[Mb-civic] White House 'Discovers' 250 Emails Related to Plame Leak By Jason Leopold

[Michael Butler]

    White House 'Discovers' 250 Emails Related to Plame Leak
    By Jason Leopold
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Friday 24 February 2006

    The White House turned over last week 250 pages of emails from Vice
President Dick Cheney¹s office. Senior aides had sent the emails in the
spring of 2003 related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame
Wilson, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed during a federal
court hearing Friday.

    The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an
active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson¹s husband, former
Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration¹s prewar
Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said.

    Sources close to the probe said the White House ³discovered² the emails
two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week. The sources
added that the emails could prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when
he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004. Cheney said that he was
unaware of any effort to discredit Wilson or unmask his wife¹s undercover
status to reporters.

    Cheney was not under oath when he was interviewed. He told investigators
how the White House came to rely on Niger documents that purportedly showed
that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country.

    Cheney said he had received an intelligence briefing on the allegations
in late December 2003, or early January 2004, and had asked the CIA for more
information about the issue.

    Cheney said he was unaware that Ambassador Wilson was chosen to travel
to Niger to look into the uranium claims, and that he never saw a report
Wilson had given a CIA analyst upon his return which stated that the Niger
claims were untrue. He said the CIA never told him about Wilson's trip.

    However, the emails say otherwise, and will show that the vice president
spearheaded an effort in March 2003 to attack Wilson¹s credibility and used
the CIA to dig up information on the former ambassador that could be used
against him, sources said.

    Some of the emails that were turned over to Fitzgerald contained
references to Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status, and developments
related to the inability of ground forces to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq after the start of the war in March 2003.

    According to sources, the emails also contained suggestions by senior
officials in Cheney¹s office, and at the National Security Council, on how
the White House should respond to what it believed were increasingly
destructive comments Wilson had been making about the administration's
pre-war Iraq intelligence.

    Last month, Fitzgerald disclosed in court documents that he discovered
from witnesses in the case that some emails related to Wilson and his wife,
written by senior aides in Cheney¹s office and sent to other officials at
the National Security Council, had not been turned over to investigators by
the White House.

    ³In an abundance of caution,² Fitzgerald's January 23 letter to Libby's
defense team states, ³we advise you that we have learned that not all email
of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the
President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal
archiving process on the White House computer system.²

    Sources close to the case said that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
withheld numerous emails from Fitzgerald¹s probe citing ³executive
privilege² and ³national security² concerns. These sources said that as of
Friday there are still some emails that have not been turned over to
Fitzgerald because they contain classified information in addition to
references about the Wilsons.

    Attorneys representing Cheney¹s former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis
³Scooter² Libby, charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to
investigators related to his role in the leak, were in court Friday arguing
that Fitzgerald should be required to turn over classified material,
including highly sensitive Presidential Daily Briefs, to Libby¹s defense
team.

    The defense hopes that the classified materials will establish that
Libby was dealing with more pressing matters facing the White House and that
he simply did not intend to mislead the grand jury when he testified that he
did not disclose Plame Wilson¹s name to reporters.

    In another development in the leak case Friday, U.S. District Judge
Reggie B. Walton said another administration official, who does not work at
the White House, also spoke to reporters about Plame Wilson. This
individual, according to sources close to the case, works at the National
Security Council.

    Walton said that Libby¹s defense team was not entitled to be told of the
individual¹s identity because the person is not charged with a crime in the
leak. However, the person is said to be one of several people in the
administration who is cooperating with the probe.

    Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis
as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last
year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak investigation, and is a
regular contributer to t r u t h o u t.