What Stephen Hayes Doesn't Want You to Know about Cheney's Involvment in Outing Valerie Wilson

by emptywheel

I confess. I peeked ahead.

Today, we're going to play a little quiz game. If you had to pick the parts of the CIA Leak story that Cheney's hand-picked propagando-biographer would leave out, thereby leaving a picture that Dick Cheney was not centrally involved in the leak, what would you leave out?

The answers are after the jump.

Hayes left out:

• The notes Cheney made on Wilson's op-ed, including the question "Or did his wife send him on a junket?"
• Cheney's order to Libby to leak something to Judy Miller
• The entire cover story that that thing was the NIE
• The discussion about Cheney having Bush insta-declassify this material--or doing it himself
• Any mention of Judy Miller
• The inclusion of content from the CIA trip report, and not just a mention of it, in Novak's column
• The statement by either Cheney or Libby, to Craig Schmall on July 14, that Novak's article was not his issue
• The 1X2X6 articles
• Cheney's intervention in fall 2003 to have Libby exonerated in the same way Rove had been
• Cheney's knowledge of Armitage's involvement, from at least September 2003 [Update: I think Jeff is going to dispute this, so I'll clarify. Hayes claims that Cheney learned of Armitage's involvement with the publication of Hubris. Aside from the evidence that OVP set Armitage up to be questioned, I find it beyond belief that Cheney learned of Armitage's involvement 6 months after I did, particularly when Libby's lawyers were telegraphing the fact. So perhaps he didn't know in September 2003. But he knew before September 2006.]
• Cheney's involvement of his personal lawyer from the time OVP turned over evidence in fall 2003
  
• The discussions just prior to Libby's grand jury testimony at which Libby told Cheney his cover story--his claim to have learned of Valerie Wilson from Tim Russert--and at which Cheney did not correct Libby; Hayes was particularly disingenuous with this point. He goes on to say:
  

  As the investigation continued, the White House in general, and Cheney's office in particular, became a seedbed of paranoia. Staffers never knew if a person they passed in the halls had been interviewed by the FBI, much less what anyone else had said. And no matter how much time White House officials spent thinking about the investigation, any discussion of it with their colleagues was out of the question.

Hayes ignores Armitage's conversation with Marc Grossman and Libby's conversation with Ari Fleischer. And, um, the multiple discussions Libby and Cheney had about his testimony.

• Cheney's June 2004 interview with Patrick Fitzgerald

To his (miniscule) credit, in the first of two places where it should have appeared, Hayes did admit that Libby learned of Valerie Wilson's identity from Cheney. For this bit, Hayes appears to be relying on the popular press, and not interviews with Cheney or even, you know, evidence. He attributes Tenet as being the source of Cheney's knowledge about Valerie Wilson, referencing it to "news accounts" and (in an inaccurate footnote--this did not come from Libby's notes, it came from his perjurious grand jury testimony) to Libby's notes.

But then, in the second place where mention of Cheney's involvement as Libby's source should have appeared--in the discussion of the trial--Hayes doesn't mention it. Instead, after leaving out virtually all the evidence implicating Cheney directly in this case, he accuses journalists who focused on Fitzgerald's "cloud over the Vice President" statements of being in error.

In story after story, reporters simply elided the facts that complicated this preferred story line: that the claims about Iraq's WMD came not from Cheney's fevered imagination, but form the "key judgments" of a document reflecting the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community; that the original leak of Valerie Plame's identity came not from the office of the vice president but from the State Department; that Joseph Wilson built his personal indictment of Cheney on a claim that not only wasn't true but could not have been true; and that Cheney and Libby had a compelling interest in ensuring that those fabrications were corrected.

This passage gives you a taste of the fictions that Hayes himself relies on to make his defense of Cheney--every single one of these assertions (save the last, I guess) is only partly accurate, at best. Yet after leaving out a wealth of details implicating Cheney and shading these issues to put Cheney in the best light, Hayes accuses others of "eliding the facts."

Comments

[Jeff]

This is news to me:

Cheney's knowledge of Armitage's involvement, from at least September 2003

Where'd you get that?

[emptywheel]

The meeting with Powell in the Sit room in September 2003. I geuss that's just evidence of Armitage's knowledge of the fact (though it may extend further). But Hayes portrays Cheney, finding out upon reading Hubris, that Armitage was Novak's source. That's clearly not the case.

[casual observer]

But aside from all these minor details, it's a courageous tale of principled leadership.

[emptywheel]

Oh, and Jeff--you and Murray merit a citation.

