The NYT Demands Answers

by emptywheel

Before I mock the NYT editorial calling for answers, let me just review the NYT's implication in this Administration's abuse of power.

• When Judy Miller was subpoenaed to reveal the name of her source, NYT managers learned Libby was trying to coach her testimony, but they proceeded to support Judy's protection of Libby anyway
• At roughly the same time as they made the decision to protect Libby, they also decided to sit on the story of the illegal wiretap program--one of Dick Cheney's pet projects--so as not to affect the 2004 election

Twice, NYT's managers were accomplices to the Administration's attempts to get away with criminal behavior.

So today, that same NYT is demanding answers from Patrick Fitzgerald.

It’s conceivable that Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor, has evidence that suggests the information in the memo was used in some illegal manner. Or his investigators may have learned something troubling about the second, unknown, source cited in Mr. Novak’s column, or about some other illegal activity. But whatever it is needs to be made public.

[snip]

It’s time for Mr. Fitzgerald to provide answers or admit that this investigation has run its course.

Never mind that the NYT can't even get its facts straight, neither on its editorials page nor in its news pages. Never mind that the White House took two and a half years to comply with the FBI's subpoena for emails; we should hold the White House to the same standards of timeliness we're demanding from the guy investigating the White House. And never mind that the NYT totally misreads the significance of recent Armitage "news."

"Whatever it is" has been made public--it's just that news outlets like the NYT haven't reported it. So let me try to explain to the nation's paper of record what Patrick Fitzgerald has revealed. This is all documented in this post, which in turn links to the court documents in which Fitzgerald made this news public.

• Scooter Libby has instructions in his notes to leak something to Judy Miller (that journalist the NYT now claims was unjustifiably jailed, apparently having forgotten that the NYT itself was aware that Libby was trying to obstruct justice) on July 8, 2003
• When questioned about the notation, Libby claimed the instructions related to the NIE
• Libby went further to make certain claims about the NIE leak--that the leak was authorized by Dick Cheney and George Bush, that such an authorization was totally unique in his career, and that Libby was so worried about leaking the NIE to Judy that he double checked to make sure he was authorized to do so
• Libby later made claims that directly contradicted these assertions--most importantly, even though Libby claims the Judy leak was totally unique in his career, he also leaked the NIE to three other people: Bob Woodward, a journalist on July 2, and the WSJ
• Also, in spite of the fact that Libby says he was really worried about getting authorization to leak the NIE to Judy, he's not really sure whether he was authorized to leak the NIE to Woodward; his concern about the leak to Judy only extended to whatever he leaked to Judy

In short, Libby is almost certainly lying about what he was authorized to leak to Judy on July 8, 2003, in a meeting where Judy Miller admits he talked about Valerie Plame and where Libby tried to get her to falsely attribute the story. Or let me put it even more plainly for the news-impaired NYT:

Evidence suggests that the Vice President of the United States authorized the outing of the CIA spy who could prove Cheney ignored evidence that Iraq didn't have WMDs.

Now, if it weren't for the NYT's past complicity in the Administration's attempts to get away with criminal behavior, if it weren't for Judy Miller's very prominent role in this scheme to out a spy (and in efforts to help the Administration get away with that scheme), I'd attribute the NYT editorial to laziness or stupidity. They're the news outlet. It's their job to report this stuff, which Patrick Fitzgerald has made public. They shouldn't be blaming Patrick Fitzgerald, they should be blaming themselves.

But there is that nasty little detail that the NYT once shielded Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff for nine months, when they knew he was trying to obstruct justice, and the detail that they shielded one of Dick Cheney's illegal programs for over a year.

The NYT has bailed out Dick Cheney for his criminal behavior twice in the past. Are they trying to do so again?

Comments

[windje]

The New Dork Times is castigating a prosecutor for following the law in doing his job, and the Times withholds publishing stories which arguably could have changed the outcome of a presidential election.

Chutzpah

[demtom]

And yes, it was a different editorial page editor, but the Times one had a much different level of patience for investigations. This piece ends with a reference to the idiotic Cisneros investigation, but manages to avoid mention of the big enchilada Ken Starr presided over -- presumably because the world knows the Times cheer-led it most of the way.

[Dismayed]

I've been a long time subscriber to the NYT. Clearly, they have the same agenda as FOX. I'm cancelling my subscription.

