Thursday, April 06, 2006

Will the President fire those responsible?

According to recently released court documents, Scooter Libby has fingered VP Cheney as ordering him to leak intel to the press. According to Libby Cheney told him that he had the Presidents approval. This is not to say that the VP or the big P ordered the leaking of Plame's name. However it did come out with the other intel.

So my question is simple. Will Bush do what he said he was going to do last year and fire those responsible for leaking classified info? Lets see who would end up being President? The Speaker of the House, Denis Hastert, would be incharge.

So is this all another liberal attempt to melt Bush with water like Dorothy did to the Wicked witch of the west? Well I have downloaded and read a bunch of court docs. Specifically: page 19-20 from Document 80 from Case NO05-394(RBW) United States of America vs. Lewis Libby Here is what is said. It starts near the bottom of page 19 and runs on into the middle of page 20.

"Defendants's participation in a critical conversation with Judith Miller on July 8, (discussed further below) occured only after the Vice President advised defendant that the President specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate ( added by me)) Defendant testified that the circumstances for his conversation with reporter Miller -getting approval fro mthe President through the Vice President to discuss material that would be classified but the that approval - were unique in his recollection. Defendant further testified that on July 12,2003, he was specifically directed by the Vice President to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson."

It goes on to say that Cheney told Libby to go "on the record" and provide "deep background" regarding Wilson's Niger. This is as close to a smoking gun as you can get without getting powder burns from the muzzle flash.

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