[Boo Radley]

ew, if you have any ideas for how some of us could bring these massive and too frequent errors to the attention of Harper Collins and Hayes' editor, I am very interested.

[radiofreewill]

EW - After you finish retching over this section of Hayes' steno-felation, I'll bet there's no useful info in there on the Anthrax story, either, huh?

With the 'sources' about to be revealed, it almost certainly includes Libby (again,) and more than likely Rove (again, too,)

Gee, I wonder, "Who was the quarterback on that Anthrax play?"

[Frank Probst]

EW - After you finish retching over this section of Hayes' steno-felation, I'll bet there's no useful info in there on the Anthrax story, either, huh?

With the 'sources' about to be revealed, it almost certainly includes Libby (again,) and more than likely Rove (again, too,)

Gee, I wonder, "Who was the quarterback on that Anthrax play?"

Posted by: radiofreewill | August 21, 2007 at 11:03
-------------------------------------------
You know, I have to say that I'm really curious how the anthrax story is going to play out. With the Plame leak, I had a pretty good idea of what happened, and all of the "bombshells" that came out were really just filling in the gaps in the narrative. With the anthrax story, I really don't have a clear idea of what really happened. Was it a lone nutcase or a group of people? How'd they do it? Where'd they get the anthrax to begin with? Why did they do it? No one was ever caught, so why did the perpetrators STOP attacking? I have a bunch of wild guesses, but almost no evidence to back them up. What the hell really happened here?

[John B.]

Frank, I agree. The anthrax story has bothered and fascinated me since the beginning and I have a suspicion that this is a bombshell that clealy nobody wants to pursue. One of the most telling signs of this event is how soon it was "forgotten" by the press and the public. I am curious though what your wild guesses might be...

[Scotian]

I agree about the Anthrax story, especially since it was originally confirmed as military grade, yet they were never able to track it back to its source?!? I have always found the lack of progress on this investigation despite it being a serious biological weapons attack to be extremely suspicious. Not to mention the way the GOP and Bushco always forget to mention it whenever they say there hasn't been a terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11/01, what was the Anthrax then chopped liver? This is something I am becoming forced to conclude was an inside job within the GOP/Bushco machine, especially when one considers the targeting of those that were hit with it. Well, either an inside job from the outset or the covering up after the fact because it connected to the GOP/Bushco machine in a manner which if made public would cause serious outcry.

There is a major story indeed here, but I wonder if we will ever know the truth here or whether this will become another one of the great unsolved mysteries/conspiracies theories of our time. I hope not, but given the successful to date avoidance of this issue except to smear a scientist they didn't like and who has subsequently filed suit for privacy violations by leaking his name this issue has stayed remarkably well hidden I cannot ignore that possibility.

[Jeff]

But Hayes portrays Cheney, finding out upon reading Hubris, that Armitage was Novak's source. That's clearly not the case.

Completely agree.

[rukus]

This is something I am becoming forced to conclude was an inside job within the GOP/Bushco machine,...

Yes, I agree. The WMD was Anthrax and it was in the States not Iraq.

Someone was able to get Weapons Grade Anthrax (from a government refiner) and yet was ignorant of its properties or careless enough with it to contaminate the Postal Service, the Democratic Senate Offices, an elderly lady in New England, and at least one passerby on a New York street and a tabloid rag sheet.

It all has a sort of Timothy McVeigh quality to it. Is the Anthrax Dispenser still alive?

[dipper]

Re the anthrax story. I remember that the first man to die (a tabloid magazine associate) had supposedly published something nasty about Bush or his family. This was never given much press though.

[Sojourner]

As I recall the story, someone was identified as the mailer at some point. It seems like he was a college professor or something, but that was the absolute last I ever heard about it all. I had never even thought about that being a Bush job!

[Palli]

Anthrax attacks...of course, they haven't reoccured - it worked, didn't have to do it again. Nothing like random death to scare the common sense out of Congress. The vote was made; the administration got what they wanted; the first version of USA Patriotic Act.
I have no doubt it was this administration's quick, poorly planned effort when they found out the fear-mongering had not sufficiently quelled the desire of some legislators to read and wonder about the Constitution before voting. Simple crime analysis: who benefited? Cheney

Stephan Hadley, a scientist previously working on a military anthrax project, was an FBI "person of interest" for a long time, was exhaustedly investigated but never charged. He fought back with a lawyer, lost a college job because of the suspicion. They hadn't erased habeous (sp?) corpus yet, remember. I think he has a lawsuit against the FBI still standing somewhere.