Head in a Cloud

by emptywheel

Amid renewed discussions of JimmyJeff and questions of whether Nicholas Kristof was subpoenaed, I've been puzzling through the list of jounalists whose contacts with the WH was subpoenaed in March 2004 (via JustOneMinute).

Robert Novak, "Crossfire," "Capital Gang" and the Chicago Sun-Times
Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps, Newsday
Walter Pincus, Richard Leiby, Mike Allen, Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
Matthew Cooper, John Dickerson, Massimo Calabresi, Michael Duffy and James Carney, Time magazine
Evan Thomas, Newsweek
Andrea Mitchell, "Meet the Press," NBC
Chris Matthews, "Hardball," MSNBC
Tim Russert, Campbell Brown, NBC
Nicholas D. Kristof, David E. Sanger and Judith Miller, The New York Times
Greg Hitt and Paul Gigot, The Wall Street Journal
John Solomon, The Associated Press
Jeff Gannon, Talon News

I'll say a bit about this list in a second, but what I'm most intrigued by, at first glance, is the absence of David Cloud, the journalist who reported the first presumably verifiable leak about the INR memo.

First, though, my comments about the list. On it are the presumably six journalists named by the senior Adminstration official in 2003: Cooper, Miller, Novak, Pincus, Russert, and Kessler. Then there are people who clearly got some inside information, because they passed it along to Wilson, people like Andrea Mitchell and Chris Matthews. And then there's the inestimable JimmyJeff (this is probably as close as he'll come to being classified as a real journalist). Royce and Phelps are there, for their post-leak article, but David Corn is not.The journalists Cooper shared a byline with. Leiby, who did a profile of Wilson and later Plame. Allen, who knows the name of the leaker, and Dana Priest who co-bylined that article with him. Like Dave McGuire, I'm rather stunned Clifford May isn't here. And I'm looking into the others--I suspect Sanger is here, for example, because he reported a number of leaks the week this all went down in July 2003.

But no David Cloud.

I came to the rather obvious realization the other day that, if showing someone a memo with a paragraph marked [S] in July could get you in trouble for security clearance violations, than doing so in October would do so as well. Whoever leaked this to Cloud (or JimmyJeff, who at the least published an article shortly after Cloud) should be in doo doo right now, particularly since the CIA considered this leak part of continued actions to "release classified information to damage the figures at the center of the controversy."

But then I looked back at the Cloud article and things got crazy. First, because compared to some of the leakees in the press today, Cloud was remarkably balanced and thorough. For example, Cloud makes it clear the nepotism claim is bunk. He shows how appropriate Wilson was for the task.

That Ms. Plame recommended her husband doesn't undercut Mr. Wilson's credentials for the job of trying to figure out whether Saddam Hussein was seeking the raw material for a nuclear weapon in Africa. He is a former U.S. ambassador to Gabon and National Security Council expert on Africa in the Clinton administration.

And Cloud includes the other evidence that shows the Bush Administration should have--or did--know the Niger claims were BS when they included them in the SOTU.

The decision to send Mr. Wilson to Niger came after months of efforts by the CIA, urged on by the Bush White House, to try to discover whether the Iraqi dictator was back in the business of pursuing nuclear weapons. Indeed, two other U.S. officials -- the U.S. ambassador to Niger and a top Marine general -- were asked to make inquiries, and came back similarly dubious.

But mostly because this memo doesn't resemble the memo we've come to know and love. Here's how Cloud first describes the memo:

The memo, prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel, details a meeting in early 2002 where CIA officer Valerie Plame and other intelligence officials gathered to brainstorm about how to verify reports that Iraq had sought uranium yellowcake from Niger.

Ms. Plame, a member of the agency's clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested at the meeting that her husband, Africa expert and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, could be sent to Niger to investigate the reports, according to current and former government officials familiar with the meeting at the CIA's Virginia headquarters. Soon after, midlevel CIA officials decided to send him, say intelligence officials. [emphasis mine]

And he goes on:

According to current and former officials familiar with the memo, it describes interagency discussions of the yellowcake mystery: whether the reports of Iraq's uranium purchases were credible; which agency should pay for any further investigation; and the suggestion that Mr. Wilson could be sent to check out the allegations. Other officials with knowledge of the memo wouldn't say if it mentions Ms. Plame by name as the one who suggested Mr. Wilson, or if her identity is shielded but obvious because of what is known now about the mission. Operations officers like Ms. Plame are sometimes identified only by their first names even in interagency meetings. [emphasis mine]

Now compare that to the most complete description we've had to date.

