The New York Sun is reporting that Lewis Libby has testified to the grand jury that he was told to release classified information about Valerie Plame by the Vice President. Cheney told Libby that the President himself authorized the release.
Of course, the President can legally declassify whatever he wants. But the fact that Bush was willing to blow the cover of a CIA agent merely to silence a critic seriously calls into question his capacity to serve as President. This is the man we’re supposed to trust with warrantless wiretaps?
I have a feeling NOTHING will happen. Bush has built an entire life around skating out of trouble and/or getting someone else to pay the piper. Why should this time be any different?
I want more verification. I am not familiar with the NY Sun as a source.
And sadly, nothing will happen to him at all, even if it is true. Christ, we couldn’t get Dems to agree to censure him over wiretapping–we have the government we deserve. People bought an image and don’t like to be proven wrong, IMO.
After he leaves office, most likely some moron will try to get tons of stuff renamed in W’s honor like that congresscritter did for Reagan. :rolleyes:
I don’t know about “surprising” exactly… but there is a certain feeling of shock and awe at getting anything even remotely like the truth out of this administration.
Well, the OP made that claim already, without the “Republican” part, right?
If there’s anything that the “usual suspects” are going to do, it’s folks like you who immediately assume that Libby is telling the truth now, when you don’t believe anything he said earlier that contradicted your preconceived ideas.
I guess we have to assume Libby has no reason to try and pass the buck to Cheney and then Bush, even if it weren’t true.
I mean, it’s not like him lying could serve him at all.
I’m not really sure what importance the testimony of a sole man who has reason to lie really means here. That isn’t proof. Even if Bush told Cheney to tell Libby to leak the information (without even getting in to the fact that Plame’s CIA status wasn’t unknown by people without security clearances prior to the fact, or the fact that Plame wasn’t in any sort of hostile situation nor was she ever going to be again) this would boil down to a “he said she said” type of situation unless Bush or Cheney was dumb enough to put something down in writing.
And without something more than a he said/she said situation I see no reason to believe either party one way or another, and certainly see no reason to start simply assuming the President was responsible.
Even if he was responsible, aside from being a bit dirty politically I don’t really think it’s that big a deal.
Without taking sides on the issue one way or another, doesn’t this qualify as “Hearsay”? Which years of watching courtroom dramas has taught me that it’s not admissible in court. Are the rules different for grand juries?
Except for the part where he made it very clear he was not responsible. Which would then be a big fat lie. Oh yeah. And the part where outing a CIA agent is very poor form. You know, as in making it harder for them to do their jobs? And part of their job is to protect us from terrorists. And we all know that you are either fer us or agin us, right?