The Wilson SSCI Part One: Or, Why I Want a New SSCI Chair

by emptywheel

Imagine you are a shrewd Congressional leader in the minority party. Damaging information has just shown that the functional leader of your party and some of his aides made either a tremendous mistake or a cynical and dangerous attack on a key government employee. In either case, the action had real repercussions for national security. And you're in a position where more information will be revealed--some of it further damaging to the party and its leaders. You've got some influence over which Committee will investigate this potentially damaging information. One of those committees is chaired by a man with a reputation for tenacity and craftiness. The other is chaired by a man whose genteel ways have not prepared him well for the scrappiness of post-Gingrich politics. In one committee, the majority has a four vote majority, is populated by members from liberal districts, and has a tradition of contentious partisanship. In the other committee, the majority has a one vote majority, includes some more conservative members, and has a long history of consensus-based decision-making (including affording the ranking minority member title of Vice Chair).

If you're that shrewd Congressional leader, which committee are you going to choose? That's right. If you have your way, you're going to make sure the Senate Intelligence Committee investigates the Valerie Plame outing rather than Henry Waxman's House Government Reform Committee.

That is the lens through which anyone should look at the Minority Views on Joe and Valerie Wilson released as part of Friday's SSCI Report. This report was a brilliant effort to undercut Henry Waxman's efforts to pursue the Valerie Plame outing, to dampen the news that Valerie Wilson was, in fact, covert, and perhaps to undercut future efforts (like the civil case or Congressional investigations) to expose the roles of those not charged in the investigation. Kudos to the Republicans for pulling this off ... and have I mentioned that I'm shopping for a new SSCI Chair?

Recall that, just after Valerie Plame testified before Henry Waxman's committee and Waxman read a statement from General Hayden confirming that Valerie was covert, both Ranking Member Tom Davis and Waxman requested further information from the CIA. Waxman's letter, the latter of the two, went out on March 26.

The CIA stalled for some time. After which, on May 3, the CIA Director of Congressional Affairs sent a reply claiming the CIA had its "own oversight committees," the HPSCI and SSCI, and that Waxman should go consult with those committees. By the time Waxman got around to writing a response on May 11 threatening to escalate the request, the SSCI had already gotten the documents Davis and Waxman originally requested, done some very select follow-up, written their minority views, and voted on the entire report. Since the SSCI report was voted out on May 8, the report itself may have been sent to the printers by the time Waxman made his second request.

To be honest, not just Rockefeller, but Waxman, too, got rolled on this issue.

So I will get into the content of the report in the next several days (some of it will need to wait until I am home, where I've got all my documents and papers, which will not be until late Wednesday). In the meantime, though, just remember that there are very clear reasons why the Republicans and, presumably, the post-Tenet DCI, wanted this investigation in the SSCI and not Reform. Those reasons affect the form and content of the Views significantly.

I can assure you that Lynn Westmoreland, the Republicans' favorite blowhard on Oversight and Reform, would not have been able to write such a well-executed document, not even with Dan Burton's help (but then, what is Burton these days without Barbara Comstock???).

Comments

[KLynn]

Bottom line, does this mean Waxman cannot continue with any oversight on this matter? With a continued pattern throughout government agencies of manipulation of information and staff for partisan purposes; as a taxpayer, I would prefer-in fact demand - that the People's tax dollars pay to have Waxman's House Government Reform Committee continue to investigate. There has to be a way for him to do so? "Slick" can work both ways... "Smart" should work for the truth... Just the simple "patterns" noted in the case should require HGRC to continue despite the SSCI should it not? I would like to know who penned the document... Perhaps "that" needs oversight and sunshine...

[pdaly]

Great posts.

Off topic, it makes me NERVOUS to think you do not have a back up of your papers, EW.

What about having an offsite backup of all your paper files in say Washington, DC your second home? and maybe a portable digital file of the most important primary documents and books on a memory stick with USB connectivity?

Better yet, maybe TNH or FDL could sponsor a digital archive of primary documents accessible from any internet computer-- unless it violates newspaper/newsjournal/book copyrights.

[HT]

Intelligence Committee oversight was paseed to a sub committee run by the Intelligence committee and changed to check on things like gifts, rather than earmarks and USAID covert CIA funding to NGOs run by people who have pals on the committees.

Fitz went to Harvard. Shays is from the area. Plame married a PC, covert USAID funding to groups like Mercy Corps in Afghanistan followed the special forces, like Green Berets, in Afghanistan. The money, like the special forces money, went to the Taliban. Chayes, also from Harvard, paid Taliban with that USAID funding. She is the only US citizen in Afghanistan to live there in a war zone(NATO) and train troops for working with the locals. She is also PC like Shays and Wilson. She is also a Harvard grad who's dad worked closely with Kennedy in the formation of the Green Berets and PC. He also worked on the assassination.

Once Fitz has been figured at Harvard, it's pretty obvious that he works on intelligence with people like Chayes. Even if she is not a covert agent like Plame, she is covered under the same five year laws, etc, and this may be done through DIA. So, he had an interest and bias towards Plame, rather than prosecuting a criminal conspiracy to committ murder that happened during his investigation.

The real answer is the funding fo rthe Afghanistan war through the intelligence committee and to friends. Fitz is one of those. He follows the las for agnets and informants, but passes on prosection becuase of the politics and funding to friends. What is really needed is oversight of the intelligence ocmmittees and funding through 'earmarks' checking which groups and which people ar ebeing funded.