The material in the memo about Wilson's wife was based on notes taken by an INR analyst who attended a Feb. 19, 2002, meeting at the CIA where Wilson's intelligence-gathering trip to Niger was discussed.

The memo was drafted June 10, 2003, for Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who asked to be brought up to date on INR's opposition to the White House view that Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

The description of Wilson's wife and her role in the Feb. 19, 2002, meeting at the CIA was considered "a footnote" in a background paragraph in the memo, according to an official who was aware of the process.

It records that the INR analyst at the meeting opposed Wilson's trip to Niger because the State Department, through other inquiries, already had disproved the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. Attached to the INR memo were the notes taken by the senior INR analyst who attended the 2002 meeting at the CIA. [emphasis mine]

Finally, compare both of these with some excerpts from the SSCI Report. First, there's the description fo the meeting where it was decided to invite Joe Wilson (I'll call this Meeting A).

Officials from the CIA's DO Counterproliferation Division (CPD) told Committee staff that in response to questions from the Vice President's Office and the Departments of State and Defense on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal, CPD officials discussed ways to obtain additional information. _____________ who could make immediate inquiries into the reporting, CPD decided to contact a former ambassador to Gabon who had a posting early in his career in Niger. Some CPD officals could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee suggested his name for the trip. (39)

Then there's the meeting that Joe Wilson attends (I'll call this Meeting B).

On February 19, 2002, CPD hosted a meeting with the former ambassador, intelligence analysts from both the CIA and INR, and several individuals from the DO's Africa and CPD divisions. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the merits of the former ambassador traveling to Niger. An INR analyst's notes indicate that the meeting was "apparently convened by [the former ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch [him] to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue." The former ambassador's wife told Committee staff that she only attended the meeting to introduce her husband and left after about three minutes. (40)

And finally this description of Meeting B that I've been stewing over for months.

An e-mail from a WINPAC analyst to CPD following the meeting noted "it appears that the results from this source will be suspect at best, and not believeable under most scenarios. (40-41)

If the most recent descriptions of this memo are correct, then it's clear David Cloud never saw the memo--and his sources either hadn't, or they were just lying through their teeth. Because, as far as we know, the memo doesn't detail Meeting A; it only includes a description of Meeting B. Yet Cloud says it describes Meeting A (almost to the exclusion of Meeting B). The primary discussion of Meeting B included in Cloud's description is the content--whether Wilson's trip would be valuable--but presented as if it's the central focus of the memo, rather than the question discussed at the meeting described. And in any case, we've learned that all of this stuff, Meeting A and Meeting B, were just a "footnote" in the INR memo.

But when it gets down to the stuff we want to know about--Plame's identity--all of a sudden Cloud is dealing with different sources.

Other officials with knowledge of the memo wouldn't say if it mentions Ms. Plame by name as the one who suggested Mr. Wilson, or if her identity is shielded but obvious because of what is known now about the mission.

From everything we know about the memo, the latter is the case--it identifies Plame only as Wilson's wife. So while these officials wouldn't say one way or another, at least they give a more accurate picture of the reality of the INR memo.

Let's take a quick look at Cloud's sources. There are two sets of people (plural) who claim familiarity with the INR memo. Those who comment on its content and those who comment--or not--on whether it identifies Plame. One set of those people is described in terms remarkably similar to a different group, those "current and former government officials familiar with the meeting at the CIA's Virginia headquarters." Given the limited number of attendees at the first meeting (Meeting A), this would either suggest Cloud interviewed a bunch of CPD (Counter Proliferation) CIA guys. Or his sources were lying. I guess I'd wager it's the latter, given later concerns about whether the people cited in the INR memo had any business talking about what went on in Meeting A. I included the quote from the WINPAC analyst, btw, because that's the only person described in this section of the SSCI that could be Fred Fleit; I wonder whether he was one of Cloud's sources?

So what? So close to the denouement, what difference does this make?

