by emptywheel
Marc Ash--the editor standing by Jason Leopold's scoop on Rove's indictment--claims Victory!!! as he crows about Jason having been first with the story Murray Waas reported last week. Now, don't get me wrong, on the story of Bush's approval for the Wilson smear, Jason seems to have gotten almost the same story as Murray (I'll point out one minor, but significant, difference below) several months before Murray.
But as part of his victory lap, Ash pulls out a story that, after I pointed out some, um, poor logic many months ago, Jason totally rewrote.
Not the first time. In January Leopold reported for TO that, "Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11". Over 6 months later, on June 30th Bloomberg finally checked in with their report confirming Leopold's, "Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11".
The sad thing is, the piece of evidence Jason used that proves the same thing as Bloomberg has reported comes not from Jason's sources. Nope. It was a previous article, written by Slate. So I guess by "first" Marc Ash means "first to claim credit"?
As I pointed out in January, Jason relies on four main sources for his story. This is a review of his sources and what he gets from them:
- A document from late 2000 (before Bush was inaugurated) talking about changes in the way NSA collects data:
The volumes and routing of data make finding and processing nuggets of intelligence information more difficult. To perform both its offensive and defensive missions, NSA must "live on the network."
- Risen's book, to establish that Bush personally approved domestic surveillance programs.
- Quotes from former NSA encryption specialists who explain that BushCo are revealing the names of Americans revealed in (apparently) otherwise legal NSA surveillance:
On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law.
(Note, this claim had also been previously reported, by Newsweek in May 2005; in Jason's rewritten article, he concentrates on this program, but even here he wasn't "first.")
- Slate's article, which includes this quote:
A former telecom executive told us that efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order.
Now, it's kind of confusing, because in this article Jason appears to be reporting
on four different things:
- Preliminary NSA moves to access digital data directly
- The (by all claims) post-9/11 practice of tapping calls originating in the US
- The abuse of laws protecting the privacy of Americans who have been tapped in otherwise legal surveillance
- The NSA's diversion of telecommunication switches to vacuum up call data from all calls (but not necessarily to eavesdrop on those calls)
But by all appearances, the thing that Jason "beat" Bloomberg in reporting is something that Slate beat Jason in reporting, the fact that the NSA was collecting call data on millions of Americans' calls.
Now, as I've pointed out, both Bloomberg and Jason appear to be conflating the physical collection of call data with the tapping of specific individuals after data mining that call data. And both rely on Clinton-era programs as proof that Bush authorized the domestic spying started before Bush said he did. Until we have confirmation that the select tapping of individual Americans' phones began before 9/11, I think we need to maintain the distinction between the collection of call data and tapping (not least, because the two actions are governed by different laws).
You see, it's confusion on details like this, Marc Ash, that leads me to distrust Jason (and attorney Carl Mayer, who is the one who made the allegation to Bloomberg) on matters of logic and detail.
The Differences between the Jason and Murray Stories
Now that I've got that off my chest, congratulations, Jason, for getting the Bush testimony first. And if anyone else wants to confirm these two stories, here's one clarification I'd love to have. Jason reported Bush to have said:
President Bush gave Vice President Dick Cheney the authorization in mid-June 2003 to disclose a portion of the highly sensitive National Intelligence Estimate to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward and former New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
[snip]
The sources indicated that the leak probe is now winding down, and that soon, new information will emerge from the special counsel's office that will prove President Bush had prior knowledge of the White House campaign to discredit Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who accused the administration of "twisting" intelligence on the Iraqi threat in order to win public support for the war.
[snip]
According to four attorneys who over the past two days have read a transcript of the President Bush's interview with investigators, Bush did not disclose to either investigators or the special counsel that he had authorized Cheney or any other administration official to leak portions of the NIE to Woodward and Miller or any other reporter. Rather, these people said the president said he frowned upon "selective leaks."
Bush also said during the interview two years ago that he had no prior knowledge that anyone on his staff had been involved in a campaign to discredit Wilson or that individuals retaliated against the former ambassador by leaking his wife's undercover identity to reporters.
Now this appears to say that Bush didn't admit to authorizing selective leaks, nor did he admit to having prior knowledge of any campaign to discredit Wilson. But that emails exist which prove these two assertions to be false. Jason's story appears to catch Bush in a lie, disavowing prior knowledge of the smear campaign.
Murray's story is different. Murray says Bush said:
President Bush told the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that he directed Vice President Dick Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with the president's interview.