[JEP]

(but then, what is Burton these days without Barbara Comstock???).

Comstock seems to be pulling more strings these days, behind the scenes, than anyone in DC but Rove. Which makes me wonder who might fit on the untimate "evil-spinmeistress" list, along with those two.

I have noticed, numerous times, that there are undoubtedly more eloquently evil hands and minds and keyboards behind these machiavelian machinations. It is just too smart for the doofus talking-head Republicans we actually see and hear from in Congress.

Baaahbs (like a goat, not a sheep) is one of those behind-the-scenes provocatuers whose chess-mistress fingerprints are all over everything. She and Toensing are surely a pair of wicked witches, whose influence is constant and pernicious and sometimes so harmful to our precious democracy that "there ought to be a law..." against these creeoy little covens of conspiratorial co-opters.

Just how do you measure the damage done by this small circle of power-hungry, purposeless witches and their satyrical (there's another new word) male-slave toadies?

Since their one benefactor seems at all times to be Corporate America, it is likely they fit neatly under the "love of money" umbrella that explains so much of their mysterious mutual motivations and manipulations.

Some conspiracies, like Greed itself, never need a meeting-place and a calendar date, they are always abiding in our weaknesses...

[orionATL]

while your shopping,

check out replacements for kerry, kennedy, biden, feinstein, to mention a few others.

i tired of all these old democratic farts who lack the energy to exercise PUBLIC leadership by making public statements about about issues critical to this country.

these folks have been in power too long and in the senate way too long.

normally experience should be a wonderful thing,

but "effective in committee sessions" is not what this country needs right now.

[earlofhuntingdon]

The Democrats keep bringing salad forks to a knife fight. There is a place for genteel behavior, just as Sam Ervin found a place to be just a "small-town country lawyer". And Miss Marple was just that nice old lady next door; never mind that she saw you do it, she'll forget about it be tea. Right.

Democrats need to rethink their game in a big way, and long before Nov '08. How 'bout they go looking for a couple dozen Artur Davises and Sheldon Whitehouses in their midst, and have them do the heavy lifting. Because most of the people they have carrying their water seem to have trouble with anything bigger than a dixie cup.

[Jodi]

I see that no one is yet able to muster a defense of the Wilson-Plame-Rove affair after new disclosure's of Valerie Plame's letter.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzUyMzgyZmVjZDUzYWRjYTU2YmM1MWEwZDYzNTI3OGQ=

Not really surprised.

[Mimikatz]

Say this for DiFi--she was willing to call the Committee on its lcak of conclusions, see Marcy's previous post.

Gloria Borger evidently said on Matthews' Sunday show that the new lobbying rules passed by the House will prompt resignations by members who can't live in DC without lobbyist largesse. Please, please, please!

Of course money isn't jay Rockefeller's problem. He is, if not genteel, then just plain weak. The R's play for keeps, the Dems play for applause. And not very well, at that.

[Bob Schacht]

Here's another reason to suspect Jay Rockefeller's backbone:
His uncle David, current patriarch of the Rockefeller family. David Rockefeller is a New World Order guy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rockefeller). He's not all that fond of Democracy, and favors a more elitist fascism. Most of the Rockefellers are Republicans. Jay is better than Pat Roberts, but I sure would like to see a more assertive chair, like emptywheel.

Bob in HI

[Smapdi]

EW,
Thanks for making time to take an initial swipe at the SSCI report.
I found Bond to be a sad and irrelevant person repeating Cheney's nepotism line again and again while whining simultaneously about rehashing the mistakes that lead us into Iraq which happened while he was committee chair.
"Why can't we put my horrible mistakes behind us"?
He can't actually touch the real issues of faulty intelligence or Valerie's outing, he can only strike at the periphery.
Bond wants to reinterview? BRING IT ON!!!!

[orionATL]

e of h

"salad forks to a knife fight"

i like that:

i like it so much i'm going to use it myself in the future.

mimikatz

my comments weren't made from sound knowledge of these folks overall record. they do their job.

my comments were made from tremendous frustration that the national democrats will not create and sustain an attack on bush's war/security/i-care-for-the-troops rhetoric.

to my mind there is just no excuse for these well-established national democratic politicians sitting on their butts and letting george bush hoodwink the media and pander to the noisy but small republican "base".

lots of caution; no damned guts.

[kris]

HT,
Could you elaborate on your post? Especially this:
"Chayes, also from Harvard, paid Taliban with that USAID funding". From whatever I have read of her writing, I find this hard to believe.

[Ron Russell]

Hey Jodi,

Did you read the column, before you referenced Byron York's trash?

Obviously, not!

[jodi]

Ron Russell,

I read the letter.
I read EW's reaction, about it being so clever, so diabolical, so, so much, ..., ... I have never seen her do double takes so much.
And then "not just Rockefeller, but Waxman, too, got rolled"
Then I see EW stalling and bunkering down talking about needing materials, when she is probably the single greatest authority on the Plame case in the left hand side of "sideral space."

Since then, I have perused JOM as well.

It seems to me that there are problems in Wilson-Plame land.

But I wait to be illuminated and confounded!

[Nell]

Is this 'Other Views' BS what led Rockefeller to release on the Friday before a holiday weekend? That's so far beyond lame that there had to be a reason...