Well, first of all, I was wrong to assume the people shopping this memo in November will go to jail. Because I suspect they didn't shop them memo ... they just lied. Or this isn't the INR memo, in which case the first time any memo is described as the INR memo in the press is when JimmyJeff describes it as such. In which case, we can't assume JimmyJeff learned about the INR memo from the WSJ, since this doens't look to be the INR memo.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that this "memo" was a compilation of details from the SSCI (which was not released yet--but almost came to be released at about this time), rather than the memo itself. Or, Cloud's sources were describing what I suspect to be an NSC talking points memo put out specifically to attack Joe Wilson, but claiming it was the INR memo. Or, after the WSJ reported this story, JimmyJeff did his shilling duty and pretended it was something different than it was.

Comments

[emptywheel]

I forgot to say why this matters--besides the question of whether there'll be indictments related to a later circulation of classified memos. I don't think there will be, because this wasn't the INR (if even half of the reports on it have been accurate).

But this does open up the possibility that BushCo and their winger journalists were lying--under cover of this memo--in fall 2003 so as to simulataneously throw suspicion off the documents they were using and to continue to smear Wilson and Plame.

[DemFromCT]

the talking head known as tweety (Matthews) keeps saying this is politics... it's hardball... where's the crime? Presumably we soon find that out. But lying to screw someone may or may not be a crime, depending on what they're being accused of.

Tom Oliphaunt, for reasons that escape me, is all bent out of shape about a special prosecutor finding crimes where politics are practiced.

i really think maybe it is time to sit back and see what fitz' cards are.

[emptywheel]

Well, damnit, Fitz' timing is really turning out to be poor for me. Can't he turn his cards NOW??? (whiny voice...)

[Leslie Pool]

... Well, now I'm worried and whining too (--- enough to make a comment)! PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE DON'T STOP WRITING! I might be a quiet voice in the dark but I've been a faithful reader. Your articles (and comments too!) are the only reason I've been able to survive the excruciating pain of waiting ... waiting ... waiting for Fitzgerald to open his deck (of cards).

What else does a girl have to look forward too? Until I know for sure that, the bully regime is dethroned, I cannot --- I will not, and therefore I haven't carried on as if all were normal... Oh yeah, THANK YOU VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY MUCH! Leslie Pool

[mike g]

Is it possible that the discrepancies between the memos are due to the fact that there are two memos circulating?

In this scenario, the actual memo "describes interagency discussions of the yellowcake mystery: whether the reports of Iraq's uranium purchases were credible" and therefore needs to be hidden, because it is further evidence that the WH knew it's claims were bogus.

Meanwhile, the WH has cooked up a fake version (Rove hard at work?) which does not discuss the Niger forgeries. This 'memo' serves a dual purpose: it can be used against Wilson by exaggerating his wife's role in his selection for the mission, identifies and exposes her, and conveniently leaves out the damaaging info about the Niger forgeries.

[emptywheel]

mike

I think there's a very good possibility that there are two memos circulating. In fact, we pretty know there are, because Jane Harman was trying to hold an investigation into them. I've always thought this referred to the Powell circulated (dated July 6) and earlier circulated (dated June 10) version of the memo. But yeah, I think it possible that Rove was circulating something purporting to be the INR memo, which wasn't.

Although, FWIW, I think the "real" one wouldn't have the details about interagency discussions. There are too many credible State Department people who leaked about the memo and its purpose not to believe them--and they say the purpose was to lay out State's take on Niger intelligence generally, not specific to Wilson's trip.

My other thought was whether they were circulating something else (like the NSC talking points I believe existed) but had JimmyJeff say it was the INR memo when they decided they should cover their tracks better.

[oofer]

DemFromCT,

I noticed that, tpp, and was baffled by what he was getting at. Does he think the Dem's have skeletons in their closet? Is he trying to compare Fitz with Starr's investigation? Oliphant just seemed to be whistling in the wind about nonsense. It was a was of airtime as near as I can see. Although it does point to died-in-the-wool 'establishment liberals' who can't get out of their own way in order to project some odd idea of 'fairness'. Whatever THAT is these days. I thought better of Tom Oliphant. But no more.

[Tom Maguire]

Excellent. As to your broad "why wasn't this in the subpoena, because it should have been", I have no idea.

The nuts and bolts answer is in the Newsday excerpts to which you linked. Briefly, the Cloud story fell outside of the dates for the various subpoenas:

Two of the subpoenas focus mainly on White House records, events and contacts in July, both before and after the July 14 column by Robert Novak that said "two senior administration officials" told him Plame was a CIA officer.

