Have they done this sort of thing? Send an Amb to answer a question?, Part One

by emptywheel

This is going to be a two part post. In this post, I'm going to show a key discrepancy between Libby's testimony about the questions he asked Addington on July 8, and Addington's. Addington's testimony suggests that (contrary to Libby's claims), Libby was looking for general details about the paperwork behind Wilson's trip, which would have exposed Valerie's role at the CIA, potentially her status, as well as prior trips Joe Wilson had made for the CIA. In a following post, I'll show that this question was probably asked in response to a conversation with Cheney based on Cheney's scribblings on Wilson's op-ed.

The Discrepancies between Libby's and Addington's Testimony

There are three pieces of testimony regarding the conversation that Scooter Libby and David Addington had on July 8, 2003, about insta-declassification and paperwork on a CIA spouse's travel to the CIA:

• Libby's notes recording both what he wanted to ask Addington and what Addington responded
• Libby's grand jury testimony
• Addington's trial testimony

However, there are significant discrepancies between Addington's testimony and Libby's--and Libby's own notes only confuse the issue.

Let's start with Libby's own notes about what he plans to ask Addington about.

Libby's own notes make it clear that, in one meeting, he intended to ask Addington questions about (insta)declassification and about a Wilson contract (I'm accepting at face value that the "K" here is a lawyers shorthand for contract).

This accords closely with the general outlines of Libby's explanation of the conversation--at least, Libby talks about insta-declassification and a contract.

I had previously spoken to our General Counsel, David Addington, and our General -- and ask our General Counsel, does the President have the ability if he wants to take any document and say it's declassified, go talk about it? And Mr.Addington had told me, as our Counsel, that if the President says to talk about a document to the press, or publicly, it is declassified as of that moment, he has that power to do that, and he cited a case to that effect. The first time he told me the case name, I forgot it. But I made a note and talked to the Vice President before July 8 and told him about this -- that I could talk to her about the NIE, but he would have to get the President to declassify it in effect before I could talk about it.

[snip]

Q. And can you recall what -- in your conversation with Mr.Addington about declassification, do you recall if you discussed any other topics with Mr. Addington at the time?

A. Yes. I also discussed in that conversation or close to that conversation, the question of whether there was a contractual obligation for Mr. Wilson. You know, whether it was normal for somebody as an agent of the -- someone going out on a mission for the Agency to be able to just talk about the mission, which he had done, or whether there was some -- you had to sign some agreement of some sort that you wouldn't be talking about it. And he told me that it takes all sorts of different forms. [my emphasis]

So, insta-declassification and contract, just as Libby's note reads.

Incidentally, Libby's explanation for why he wanted the contract coincides with the reason Judy offered to explain why she was interested in Wilson's op-ed.

F Op-ed?

M Yes. I was surprised by it. Because it was first time that someone who had purported to be part of collection mechanism, first time someone was publicly alleging that admin had lied or distorted info about WMD. It was a serious charge. Second thing that surprised me, I wondered how the CIA would have permitted him to write such an article attacking the president. [my emphasis]

But I'm sure that's just a remarkable coincidence.

Addington's testimony--at least with respect to the insta-declassification--matches Libby's on most aspects. Though Addington doesn't mention the NIE; in fact, in relating Libby's question, Addington avoids the word "document," and instead uses the word, "information" when he talks about the material to be declassified.

A: ...The question was asked of me during our conversation by Scooter Libby, did the President have authority to declassify information. And the answer I gave was, of course, yes. That, it's clear that the President has the authority to determine what constitutes a national security secret and who can have access to it.

I cited a specific case as authority for that proposition, which is Department of the Navy vs. Egan, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court back in the 1980s. [my emphasis]

Nevertheless, at least it's clear that both Addington and Libby understood this to be a conversation about insta-declassification.

But now look at the way that Addington's memory of the second question differs from Libby's.

