Month: October 2005

The Washington Note:

Patrick Fitzgerald’s intermediaries denied that there was any significance to the establishment of a new website, minimalist as it is, for the Office of the Special Counsel which is investigating the “outing” of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA responsibilities to the media.

Fitzgerald’s people said that the investigation coming to a close and the website going up was just coincidence.

Well, news has just reached TWN that Patrick Fitzgerald is expanding not only into a new website — but also into more office space.

Fitzgerald’s office is at 1400 New York Avenue, NW, 9th Floor in Washington.

What I have learned is that the Office of the Special Counsel has signed a lease this week for expanded office space across the street at 1401 New York Avenue, NW.

Another coincidence? More office space needed to shut down the operation?

I think not. Fitzgerald’s operation is expanding.

Associated Press:

ConocoPhillips, the nation’s third-largest integrated oil and gas company, said Wednesday its third-quarter profit surged 89 percent, reflecting strong prices for crude oil and natural gas.

Earnings for the quarter ended Sept. 30 rose to $3.8 billion, or $2.68 per share, topping the average Wall Street estimate of $2.57 per share, according to a Thomson Financial survey of analysts. A year ago, the company earned $2 billion, or $1.43 per share.

Quarterly revenue rose 43 percent to $49.66 billion from $34.74 billion

“During the quarter, our U.S. Gulf Coast operations were significantly impacted by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Dennis,” said Jim Mulva, chairman and chief executive. “Despite these impacts, our overall operating performance for the quarter was good, and we continued to benefit from the strong commodity price environment.”

“Strong commodity price environment” means “Bush controlled economy.”

Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft:

John at Crooks and Liars called Fitzgerald’s office (I’ll admit to giving him the number) and learned:

I just got off the phone with Fitzgerald’s office and the person I talked to was very cordial even after a long, hard day. I was told it would be highly doubtful if anything happened tonight. I asked for permission to print that and was told I could.

Actually, the number is available on the internet, and if I found it, so can other PlameGate obsessives. So please don’t e-mail me for it.

Update: CNN tv – There will be no announcement today

CNN (tv) breaking…Fitzgerald met with the Judge for 45 minutes after the grand jury finished meeting today.

What does it mean? Is Fitzgerald reviewing the Indictments with him, working out logistics for the coverage of the Indictments or asking for an extension?

Jeb has a message for PR Popular Editor Buck and others affected by Hurricane Wilma: “It’s not my fault. And you should have thought of that before you left home.” A.P.:

As people in south Florida endure long waits for relief supplies, there’s word that the number of people killed by Hurricane Wilma in Florida has doubled — from five to 10…

Jeb Bush said he takes responsibility for the delays. But he also said the people who are waiting in line for relief should have done more to prepare.

Meanwhile, authorities are calling on the survivors to have patience as they wait for food, water and other supplies.

The mayor of Miami-Dade County has complained that supplies given by the Federal Emergency Management Agency are running low — and have run out at at least one distribution center.

Now pay attention closely to this next part.

Gov. Jeb Bush said he takes responsibility for the delays. But he also said the people who are waiting in line for relief should have done more to prepare.

Did you get that? Unlike his brother who never accepts responsibility for anything that goes wrong (only the few things that go right, mostly leftover from days of Clinton), Jeb takes full responsibility. Except it’s really all your fault.

Officials had advised people as the storm approached that they should have 72 hours’ worth of supplies on hand.

“It isn’t that hard to get 72 hours’ worth of food and water,” Gov. Bush said Wednesday.

Let’s see…72 hours’ worth of Combos, cereral bars, Gatorade, Pop-Tarts, and peanut butter for a family of four. That ought to run you, say, $178. Anyone should be able to cough that up in cash on a moment’s notice.

And unless I’m doing the math wrong, we’re way beyond 72 hours from the time people in South Florida were ordered off the streets to await Hurricane Wilma. So where’s the stuff Jeb? It doesn’t seem like it’s that hard to provide enough Combos, cereral bars, Gatorade, Pop-Tarts, and peanut butter for everyone in South Florida. Unless you’re not properly prepared. Asswipe.

Criminalizing crime: From Raw Story:

Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked the grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to indict Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, lawyers close to the investigation tell RAW STORY.