The third subpoena repeats an informal Justice Department document request to the White House last fall seeking records about staff contacts with Novak and two Newsday reporters, Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps, who reported on July 22 that Plame was a covert agent and Novak had blown her cover.

That initial document request was made on Sept 30 and covered (among other things) "copies of
the following documents, created during the time period February 1,
2002, through September 30, 2003, inclusive...".

So mechanically, the Cloud story was passed over. And one might argue that, by October, "everyone" was in on the act.

Second idea - maybe the DoJ let their subscription to Lexis/Nexis lapes - note that the first document request overlooked Cooper and his TIME colleagues. I had a theory about that at the time that personal pride will not let me repeat. (Well, if I spent all my time unearthing my old errors, I wouldn't have time to make new ones...)

[emptywheel]

Tom:

Good explanation. My only question is--how would JimmmyJeff's records be subpoenaed and not Clouds.

Although I'd love to be the red-faced Harriet who had to explain that ALL of WH communications with JimmyJeff had to be included.

[manyoso]

emptywheel,

The real mystery to me is why Fitz hasn't asked for Cliff May's testimony considering he has publicly said he knew of Plame's career before Novak published. Of course, he was probably lying, but...

Also, did you know that Miguel Estrada has been talking up Fitzgerald?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-10-10-fitzgerald_x.htm

[Tom Maguire]

Re Gannon - hmm. The obvious guess - although we first see him in the WaPo story and associate him with the Oct 17 WSJ story, maybe he really did show up in WH phone logs earlier.

And why would he not have earlier WH contacts, if he really was some sort of WH friendly stooge (lefty view), or even a self-promoting right-wing Drudge aspirant (my view)?

Now, that is a strand that might be worth pulling on, although I don't imagine you will be able to find much behind it.

And to compound my frustration - the Editor and Publisher link to their post-outing interbiew with Gannon has moved behind their subscription wall. An excerpt:

Guckert said that contrary to many press reports, he was never subpoenaed by the special prosecutor and has never testified before a grand jury in the case. But he said he was interviewed by two FBI agents in his home for about 90 minutes last year.

"I answered their questions truthfully and honestly, but I would prefer not to say more,” he said. “I assume the information was routed back and that is why I was not called to testify."

Well, E&P asked him about the Cloud story, but per that excerpt, we don't know if the FBI asked him about that, or something else.

There's a lesson - I assumed that the FBI was asking him about that. Well, per the Left Coaster story, maybe they were.

[emptywheel]

One more thing. The lack of interest (if that's what it is) is particularly disconcerting given allegations that there are a series of phone calls between the WH and Novak right before his story changed. Because at precisely that time, May's story changed too; that's when he started saying Plame's identity was well-known. Given that May seems to be on the same leak schedule as Novak (July, then late September), you'd think he'd be a person the FBI would want to talk to.

Then of course, maybe they did.

[DrBB]

One broader issue I've been wondering about as I read the fascinating series of recent posts by EW, Reddhed and Jane:

The possibility that this investigation will extend into the substance of the Yellowcake fraud is what gets pulses really racing. But there seems to be an assumption that Fitz is motivated to expand his investigation rather than keep it focused on the original brief, strictly speaking.

Isn't that rather contrary to prosecutorial best-practices? I don't even look like a lawyer, much less play one on TV, but I thought one of the major concerns in getting a conviction is to not let the case get too diffuse. I think particularly of the prosecution of the Oklahoma bombers, where the prosecutors seemed quite intent on bracketing off evidence of wider conspiracies beyond the two principal targets.

There seem to be a number of posters and commenters with real legal experience around, so I thought maybe someone could address this. In my own head, I thought one reason Fitz might have accepted Judy's demand for restricting questions was not to trap her, but because he saw it as serving his own interest not to let the case get out of hand.

[Tom Maguire]

I dug this up im my own comments section from Feb 2005, when Gannon was all the buzz. I was responding to a very sensible question, to wit, why did I think the WSJ ever saw the memo?

David Cloud, the WSJ reporter in question, has never responded to my e-mails (and I only tried a couple of times), but I don't believe he was ever subpoenaed, and it certainly seems that he should have been. So did he see a memo, or what? That has been on my "Frequently Unanswered Questions" for a while.