A: He asked me the question whether, if somebody worked out at the CIA and the CIA sent the person's spouse on a trip to do something for the CIA, would there be records out at the CIA of that. That was a normal question for him to ask me because I knew I worked at the CIA. What I said was it depended, the kind of paperwork would depend on whether you were on the operational side of the CIA, the folks that run spies overseas if you will, or it was on the analytical side, the folks at CIA that write reports for policymakers and so forth about what is going on in the world. I told him on the operational side, the CIA officers are not just free to go out and use whoever they want in their operations. They have to get permission known as operational approval from their higher-ups within the Director of Operations at the CIA. The course of requesting permission to go recruit or use somebody in an operation would generate paperwork approval within a directorate of Operations at the CIA of that. I said on the analytical side it would be likely that you would have a letter of instruction or contract or something evidencing that somebody was being asked to go and do something. And that, in any case, this is the government. When you spend money, there's almost always a money trail or receipt or something for the use of money. So there would be likely that there would be record out there. [my emphasis]

See, given Addington's answer, it's clear that Addington understood Libby to be asking an entirely different question than Libby claims he was asking. Addington is not answering a question about whether or not Wilson would have had to sign a confidentiality agreement--that doesn't show up in his answer (and therefore, his perception of Libby's question) at all. Rather, Addington is describing what kind of papertrail would there be at CIA associated with a spousal assigned for the CIA, in general. And more specifically, what kind of approval process would someone at the CIA have to go through before she could send her husband on a few-expenses paid "junket" to Niger.

According to Addington, Libby wanted to know precisely what documents he (or an enterprising journalist) could expect to be at the CIA documenting trips Joe Wilson had made for the CIA, and further documenting the approval Valerie Wilson would have had to get to send her husband.

The Significance of Addington's Testimony

Addington's testimony is important for several reasons.

First, if Libby set out to look for--or sent someone (named Judy) out to look for paperwork that went into the approval process behind sending Joe Wilson to Niger--then that person would find the (at least) two memos that Valerie had written to get buy-in for sending Joe to Niger. These are the memos, I've argued, that:

• May have been Cheney's (illicit) source of Valerie's role at CIA, the one he couldn't use to confirm that DOD and State were both interested in the Niger intelligence too
• Make it clear that Valerie was married to Joe and was in the division that sent him to Niger
• Make it highly likely (because the memos don't use Valerie's real name) that she's working under cover

So at a really basic level, Addington's description of the question seems to support the argument that Cheney discovered Plame's CIA identity at least partly because of the memos she sent in support of Joe's trip. And that--just minutes before he went into his St. Regis meeting with Judy--Libby was asking about what those documents would be.

But there is a further probability. After all, Joe Wilson had been sent on trips for the CIA before--and had been considered for more trips. We know of, at least, the 1999 trip to Niger to inquire about a AQ Khan attempt to buy uranium. And when Valerie Wilson spoke of Joe's relationship with the CIA at the Waxman hearing, she spoke of plural trips (and the CIA itself referred to Joe Wilson as "an old friend of the Agency"). So in fact, there may have been a reason why Libby or someone else might want to find the paperwork on prior trips that Wilson had taken for the CIA.

Furthermore, we know that the email Valerie sent describing Joe's background with the CIA alludes to at least one of these potential trips. It says:

As you may recall [redacted] of CP/[office 2--a different office than Valerie] recently [2001] approached my husband to possibly use his contacts in Niger to investigation [redacted].

This trip apparently never happened, but it reveals, at least, that CIA considered Joe Wilson for such trips. And who knows whether Valerie's cable to Africa getting Joe country clearance for the 2002 trip to Niger mentioned the earlier trips (or even his 1999 trip to help Niger transition to civilian rule, which is one source of his strong relationship with Ibrahim Mayaki). In other words, sending people off in search of documents in support of the 2002 trip may have revealed other trips.

The AQ Khan Trip

And then there's a few data points that point specifically towards Joe Wilson's 1999 trip to Niger to inquire about AQ Khan attempts to acquire uranium. The first data-point comes from Libby's notation of the answers he got from Addington. His original note is totally illegible, but Libby's own transcription lists the following three items, in immediate succession:

- Department of Navy v. Egan 1980s Supreme Court Addington

- A Q Khan

- Declassify

We know Navy v. Egan and "declassify" fit together, because Navy v. Egan was Addington's justification for Bush's ability to insta-declassify something. So right there, in the middle of Libby's notes on insta-declassification (and presumably, then, his notes from his meeting with Addington), a reference to AQ Khan appears.