Bush also told federal prosecutors during his June 24, 2004, interview in the Oval Office that he had directed Cheney, as part of that broader effort, to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson, the sources said.
But Bush told investigators that he was unaware that Cheney had directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, to covertly leak the classified information to the media instead of releasing it to the public after undergoing the formal governmental declassification processes.
In this version, Bush admits to have admitted generally authorized a smear campaign. But Bush denies authorizing Cheney's insta-declassification of the NIE. See the difference? One says Bush lied in his interview with Fitzgerald. The other says Bush was tangentially involved in the smear, but was "out of the loop" on some key issues related to the smear.
Any clarification on these issues would be greatly appreciated.
Running out to a meeting for several hours. Will check in later.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 07, 2006 at 08:24
Thanks for articulating this difference clearly. I could see the difference, but couldn't quite get it into focus. One point to add, whichever version is correct. Bush certainly lied to us [the people] back when all of this got started. In those days, he didn't do anything at all. Now, the question is "which sleazy thing did he do?"
Posted by: mickey | July 07, 2006 at 09:11
I think that the fact that Bush lied to the American people is very telling. He knew exactly what had taken place and he knew it was his administration that outted her. He denied it and even worked hard to cover it up in the public arena. To me, that speaks volumes and it should speak volumes to americans.
Katie
Posted by: Katie Jensen | July 07, 2006 at 10:05
I agree completely Katie. Bush's words on the subject were very carefully crafted. The only time he strayed was when a reporter asked him a question putting words in his mouth. Whenever Bush said something on his own, he phrased it very carefully and it should be obvious that he knew that those close to him had outed Plame.
Posted by: Pete | July 07, 2006 at 11:07
Weird (in a good way). I noticed the differences in Leopold's and Waas' reporting on what Bush said to investigators.
I don't want to bash Jason Leopold, but when he reports Bush "did not disclose" his direction to leak, it is irreconcilable with Murray Waas saying Bush told investigators "he had directed" the leak. Both can not be true.
I tried to post this very point to the Truthoug forum yesterday--but even after opening an account I could not post a comment. Instead, I wrote directly to Marc Ash. I hope there is some response.
I'm trying to trust that Truthout is properly assessing Leopold's sources and reporting, but this discrepancy may be telling.
Posted by: clbrune | July 07, 2006 at 14:17
Bush authorized "the plot against Wilson," which is what an early and heavily redacted court filing from Fitzgerald termed it. (That was back in the Cooper/Miller/pre-Supreme Court days, remember? Ah, early Plameology!)
What extraordinary hubris for Bush to have deplored the leak, to have claimed utter ignorance of the plot, to have assured the American people that anyone "involved" in the leak would be out of his administration.
But what truly unmitigated evil, to have lied this country into an (unprovoked) war and military occupation. The "plot against Wilson" was designed to discourage other potential government whistleblowers, others who could offer evidence of the misuse and manipulation of pre-war intelligence. The message to them was clear: We will come after your family.
Whatever one's political stripe may be, we must all surely agree that our United States cannot survive another Imperial Presidency like this (whether Democrat or Republican).
Posted by: QuickSilver | July 07, 2006 at 14:18
FYI - Plame stuff at Jeralyn's
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/015253.html
Posted by: windje | July 07, 2006 at 14:41
Now that I look at this again, if Jason is right, then Fitzgerald unequivocally lied in the May 5 hearing. Jason says Fitzgerald has evidence in hand of what date Bush authorized the NIE leak. Fitzgerald said clearly in the May 5 hearing he didn't know exactly when the authorization of the NIE leak occured.
Just pointing out details--what you make of those details is up to you.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 07, 2006 at 17:08
The discrepancy here comes from people believing that there was ever any special authorization to leak the NIE. Fitzgerald knows that the whole business about the NIE is a lie Libby told to cover for his superiors authorizing the Plame leak.
Posted by: William Ockham | July 07, 2006 at 17:59
EW
Truthout has the 5/16/06 Media Hearing Transcipt. 129 pages.
I pulled some of the interesting items out in this diary, I'm sure there is much more to look at, I will go over it again this evening.
Posted by: pollyusa | July 07, 2006 at 18:43
polly
There's a bit of a discussion over here. I'm most fascinated by the mention of CNN in the transcript.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 07, 2006 at 21:57
Question for ew: can you point out where in leopolds article that it says fitzgerald knows exactly the date that bush told cheney to leak the nie? I cannot find it.