[emptywheel]

Excellent point, demtom.

[lemondloulou54]

EW, I hope you fire off a letter to the editor of the NYT on this one. It seems to me you have them by the short and hairy ones.

[Jodi]

emptywheel,

you confuse the issue of the NYT's actions with Judy. They protected the right of a reporter to withhold their source. What matter who the source was? At the end of the day they "let her go" which indicated their displeasure with her.

Their decision to sit on a story falls under their purview. They don't have the obligation to rush to the presses until they feel they are ready.

To say they were "accomplices" is a real, real, really real stretch! [I edited that one because I don't know what the policy on the vernacular is here.]

jodi

[alabama]

The Times supports our warring presence in Iraq, and so do its readers. How could they possibly tolerate a full and transparent account of their role in this thing? They may be evil, but they aren't stupid or suicidal.

[emptywheel]

Jodi

It's not a matter of who the source is (except that they're now developing a pattern of protecting Dick Cheney's team). What matters is that, even according to their own description, Judy and the NYT managers had reason to believe Libby was coaching Judy on her testimony.

Ms. Miller authorized Mr. Abrams to talk to Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph A. Tate. The question was whether Mr. Libby really wanted her to testify. Mr. Abrams passed the details of his conversation with Mr. Tate along to Ms. Miller and to Times executives and lawyers, people involved in the internal discussion said.

People present at the meetings said that what they heard about the preliminary negotiations was troubling.

Mr. Abrams told Ms. Miller and the group that Mr. Tate had said she was free to testify. Mr. Abrams said Mr. Tate also passed along some information about Mr. Libby's grand jury testimony: that he had not told Ms. Miller the name or undercover status of Mr. Wilson's wife.

That raised a potential conflict for Ms. Miller. Did the references in her notes to "Valerie Flame" and "Victoria Wilson" suggest that she would have to contradict Mr. Libby's account of their conversations? Ms. Miller said in an interview that she concluded that Mr. Tate was sending her a message that Mr. Libby did not want her to testify.

According to Ms. Miller, this was what Mr. Abrams told her about his conversation with Mr. Tate: "He was pressing about what you would say. When I wouldn't give him an assurance that you would exonerate Libby, if you were to cooperate, he then immediately gave me this, 'Don't go there, or, we don't want you there.' "

Mr. Abrams said: "On more than one occasion, Mr. Tate asked me for a recitation of what Ms. Miller would say. I did not provide one."

This was the NYT's First Amendment lawyer, discovering this troubling information, and relaying it to Judy and the NYT's managers. After learning this troubling information (indeed, after being told Judy's testimony would contradict Libby's), the NYT paid a million dollars to fight Judy's subpoena. And all the while, they wrote editorial after editorial celebrating Judy as a martyr to the First Amendment. In doing so, they themselves added nine months to the length of the investigation--the timelieness of which they're now complaining about.

Now, if Judy had paid her own defense fees, and if the NYT hadn't celebrated Judy as a First Amendment martyr for behavior they knew was withholding incriminating evidence from the investigation, you'd have a point. But the NYT knowingly paid to fight the subpoena even after Libby tried to coach Judy's testimony.

[melior]

Add the NYT editors to the list of people Fitz is driving batshit insane as he slowly, slowly tightens the screws while steadfastly refusing to leak a single thing. Damn his eyes!!

They just... can't... stand it.

[ecoast]

EW - Your 12:42 comment was much sharper and more focused than your post. Glad that Jodi got that out of you. :-)
I second lemondlulu's suggestion that you write a LTE to NYT.

[QuickSilver]

Both of the recent Armitage stories trumpeting Armitage's "primary" role leaker (on July 8th, 2003) ignored the obvious contradiction of Judy's own prior meeting with Libby (on June 23rd, 2003), in which Libby and Miller discussed Mrs. Wilson and her work at the CIA.

Do you think the New York Times' severance agreement with Miller limits it from reporting on her role? Or do they even have that excuse?

[Jim E.]

I do not disagree with the disgraceful behavior that EW has documented against the NYTimes. Indeed, the newspaper has aided and abetted this administration in countless ways, particularly in the matter of the so-called War on Terror and the debacle in Iraq. And today's editorial is replete with factual errors and key omissions.