And this is not a fluke. The prior page in Libby's notes (hat tip Lomonaco) shows Libby making an explicit connection between Khan and Wilson.

And we know that Wilson made a prior trip relating to AQ Khan. In fact, he made it in 1999, the same year that Wissam al-Zahawie went to Niger, and the same year that Baghdad Bob tried to get Mayaki to discuss trade relations (though this happened in Algiers). There was a great deal of confusion between the three events, which OVP and others made (intentionally or not) into an attack on Wilson. Ari, for example, at least grammatically insinuated that Wilson was a go-between Iraq and Niger.

In fact, in one of the least known parts of this story, which is now, for the first time, public -- and you find this in Director Tenet's statement last night -- the official that -- lower-level official sent from the CIA to Niger to look into whether or not Saddam Hussein had sought yellow cake from Niger, Wilson, he -- and Director Tenet's statement last night states the same former official, Wilson, also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official, Wilson, meet an Iraqi delegation to discuss expanding commercial relations between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales. [my emphasis]

(This was in the press briefing specifically subpoenaed by Fitzgerald.)

In other words, there was a great deal of confusion, much of it capitalizing on the fact that Wilson had made a 1999 trip to Niger. And Libby was clearly interested in Wilson's trip regarding Khan.

Just one more detail, before I call it a night. There's this tidbit from the hyper-political SSCI report:

The former ambassador had traveled previously to Niger on the CIA's behalf  redacted.  The former ambassador was selected for the 1999 trip after his wife mentioned to her supervisors that her husband was planning a business trip to Niger in the near future and might be willing to use his contacts in the region redacted]. Because the former ambassador did not uncover any information about DELETED during this visit to Niger, CPD did not distribute an intelligence report on the visit.

Several points about this:

• If there was no report, why did SSCI report on this trip alone (presumably among at least several that Joe had made, since he is an "old friend" of the CIA)?
• If there was no report, then how did SSCI find out about it?
• If there was no report--and someone had been looking--might that person ask a lawyer or a CIA employee (as Libby asked Addington) to find out why he couldn't find out more information?

In other words, there's no reason for this mention (and no mention of any other trips and non-trips) unless this had specific significance given the documents SSCI was looking at in 2004. The AQ Khan trip is there in some fashion, probably.

I'm not positive. But I think that Libby was, at least partially, attempting to drum up some evidence on this trip. Yet among the documents we've seen declassified, we've never seen why Libby would have developed such an interest in the first place. Again, several possibilities:

• The 1999 AQ Khan trip was mentioned in Valerie's cable to Africa and Libby was trying to get that released
• Someone had personal knowledge of the trip, told Cheney, and now Libby was trying to replicate that information in much the same way they tried to get Grenier replicate the DOD/State talking point
• Libby was just trying to expose this trip, in spite of the lack of paperwork, because it helped OVP conflate Joe's trip with Wissan al-Zahawie and Baghdad Bob's.

Wow. Sorry. This was a long post. The takeaway?

Addington's and Libby's testimony on their July 8 conversation differs. And Addington's testimony (plus Libby's notes) supports the argument that Libby was inquiring about paperwork relating to a CIA trip, at least partially, because he wanted to expose Joe Wilson's 1999 trip to Niger relating to AQ Khan.

Comments

[liz]

I've been reading/lurking your stuff for a while and trying to understand this really complicated case, as well as the other complicated issues going on w/ this administration. I just have to tell you that I think you are one of the smartest people around, with an amazing ability to comprehend/connect all the details. Thank you for all of your hard work! I really appreciate it and I always learn a lot when reading your stuff!
Thank you again!

[DCgaffer]

Marcy, in another comment thread long ago, I mentioned that I thought that the page of notes containing the “Khan Wilson” (Bates 1746) notation is the most significant. Once you get past the first 6 items, which appears to be Libby’s notes to himself as to what he needed to brief and/or mention to the Cheney, the remainder seems to be instructions to Libby from Cheney.

Now examine all the remainder of the notations and some are quite obviously about Wilson

• Khan Wilson
• The CIA reference
• MM (Mary Matalin)
• Harlow
• Miller
• Procure Uranium from Niger

So why shouldn't we also assume that two of the more cryptic items also refer to Wilson/Plame.

