Fact-checking Plame
posted at 10:31 pm on May 26, 2007 by Bryan
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Byron York has a memo that definitively answers the question, Did Valerie Plame recommend her husband Joseph Wilson for a trip to Niger to investigate reports that Iraq was interested in purchasing yellow cake uranium from Niger?
The answer is yes. And she recommended him the day before VP Cheney called on the CIA to inquire about that same Niger-Iraq story.
Which, among other things, means that she may have committed the same crime for which Scooter Libby is currently on trial. Only, if it turns out that she committed perjury, her crime led to the investigation that led to the Libby trial.
But she’s not on trial.
More: This bit:
her crime led to the investigation that led to the Libby trial.
Isn’t accurate, so I’ll give it another go. Plame’s action–recommending her husband for the trip–led to the trip itself. Wilson’s inaccurate statements after the trip, both about Iraq’s interest in Niger and on his wife’s role in recommending him for the trip, led to the “outing” of Plame. That led to the investigation that has put Libby on trial for perjury, but not for outing Plame. The man who actually outed Plame to Novak, Richard Armitage, isn’t now and apparently never was in any kind of legal jeopardy. Plame’s perjury regarding her role in recommending Wilson for the trip, if perjury is what it was, would have been an attempt to cover up her role in the affair once she had been named by Bob Novak. But it didn’t lead to the investigation. It may have obstructed the investigation, though.
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Ha ha…this’ll never make a network or a major newspaper. Wonder if they’ll re-write the screenplay of the movie, ha ha ha.
Spassvogel on May 26, 2007 at 10:36 PM
And she never will be, because the Democrats, and more importantly their buddies in the media aren’t pushing for it. If she were to somehow get on their sh** list, she’d be scared. How many non-scandals have we seen turn in to resignations, investigations, and trials in the past few years?
RightWinged on May 26, 2007 at 10:42 PM
Huh.
Next thing you know, Plame will claim a one-armed man told her Joseph Wilson would be the best man for the job.
Slublog on May 26, 2007 at 10:54 PM
Plame is a hotty. I forgive her.
Hening on May 26, 2007 at 11:30 PM
It’s funny how the media play up all the “inconsistencies” they can find in testimony from Alberto Gonzales and the DoJ gang, but when Valerie Plame comes up with a brand new story to tell Congress that she never told them before, conveniently buttressing the Wilsons’ preferred storyline, no one cares.
It would be like if Gonzales came up with some inane story about how an invisible eagle floated into his office when Sampson and McNulty were there to discuss the USAs, distracting him from the matter at hand and so he has no recollection of what happened.
Same thing when George Galloway perjured himself all over the place back in May 2005 before the Senate - the media couldn’t care less. All they did was write about how brave he was and how great his performance was.
The only way Plame’s Assorted Tales is going to get into the media is if the Republican members on the committee make a big stink about it, and they’ll have to do it well. You’d think that FOX News would be all over these types of things, supposedly the Bush Propaganda Channel, but FOX is often AWOL or tardy just like the rest of the media when it comes to these things.
Come on!
Seixon on May 26, 2007 at 11:35 PM
“There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
MirCat on May 26, 2007 at 11:37 PM
Bush needs to put a Special Prosecutor on her case immediately.
Perjury Plame down in flames.
What good for the Libby is good for the label.
profitsbeard on May 26, 2007 at 11:58 PM
Just one thing Bryan:
Neither Armitage, nor Novak, ‘outed’ Plame.
Bill Gertz, or possibly the CIA, did:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTlkODQ1YzgwMGVkNDMxNTFiMzMyYWM2OGQzZWI0Zjg=
Hat tip: Andrew McCarthy
(because I always wanted to say ‘hat tip’)
Bottom line:
The media said IN FEDERAL COURT that Plame was NOT
‘covert’, thus their reporters could not be charged
with a crime as no crime had been committed.
Let the subpoenas and heads roll!
BemusedMalkinite on May 27, 2007 at 12:47 AM
So does Armitage still work for the McCain campaign?
see-dubya on May 27, 2007 at 12:52 AM
I had the feeling from the start that this Wilson couple were liars and phonies. They were out to ‘get’ Bush or somebody (or everybody) in the White House,
I pray that this and other blogs will not let this thing die on the vine. If the pressure is kept on loud and consistently we can get some action. Remember the Dan Rather thing that had a happy ending. We CAN make things happen if we are persistent.
We have Libby about to be sentenced to a jail term for (questionably) basically the same thing the blond cutie did. Justice must prevail - this woman must be brought to trial. I’m sure that she and her lying husband can afford the legal expense more than Libby with bucks from their their book and movie deals.
Please folks - keep on top of this one!!
OBX Pete on May 27, 2007 at 3:17 AM
The wheels of Justice turn slowly. I’m sure they will eventually catch up to and roll over the Plame’s, errr, Wilson’s.
Zorro on May 27, 2007 at 7:00 AM
1. Libby ought to be pardoned, immediately.
2. Plame and Wilson ought to be brought before a grand jury as TARGETS of an investigation. Immediately.
An indictment will shut the Democrats up and end the Gonzales witch hunts and Waxman. Why? Because certain high rankers (Durbin, Rockefeller, etc.) in the party who were part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice and commit treason back in 2003, and they are very vulnerable. They know it, too.
For once, Bush has to have the cujones to play hard ball with these traitors. Send Durbin, Rockefeller, Wilson and Plame to the Big House and the remainder of Bush’s term in office will be a model of harmony.
And the Justice Department could run the table by beginning a bribery investigation of Obama, Feinstein, Pelosi, Reid, and the Jefferson.
And if the Republicans really want to end Hillary’s chance to be President, have the IRS and Justice investigate the connection between Info/USA and the Clintons, including $900,000 in free transportaion using CEO Vinod Gupta’s private jet.
Info/USA sells “sucker” phone lists to con artists preying upon the elderly.
Democrats…DIRTY CROOKS AND FREELOADERS, every one of them!
Vote Democrat, Vote for the CULTURE OF CORRUPTION!!
georgej on May 27, 2007 at 8:07 AM
Excellent point, I am stealing it.
Topsecretk9 on May 27, 2007 at 8:38 AM
See, if Libby had just suborned testimony, and mixed in a little sex, he would have hit the Bill Clinton trifecta, and been embraced by the left!
William Teach on May 27, 2007 at 9:41 AM
See the problem most of you are forgetting here is that in order for Plame to be brought to justice the media would have to report that Wilson intentionally gave false testimony to congress regarding Niger and Iraq. The media will never do this because it is the foundation of their case against Bush. Hence this story will never get any more coverage than being discussed in right wing conservative blogs, sad but true.
doriangrey on May 27, 2007 at 10:47 AM
But he doesn’t.
He seems to have been spayed!
OBX Pete on May 27, 2007 at 11:40 AM
My BS meter pegged the day all the stories “broke” about her being in training at the “Farm”, and how she was “hell on wheels with an AK”.
The left hates guns with a passion, particularly so-called assault weapons, so the drive-by media praising someone as being good with one was cause to take notice some BS’ing was about to begin.
91Veteran on May 27, 2007 at 10:26 PM