With that said, I do not disagree with the gist of their complaint about Fitz. If he's only keeping the case "open" due to the single Libby trial, he should say so. I mean, if you look at both the posts and comments on this website, some folks are under the impression that another shoe is going to drop. If nothing more's ever going to happen (outside of something unexpected in the Libby trial itself) we should know now.

On the other hand, if he still has a real investigation going, and is still pursuing leads, he should not only give some indication that this is the case, he should be trying to bring it to a close ASAP. While EW is correct in noting that the NY Times itself is largely to blame for the length of the investigation, it is also true that Fitz, even with those delays, has had more than enough time to shit or get off the pot. At a certain point, if he's got anyone else in the crosshairs, he ought to charge them soon, or not charge them at all -- and then give us a heads-up about the status of the investigation.

Finally, I agree that Fitz should be encouraged to give a public accounting. As it stands, we've got gloating from administration defenders merely because it appears that Fitz doesn't think he has enough evidence to merit a criminal conviction. Talk about the bigotry of low expectations! Since felonious conviction is such a pathetic standard, we should at least be privvy to what our government is doing in our name, even if Fitz *only* has what appears to be a preponderance of evidence.

Yes, I know I come off as impatient in this post. But it would be the height of ridiculousness if Fitz were to wait until 2009 to charge someone else. (Then again, if the Dems win teh White House, the indicted could say bye-bye to a pardon, which would be mildly cool.) I happen to think his investigation is for all intents and purposes over, and I think it would do everyone some good were he to say so publicly. Because in the meantime, I don't think anyone can deny that he's getting his ass kicked in the PR department, which does him no favors as he heads into the Libby trial.

[emptywheel]

Jim E

The one problem with that is that may close off prosecutorial approaches. Libby is indicted for lying, almost certainly to protect Cheney. As I point out here, probably the most incendiary lie is one that was not charge in the indictment (I've always assumed because it's a lot harder to prove). But even in the pre-trial period, Libby's lawyers have been forced into a corner on this NIE stuff. In other words, strictly the process of going to trial is getting Libby (and his representatives) to go on the record with claims that will undermine the BIG LIE.

If he had had to say, in the Ryan case, that his investigation was over as he pulled together info for the first trial, he would never have gotten Ryan. I personally expect he realizes he can't flip most of these people (though the possibility that he added Grenier in 2005 is tantalizing). But he can get them to dismantle their own lies, as they try to avoid prosecution on the small lies.

[orionATl]

ah, now this was a pleasure to read, e'wheel.

direct, documented, and holding the nytimes to standards it holds every one but itself to - full disclosure.

of course, the times' writings, whether news or editorial, are all corporate communications

and thus are bound to uphold the guiding principle of all corporate communications - "first do no harm (to the corporation)".

[orionATL]

p.s.

if fitzgerald had other charges to bring, and he brought them now, he would immediately be charged with acting politically (I assume any charges would reflect badly on bush administrating officials).

plus, fitzgerald is up for renewal.

the slightest "political" act on his part would serve as fuel for his dismissal, i.e., non-reappointment. and he is frying a lot of other fish right now, e.g., lord black.

since fitzgerald has not said he is finished, i believe he has more to say

but i doubt he would even consider making any moves in the plame matter until after the november elections.

[Neo]

I wonder if the Times knew this was coming today.

Independent Counsel Law (finally) Sunsets

Press release:

OFFICE OF INDEPENDENT COUNSEL DAVID M. BARRETT 1990 K St., N.W., Suite 420 Washington, D.C. 20006 http://barrett.oic.gov
TELEPHONE: (202) 974-5440 FACSIMILE: (202) 974-5459
January 19, 2006

PRESS RELEASE

Today the United States Court of Appeals for the District for Columbia Circuit, Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels, approved the release of the Final Report of the Independent Counsel in re: Henry G. Cisneros. The Report can be found on the Office’s website at http://barrett.oic.gov.

This has been a long and difficult investigation. It is my hope that people will read the entire Report and draw their own conclusions. An accurate title for the Report could be, “WHAT WE WERE PREVENTED FROM INVESTIGATING.”
After a thorough reading of the Report it would not be unreasonable to conclude as I have that there was a coverup at high levels of our government and, it appears to have been substantial and coordinated. The question is why? And that question regrettably will go unanswered. Unlike some other coverups, this one succeeded.

I recommend that people begin by reading the memorandum of Mr. John Filan, Chief of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division in the South Texas District (Appendix no. 16).