Specifically:

• V (with a line through one leg) F SAP (soon as possible) K-overscore
• Y-overscore (VP) illegible, illegible to be sure K-overscore M get info to Citizen
• R (scratched out) on story (slary)?

The V (score) F notation shows up on Bates 1747 immediately adjacent to the “Rove quote" in the staff meeting so I think we can infer that V score F somehow refers to the Wilson story. Is it a notation for Valerie Flame (sic)?

I am much more curious on the CITIZEN note, and the R (scratch out) note.

Regardless, one could make the argument that Bates 1746 is almost entirely on Wilson/Plame.

Yet, Fitzgerald did not ask for a complete explanation in Libby’s deposition on all the items. There was no reason not to ask, so I’ve always assumed that he (Fitz) was holding cards close to the vest. Amplifying that point, the obvious questions Fitz did not ask in Libby’s depos has always been indicative to me that his intention was to flip Scooter once he had a conviction, but not telegraph the state of his knowledge.

[DeeLoralei in Memphis]

Don't you ever sleep woman? Thanks again for connecting the dots, this is fascinating stuff. Wasn't what Libby was doing/asking for the same thing as leading the witness? Only thing I don't get is why you think Judith may be patient zero in this. And I get that he met her later that morning and fed this stuff to her. But why did he expect she was going to be able to get this info out of the CIA and into his and Cheney's hands. Was this an FOI thing? Or Judith getting her contacts to tell her the answers? Sorry, it's late and I'm in touch with my inner blonde. Great job.

[censor]

Marcy thank you. This post explain from far away how Christopher Hitchens appears so certain of Khan connection...it may be he also receives collateral leaks.

[Jodi]

emptywheel,

so do you have a purpose with all this effort, reading, and writing?

Or is it just Zeigarnik ~the tension toward the incomplete task.~

(You just can't let go of your favorite toy.)

[prostratedragon]

[ahem]

[sftu jodi]

oh gawd please make it stop.

can we vote on a ban of thecommentatorthatshallnotbenamed ???

puhleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze ?????

totally ruins every single comment thread and it is really annoying and irritating.

[emptywheel]

DCGaffer

First, the line before is on Charles Taylor--makes sense--that's what POTUS was focused on in African.

But the TK is almost certainly Turkey. The US had taken some Turkish soldiers captive that week and Libby and Cheney were heavily involved in negotiating their turnover. What you read as "Citizen," I'm fairly certain is Erdogan, the leader of Turkey.

But yes, most of those are Plame related.

[DCgaffer]

ew, your interpretation makes the most sense especially if one reads the K- overscore as Turkey and M equals Ambassador. However, I would call your attention to the fact that the Turkish soldiers were released on Sunday (7-06).

http://www.hri.org/news/turkey/anadolu/2003/03-07-07.anadolu.html#18

Also compare the script E (assuming it is Erdogan) to the block E below in “Evan Thomas on Imus.”

Enough hieroglyphics for now...

[Neil]

Contempt of TNH

do you have a purpose with all this effort
Posted by: Jodi | July 26, 2007 at 03:22

After hundreds of posts on the topic, which you allege to learn from and which you claim is your motive for coming here, that you don't understand what EW's purpose might be, and that you question EW's motives, settles it for me. You're a boil on the ass of this blog. You are in contempt of TNH. I move to bring contempt proceedings.

[Boston1775]

EW - I'm going through this post again. Question: Why would Libby ask Addington about a paper trail at the CIA? Let's assume that the Vice President has seen all of the documents (and possibly more we do not know of). I see two reasons for Libby to have had this conversation with Addington.

1. Cheney has not told Libby that he (VP) has gained access to all the CIA documents. Cheney wants to keep that to himself, so he instructs Libby to ask Addington about various paper trails at CIA. Once Libby has enough information to connect the dots for Judy (this is how the CIA works, this is where you'd find out about how Wilson's wife would send him out on a mission) there's no risk that Libby will out Cheney.

2. Libby and Cheney are both reading the same documents (the VP has copies) and conspire together to use Addington as plausible deniability. Addington tells him what a CIA guy would know about paper trails and that conversation will be used if these two look like they're getting caught.