And if I'm out of line here advance apologies but I think you should be upfront ew about the fact that you don't like leopold personally and that is why you have a problem with his reporting. if that's not what it is then I would suggest you take a look at his reporting on this since last year because a lot of the things he reported actually came out. He wrote stories with larisa at raw story. I spent a whole day reading this stuff and comparing it with what has been reported and like I said last night the reporting looks good and so I don't get it. What I have come up with is that leopold pisses people off and so a lot of the discrediting should have been about the fact that people don't like him but instead it went to his reporting. So I'm just saying that you should make it clear that your bias toward leopold is personal cause he did stuff that got people upset because you lead people to believe that you're objective but you're not.
Personally I think this is getting old.
Posted by: browniegirl | July 08, 2006 at 03:27
emptywheel
The CNN subpoena had only two items - the standard one about anything reflecting any employee's reference to Plame before July 14, and looking for any documentation of Wilson's call to Eason Jordan on July 8 or so regarding Novak and his wife. They evidently had nothing responsive, so it went nowhere.
I think one of the interesting things about Leopold's article is that you can preserve its accuracy, apart from the bit about the emails, by very very carefully parsing it. It - and here I am perfectly willing to believe this reflects what the sources were saying - ends up being misleading about the character of Bush's testimony; but you can make sense of it, I think. So if you understand Cheney not to be a member of Bush's staff, then it's strictly consistent for Bush to say he didn't know about plotting by his staff even though he put Cheney on the case. And so on.
Posted by: Jeff | July 08, 2006 at 06:33
browniegirl
This statement:
President Bush gave Vice President Dick Cheney the authorization in mid-June 2003
Presumably comes from the 24 emails. Which means it presumably comes with a date attached. And in any case, the mid-June date directly contradicts Fitz' statement that he doesn't know whether the NIE authorization came on July 2 or earlier than that. Fitz said, after this came out, that he doesn't know whether the authorization took place in June; this clearly says it took place in June.
And I think you're misunderstanding the Leopold chronology (and in that you come here to lecture me without knowing the chronology, you are out of place). I didn't like Leopold's writing, going back a long time, because it gets details wrong, and therefore leaves little confidence in getting the big things right. He also had at least two scoops after the indictment was released that his own reporting have proven to be wrong (the Fleitz and Bolton IDs in the indictment). So my distrust for Leopold's reporting came first. Now don't get me wrong--I believe he has sources, but I think he either oversells his sources or doesn't get what they're telling him.
But after that he came here and misrepresented himself as five different people so he could berate me for pointing out huge problems in one article that had nothing to do with Plame. He gave two of my friends death threats. He hacked a friend's site. So you're right, I don't like Leopold. But that far postdates my distrust for his reporting--and while it has deepened my distrust for his reporting, it hasn't changed that distrust fundamentally. You want to argue I should like a guy who lies about who he is to me?
Jeff
I'm not sure whether the emails are total bunk. And as to who has Bush's testimony right, I definitely think it possible that both of these are spun. The earlier Bush testimony sounds like someone from Cheney's camp trying to implicate Bush. Whereas the later one sounds like Rove, trying to pull of a Protect the President scheme. Now, that Protect the President scheme may have been in place from October 2003, but the centrality of the NIE in both of these (as William points out) suggests both of these statements build off of what is already a coverup.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 08, 2006 at 09:05
EW
Did not mean to lecture you. I guess its the marriage counselor/mother in me. I just think that its too easy to hold grudges and much more difficult to forgive. As a cancer survivor I realized that life is too short and that to forgive is divine.
Personally, I withhold judgment until I hear from fitzgerald to determine whether leopold is wrong or whether any other reporter is right for that matter. In the interest of full disclosure, I had a correspondence with leopold yesterday and urged him to contact you in the hopes that everyone can work together. Imagine how much more powerful we can be if we all were working on the same side. Leopold said he just got a copy of the june 12 court hearing transcript and was trying to make sense of it and I urged him to contact you and share it. Just trying to build a bridge. He also said he got a hold of other documents so I just think that it would serve all of us well if ww can forgive this guy for his past transgressions and work together.
But I understand why you feel the way you do. But consider forgiveness.
In solidarity.
Posted by: browniegirl | July 08, 2006 at 15:03
I can see it now...the new "Leopold-Emptywheel Blog". Leopold hunts and EW edits and analyzes. It's the dream team. What do you say EW? :)
Jeff, you can come along too.
Posted by: fireback | July 08, 2006 at 23:05