identity of the source who told him that Plame worked for the CIA, Rove's attorney Robert Luskin made a startling discovery: he had found the email Rove sent Hadley. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041307R.shtml

[MadMaddie]

1. Oh my, Oh my it keeps coming full circle...every time doesn't it

The one constant in ALL of the possible coverups and possible crimes is Rove....

Very interesting....:popcorn:

[marmar]

2. "The one constant in ALL of the possible coverups and possible crimes is Rove"

Yup, and I can't wait for this particular dog to have his day.

[C_U_L8R]

4. the truth has a funny way

of popping back up and haunting the bad guys

[MadMaddie]

5. Especially now that they are losing all of the protection that they

once had....

The Titantic comparison comes to mind....Iraq, Katrina, The firings, FEMA and everything else is the "Iceberg" and it has cut a jagged hole in their criminal cabal.....

Get ready for "Repuglicans eating their own" because they will throw each other under the bus to save their own hide. It's already started.

[Bitwit1234]

3. I think this shows that Fitzgerald was a good judge of character

He must have had a feeling rove was a sneak. That he was capable of with holding information and tried to pressure him to bring the emails forth. It is a shame that every one else did not treat him the same way. He is a sneaky two face sewer brained rat. He is drunk with power and needs to be reigned in. In think he is more power drunk that bush.

[marmar]

6. "think he is more power drunk that bush."

Indeed. He's the mob boss that lurks in the shadows.