And there it remains, unless you have a breakthrough. Good luck.

An idea - IF you could dig up several articles by Gannon, and compare them with stuff by Cloud (hiding behind the WSJ wall), maybe they have an overlap in sources for national security stuff.

Or maybe some other connection stands out - they both spoke on a panel, or something.

[Tom Maguire]

OK, I am going to wear out my welcome with that last bad link.

On the question of when Gannon interviewed Wilson, here is a data point that folks may have missed. From Part 3:

TN: Nicholas Kristoff wrote in the New York Times recently that the CIA believes that Aldrich Ames may have betrayed your wife to the Russians prior to his arrest in 1994. That would make her not an undercover operative for the CIA in effect.

Wilson: I don't know where Kristoff got that. I think that there is a fair amount of material in the public record to suggest that there is a lot of concern that Mr. Ames betrayed a number of American operatives during his spying.

That was an Oct 11 2003 column by Kristof.

[Ron Brynaert]

Tom's find me led me to find another one.

I just noticed this too from the Gannon interview:

TN: Earlier this month, the Washington Post ran a lengthy article on the Wilson/Plame family. The writer decribes her family and goes on to say "a few months after that July evening, her name and her occupation would be published and broadcast internationally. In the public imagination she would become Jane Bond as her husband later put it. A clandestine operative isn't supposed to be famous, but her identity was leaked to journalists by administration officials for what Joe Wilson alleged was retaliation for his criticism of the White House's Iraq policies."

That was a reference to this October 8th WAPO article: The Spy Next Door.

[Tom Maguire]

I willfeel that this is all justified if an UPDATE is titled "Cloud Coverage". Or maybe, "Clouds, with Clearing".

[eriposte]

EW,

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Cliff May did not get a subpoena, just like the case of JimmyJeff. The FBI must have interviewed May and determined from his responses that no subpoena is required. As far as I can tell May was making things up and may not really have had any sources that told him what he claimed he had heard.

The one aspect that interests me greatly is what Nicholas Kristof and David Sanger said. After all these are likely to be the two NY Times contacts who may have had some contact with Judith Miller.

The key thing is that Fitzgerald was after Cooper and Miller because he felt there wasn't much of a case without their testimony. If we work back to that using the knowledge we have today, it becomes clear that he was after them for the following reasons:

1. Rove had changed his story with the grand jury which made it clear that his words could not be trusted. He spoke to Novak and Cooper and Novak was a serial fabricator in cahoots with Rove who could not be trusted. Cooper was the only person who could shed light on whether Rove's latest narrative was true or not. Hence his appeal to the court to force Cooper to testify.

2. Libby testified on all his contacts with the Press, but Fitzgerald must have heard from another witness that Libby left out at least one meeting with a reporter (Miller) - in June 2003. That must have made it apparent to Fitzgerald that unless he gets Miller to testify to that meeting, he could not prove that Libby hid something from the grand jury. Hence his push to force Miller to testify.

So, here's a question. Who might have known about the Miller/Libby meeting in late June 2003? Is it likely to have been a NY Times colleague who was interviewed or subpoenaed?

[emptywheel]

eRiposte

See my new post. I think it might be Johnston. He was one of the two journalists (with Broad) who was buddied up with Judy to prevent her from hurting herself, her reputation, or the grey lady anymore. And it's POSSIBLE he's been telegraphing details all this time.

And if you or Tom Maguire (sorry about earlier spelling errors, btw) have speculation about the Pincus bit, I'd love to hear it.

[Wayne Smyer]

DID ACE WHITE HOUSE PRESS REPORTER AND STUD-WHORE, JEFFY GANNON, PUBLISH A CIA "OUTING" STORY ON VALERIE PLAME IN TALON NEWS? WAS HE "IMBEDDED" WITH TURD BLOSSOM ROVE? WAS HE CALLED TO TESTIFY BEFORE THE FEDERAL GRAND JURY? DOES TURD BLOSSOM ROVE HAVE A "GET OUT JAIL FREE" PASS FROM "THE CHIMP"?? Lwayno
"Who Knows what evil lurks in the mind of Turd Blossom Rove" The "Toy Boy" Jeffy Gannon does!!!

p.s. The best scientific evidence to support the Theory Of Evolution is George "The Chimp" Bush, a.k.a. Austreopisses Texanus. Quote from Lwayno