[Jim E.]

orionatl wrote: "but i doubt he would even consider making any moves in the plame matter until after the november elections"

But for him to act in such a way would be political.

[emptywheel]

I actually suspect Fitz has thought hard about the lessons of Lawrence Walsh. With Iran-Contra, because Walsh didn't get to the guts of the indictments before the election, Bush was able to pre-pardon Cap, before he said anything that would incriminate Poppy.

In other words, if Fitz wants to be able to try Libby at all, and not have Bush pardon him to prevent the damage from spreading to Dick or even himself, he's going to have to reveal SOMETHING before the election, to make a pardon politically difficult for the Republican Party.

[Jim E.]

Dude, you're publishing a book? Wow!!

[Jim E.]

(That's a genderless "dude," Marcy.)

[emptywheel]

Now all the smart things you have said will actually get filtered into the narrative, Jim E.

It wouldn't be possible without the smart commentors we've got here.

[Tom Maguire]

Sorry, I am just jumping in (I'll read the thread later), but this grabbed me:

[Libby's] not really sure whether he was authorized to leak the NIE to Woodward

I think, Libby's BSing notwithstanding, that Woodward operated under special rules and that everyone was under standing instructions to just spill everything to the guy. Scary, but there it is. And Fitzgerald had no intenrion of being the Special Counsel who busted Bob Woodward for learning too many secrets.

[semiot]

Tom:

So do you think Sy Hersh's source was speaking the truth when he said that the Niger forgeries were concocted by ex-CIA people working to "put the bite" on Cheney and the Gang?

[Tom Maguire]

This piece ends with a reference to the idiotic Cisneros investigation, but manages to avoid mention of the big enchilada Ken Starr presided over...

Groan - I am not even going to look it up but IIRC there were like, thirteen Whitewater-related, Starr-led convictions or plea deals, including the AR governor. But I am *not* going to look it up. N-O-T. Recovering Starr-aholics take it one day at a time.

On the Times: I broadly agree that the NY Times is compromised here - they were deliberately misleading about just what Judy (and they) were protecting, for example. Here is a snippet from July 6, 2005, with Keller lying through his teeth:

TERENCE SMITH: Now, the prosecutor made the point in court that not only does he know the identity of Judy Miller's source, that he -- that the source has signed a waiver of confidentiality, in which case, what is Judy Miller defending?

BILL KELLER: I don't know whether the special prosecutor knows the identity of her source. I do know this: that Judy Miller made an absolute pledge to her source that she would not reveal his name or the substance of their conversation, and to this point, she has received no waiver or release that she regards as freely given anyway from that source.

He didn't know the name on Judy's subpoena, or even that there *was* a name? Please.

Yes, I know I come off as impatient in this post. But it would be the height of ridiculousness if Fitz were to wait until 2009 to charge someone else.

I second those who point out that it is too late - he can't wait until Labor Day and election season and then hand one party a present.

Which prompts another question - is the Times kidding? An announcement from Fitzgerald over the summer *might* have been appropriate (and it is not like the Armitage "news" drove this), but we are too close to an election for him to have any kind of "accounting".

...he's going to have to reveal SOMETHING before the election, to make a pardon politically difficult for the Republican Party.

Well, the pardon won't come until after the election; therefore the pre-emptive Big News can come after the election, as long as it precedes the pardon. Of course, Big News after the pardon still causes political heat, and strings out the story (as soon as there is a pardon, reporters will be dying for the "what was being concealed" angle, so Fitzgerald can feed into that.)

Cinversely, about the only thing Fitzgerald could do before the election is indict someone - anything else that casts suspicion without an indictment, at this late date, will prompt howls (IMHO, legitimate ones.)

Can anyone help me with this, from the Times:

Or his investigators may have learned something troubling about the second, unknown, source cited in Mr. Novak’s column,

They are talking about Rove, yes? In what sense is Armitage "known" but Rove "unknown"? Seeing as how Rove's role has been noted in court filings (while Armitage seems to need anonymity to preserve his rep), I would have said that Rove is "known" and Armitage is merely "reported".

Or are they actually saying something meaningful here that I am missing?

[semiot]

You didn't answer my question Tom [Groan]. Do you think Sy Hersh's source was speaking the truth when he said that the Niger forgeries were concocted by ex-CIA people working to "put the bite" on Cheney and the Gang?