Fitzgerald has also asked the jury to indict Libby on a second charge: knowingly outing a covert operative, the lawyers said. They said the prosecutor believes that Libby violated a 1982 law that made it illegal to unmask an undercover CIA agent…

Those close to the investigation said Rove was offered a deal Tuesday to plead guilty to perjury for a reduced charge. Rove’s lawyer was told that Fitzgerald would drop an obstruction of justice charge if his client agreed not to contest allegations of perjury, they said.

Rove declined to plead guilty to the reduced charge, the sources said, indicating through his attorney Robert Luskin that he intended to fight the charges. A call placed to Luskin was not returned.

Those familiar with the case said that Libby did not inform Rove that [secret agent Valerie] Plame was covert. As a result, Rove may not be charged with a crime in leaking Plame’s identity, even though he spoke with reporters.

Richard Sale for Truthout.org:

If no action is taken today, it will take place on Friday, according to [federal law enforcement and senior US intelligence officials].

I. Scooter Libby, the chief of staff of Vice President Richard Cheney, and chief presidential advisor Karl Rove are expected to be named in indictments this morning by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Others are to be named as well, these sources said. According to US officials close to the case, a bill of indictment that named five people has been in existence since before October 17. Various names have surfaced, such as National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, yet only one source would confirm that Hadley was on the list. Hadley could not be reached for comment.

But letters from Fitzgerald notifying various White House officials that they are targets of the investigation,went out late last week, a former senior US intelligence official said…

[Federal] law enforcement officials told this reporter that Fitzgerald was likely to charge the people indicted with violating Joe Wilson’s civil rights, smearing his name in an attempt to destroy his ability to earn a living in Washington as a consultant. The civil rights charge is said to include that “the conspiracy was committed using US government offices, buildings, personnel and funds,” one federal law enforcement official said.

[…]

Blown away: Buck, the popular editor of Pensito Review, was located today in South Florida following Hurricane Wilma. Buck was last heard from at Pensito World Headquarters on Saturday, Oct. 22, two days before the powerful Category 3 storm smashed into the region, when he sent an e-mail to staffers that he was going out to stock up on scotch in preparation for the storm.

In the absence of news of Buck’s status since Monday morning when the hurricane struck Miami with 125-mph winds, editors Jon and Trish could merely wring their hands and fret over his fate. Worse yet, they were compelled to fill in Buck’s significant presence on the popular news and opinion Web site by actually providing some content for a change.

Buck wended his way past fallen trees, piles of debris and cute chicks doing storm cleanup to his office building where he tapped into the emergency power circuit running the snack machine in the breakroom and re-established contact with his concerned co-editors.

When asked about his harrowing experience, Buck responded in his typical laconic style: “Well, it was windy, but not too wet.”

Asked whether he witnessed extensive damage, Buck replied: “Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not a tree, a fence or a roof tile.”

Questioned about how he was faring along with his 2.8 million neighbors without power, Buck confided the scotch was helping.

“I tell you,” he continued, “without all that usual Miami noise, it’s pretty peaceful and quiet at night. Except when them damned black gummint helicopters fly over full of rubber-necking Repug politicians looking for a way to make political capital out of our misery, or a bunch of them FEMA feebs looking for a way to bame the destruction and lack of emergency response on local officials (but not Jebbie, of course), or them damn news helicopters with them nattering nabob talking heads looking for the next subhuman interest story to run on TV, or, well, don’t get me started ….”

Buck promises to keep his loyal readers apprised of conditions in South Florida in the critical days ahead.

Oh, Howie! In the Washington Post today, Howard Kurtz lays out a side by side comparison of the current Bush CIA Leak scandal with the trumped up Clinton sex scandals of the 1990’s.

Kurtz is attempting to bring some levity into the discussion, but the bottom line on these scandals is that there is absolutely no comparison.

All through the 1990’s, in a scheme dubbed “the Arkansas Project” funded with millions of dollars from the secretive Pittsburgh millionaire wingnut Richard Mellon Scaife, the Republicans went after President Clinton with accusation upon accusation based on charges that the accusers knew to be false and misleading. When they finally got something on Mr. Clinton it was done via perjury trap about a sex lie.

President Bush’s people have blown the cover of a CIA operative and the company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, that appears to have been a key intelligence asset for monitoring the trafficking the black market in weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We probably won’t know the value of what was lost when Brewster Jennings was exposed for many years. Nonetheless, there is litle doubt that the only beneficiaries of the leak were terrorists, in the long run, and Team Bush, in the short term.

And then there are dead and wounded. As the catch phrase goes: No one died when Clinton lied.

Here’s Howie’s comparison:

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