Right now, I see a good case can be made for either. Because so many people think so highly of Libby's character, the VP may have reasoned that Libby wouldn't have liked spying on CIA operatives, so he kept it to himself.

[Neil]

Is the substance of the classified information Cheney "asked" Bush to (insta-)declassify for Libby to blab to Miller relevent to Fitz's case of perjury and obstruction? In other words, did it matter to Fitz whether Bush declassified the NIE or a covert agent's identity?

I'm curious why Fitz didn't drill down on this with Addington at trial or Libby during his grand jury testimony. Since the information had been declassified, I can see no reason why the question would not be asked unless it was immaterial to his case or he hadn't recognized the issue. ...just trying to wrap my head around it.

[pdaly]

Boston1775,

I like your theories, but theory 1 does not seem likely. If your theory 1 was correct, then Cheney must be so pleased and surprised that Libby has been so reticent make a plea deal with Special Prosecuter Fitzgerald after Libby figured out he had helped "unwittingly" to out one of our spies.

[emptywheel]

Boston

My theory is slightly different, and I'm not sure what Libby's motive was (it may have been two-fold). In any case, I don't assume that Cheney showed these documents to Libby; he may heve been shown them--but not kept them--by someone like David Shedd.

If his motive was to find a description of these documents so he could tell Judy waht to look for, knowing that it would reveal Plame was covert, then he's just looking for all the pieces in the paper trail.

If is his motive is to figure out more about the 1999 trip, then he's just trying to find out what should be there, since they can't find documentation of thetrip.

[margaret]

I've almost finished Murray Waas's book, and I'm struck, once again, with how much trouble those crooks in the WH and the Executive Office Bldg went to in regard to Wilson and Plame....the sheer man and woman hours, if you think of Cathy Martin, et al, spent, trying to keep the charade going. Even when Libby is testi-lying in the Grand Jury, he is still pushing the myth of WMD's.

Plame was the big threat to those crooks (see above), and Wilson, as her helper. There are signifiers that can only lead to the conclusion that the truth, if revealed when it would have mattered...before the war started....would have led to Impeachment: lying to Congress and the American people. Any reasonable person would not deny the depth of crime committed, here. I wonder, in fact, that the VP, and Co. even allowed her and her husband to remain alive, but, maybe, it was just too late, once the truth was out. I still believe that this crime will be the one that the Administration will be convicted of, ultimately.

[earlofhuntingdon]

Cheney may keep a Nero Wolfe-size safe near him at all times, to protect his family jewels. But it's hard to imagine his note on the newspaper surviving the shredder for very long if it were not intended as evidence of the spin - outing govt waste - that Cheney intended to use in order to cover his tracks.

Addington, the banal bureaucrat, describes the CIA paper trail discussion in terms of what sort of documentation might exist for a routine foreign assignment for a contractor. Presumably, that told Libby or his surrogates, such as Judy Miller, what to look for.

Libby, on the other hand, a senior partner-level white collar crime defense lawyer, in his public testimony casts himself in that discussion as a protector of govt. He's looking into whether a govt contractor (Wilson) breached an obligation of confidentiality to keep info from his trips confidential. (Never mind that it wholly contradicted govt claims for why we went to war, at a cost of hundreds of billions of money and hundreds of thousands of lives.) Which is consistent with the spin in that Cheney newspaper note. [Again, it seems odd that none of this chatter is about a failure of the process or of the intel; it's all about attacking a bureaucratic enemey.]

But Libby's cloak of invisibility seems a bit tattered; what he's doing has all the earmarks of classic oppo research, looking for reasons to justify an attack on Wilson and paint him as a long-time political enemy.

One imagines the OVP does that every day on large and small matters. Except that here, the stakes were the whole farm. Not the war in Iraq, but the then as yet unacknowledged role of the OVP in the White House generally, and the OVP's role specifically in pushing the Iraq war on evidence only Kneepads Lieberman could find credible.

[spoonful]

Perhaps the reason for Libby's interest in A.Q. Kahn is the potential ties that Cheney had to the network as reported by WMR about a year ago. Valerie Plame, in her role at Brewster Jennings, may have been getting too close to the network for Cheney's pleasure. Her outing essentially destroyed any further danger to the network from its biggest threat - Brewster Jennings.