LEAKGATE
LEAK-GATE a/k/a WILSON-GATE - Listen
Fri Oct 31 01:25:05 2003
64.140.158.254

LEAK-GATE a/k/a WILSON-GATE
http://onpointradio.org/shows/2003/10/20031030_a_main.asp

Wilsongate Listen
Aired: Thursday, October 30, 2003

Joseph Wilson, former U.S. Deputy Ambassador to Iraq. (AP)
http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/onpoint/2003/10/op_1030a.rm?start=

"Is Valerie your real name?" That's what Ambassador Joseph Wilson asked his future wife when she revealed to him that she was a CIA operative. The new question is who leaked Valerie Plame's name to a Washington columnist.

Did the White House out Plame to get back at Wilson for his public criticism of the case for the war with Iraq? And If the leak did come from the White House, how high up did it go?

Tonight, On Point: Ambassador Joseph Wilson speaks out. And, later in the program , we'll hear from former Nixon counsel John Dean who hears echos of Watergate in the Wilson scandal.
http://onpointradio.org/shows/2003/10/20031030_a_main.asp

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad, Iraq during Gulf Crisis (1988-1991). Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, 1997-1998. Served as Ambassador to the Gabonese Republic and the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, and Deputy Chief of Mission in Brazzaville, Congo (1986-88) and Bujumbura, Burundi (1982)

John Dean, counsel to President Nixon from 1970 to 1973. He now writes a column for Findlaw and is the author of several books, with the next to be published in January 2004, a biography of Warren G. Harding

Jack Beatty, On Point News Analyst, a senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly magazine

RELATED LINKS:

Former ambassador blames White House for leak (CNN)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/29/cnna.wilson.zahn/

Joseph Wilson Interview (Democracy Now!)
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/1555209

Read John Dean's Salon.com Article
http://archive.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/10/03/dean/index_np.html

Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 421 et seq.)
(governing disclosures that could expose confidential Government agents)
http://foi.missouri.edu/bushinfopolicies/protection.html

Nominee to Justice Department Post Vows Fair Inquiry on Leak
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: October 30, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/politics/30JUST.html?ex=1068181200&en=aa6234d922c8c797&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 — James B. Comey, the Manhattan prosecutor nominated by President Bush for the No. 2 post at the Justice Department, told lawmakers on Wednesday that he would work to ensure that the department conducted a "fair and aggressive" inquiry into the disclosure of a C.I.A. officer's identity.

But the assurance did not completely mollify one of Mr. Comey's home-state senators, Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who said he might still oppose Mr. Comey's nomination as deputy attorney general because of concerns about the department's independence in investigating the politically charged case.

Republicans said they expected the Senate to confirm Mr. Comey in several weeks.

Nonetheless, Mr. Schumer's effort to link the nomination to the investigation of the leak has angered Justice Department officials and set up the unusual prospect that Mr. Comey, prominent in New York for his prosecution of corporate crime and terrorism, could receive a vote of no from one of his own senators. New York's other senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat, has not determined a position on the nomination, a spokesman said.

A spokesman for the Justice Department, Mark Corallo, said he believed that some Democrats, Mr. Schumer in particular, had sought to exploit the inquiry for political ends.

"It's unfortunate," Mr. Corallo said, "there are certain people trying to politicize an investigation that's being handled by career prosecutors and to politicize the nomination of a stellar individual."

Mr. Comey, with his wife and five children seated behind him, testified on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his goals for prosecuting terrorism, corporate crime and other areas if he is confirmed as Attorney General John Ashcroft's top deputy. Senators from both parties, including Mr. Schumer, praised his skill, experience and integrity as a prosecutor.

But the leak investigation, which has focused on the White House, dominated the hearing, as Mr. Schumer questioned Mr. Comey for nearly half an hour about what the senator said were missteps in the Justice Department's handling of the case. The senator said Mr. Ashcroft and other top department officials should remove themselves from oversight of the investigation because of their close ties to the White House.

Justice Department prosecutors are trying to determine whether unidentified senior administration officials may have broken federal laws by naming the undercover C.I.A. officer for Robert Novak, the syndicated columnist, in July.

Mr. Comey said that he considered the leak to be "an extraordinarily serious matter worth of fair and aggressive investigation" and that he would work to get up to speed on the case and ensure that it was properly handled. He said that in general it was critically important for prosecutors to assure the public that an investigation was being handled independently and to recuse themselves in case of even an appearance of bias.

Mr. Comey said it would be inappropriate for him to discuss details of the inquiry on the leak or the Justice Department's handling of it.

Mr. Schumer said in an interview after the hearing that he was pleased with some answers.

"He clearly saw the gravity of the case," the senator said, "and he saw that his own integrity was at stake here."

Asked if he planned to support the nomination, Mr. Schumer said, "I am not ready to say that yet."

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The Wilson-CIA Leak, WMDs and the Dems
Muslim American Society, United States - 52 minutes ago
... The burst of attention that occurred several weeks ago followed the surprising disclosure
that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate the leak ...
http://www.masnet.org/articleinterest.asp?id=625

The foreign policy pressure cooker
MSNBC - 2 hours ago
... Many Republicans broke ranks to criticize the leak that exposed the identity of
a CIA agent in what appears to have been an act of revenge against the agent ...
http://msnbc.com/news/986163.asp?0sl=-13

President Holds Press Conference - October 28 2003
Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand - 16 hours ago
... to find out whether somebody in the White House leaked the identity of an undercover
CIA agent ... I'd like to know if somebody in my White House did leak sensitive ...
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0310/S00320.htm
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INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS ON LEAK-GATE
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/

LEAK - GATE:
This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale!
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/LEAKGATE.HTM

• Wilson leak a/k/a LEAKGATE FORUM — Robin Boston, Fri Oct 31 02:53
• BUSH ORDERED CIA TO KILL SADDAM IN JUNE 2002 — APFN, Fri Oct 31 03:11