Feel free to assess it so. But Bush didn’t invent this. He didn’t give himself this power. Nor is any declassification of information he conducts automatically unethical.
What sneaky, unethical purpose do you think this served?
I do assess it so. What you call a ‘standard’ is actually a right. The president has the right to declassify anything he damn well pleases. Most presidents also set standards for what they’ll declassify, how they’ll go about declassifying things, and under what circumstances they’ll declassify something.
Has anyone besides you brought up the strawman of Bush’s declassification being automatically unethical? If so, they’re nuts. Now if the president declassified information in an off the cuff fashion, simply to discomfort a political opponent, that would be unethical; especially if that carelessness lead to the exposure of intelligence assets.
I have a question. The sitting president can change an executive order as he wishes, if i’ve understood the posts so far in this thread. The first part of this is him either thinking it up or being advised to do so, and so the idea is in his mind - “Yes, I am going to change this executive order”. What must he legally from this point on in order to get that decision legally recognised? Does he just have to tell the member of staff in charge of these things? Is there paperwork? Bear in mind, i’m talking legally - so if the change is distributed to whoever it may effect as a courtesy, and not as a mandatory act, please count it out.
I’m just wondering since it seems the Prez. can think up an order, not tell anyone, and yet anyone contravening that order would themselves be at fault, not him. Is this the case?
You just know Bush got an e-mail that said something like"I am a high government official of Nigeria. I need help getting evidence of Saddam’s WMD program out of rome. If you will give me you bank account information I will deposit 11 million dollars and the documents. Later I will withdraw 5 million and you keep the change and the documents." I always suspected those Nigerian E-mails were scams. You would think the administration would have been a little…skeptical.
I believe I addressed this in my initial post in the thread, back on page 3, which no one bothered to note or address.
Excerpt:
**According to defendant [Libby], at the time of his conversations with [Judith] Miller and [Matthew] Cooper, he understood that only three people - the President, the Vice President and defendant - knew that the key judgments of the [National Intelligence Estimate] had been declassified. Defendant testified in the grand jury that he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials - including Cabinet level officials - were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, the report about Wilson’s trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003. **
NSA staffers were working preparing a declassified version of the NIE report, in accordance with regular procedures, when Libby had his lunch meeting with Miller. They (and apparently the rest of the government) were still laboring under the assumption they were working with classified material even after it was supposedly declassified by Bush. Perhaps not illegal (If Bricker’s understanding is correct , President Bush could call into a national talk-radio show and read a list of every deep-cover asset the CIA has and still not be commiting an illegal act), but very odd to conceal that something’s been declassified while releasing it to friendly media sources.
Here’s a timeline of the events:
**September, 2002 - The CIA puts together the National Intelligence Estimate, a summary of the intelligence community’s judgment of the Iraq threat. After reading it and seeing that it rebutted a number of the administration’s public claims, Sens. Bob Graham (D-FL) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) ask that a declassified version be made available for the public.
October 4, 2002 - A much shorter declassified version, scrubbed of all dissenting opinions that were contained in the original version, is released. “Itrepresented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed [WMDs], avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version.”
Sen. Graham demands that the administration release the dissenting portions.
October 7, 2002 - In response, CIA Director George Tenet writes a letter to Graham declassifying a statement in the NIE that there was a “low” likelihood of Iraq launching an unprovoked attack on the United States. Graham demands that Tenet declassify more of the dissenting opinions in the report, but the White House orders Tenet not to. (The New Republic, 6/30/03)
July 8, 2003: Scooter Libby, acting on the President’s orders, discloses classified portions of the NIE to Judy Miller. These portions, which were not released in October, are released to counter Joseph Wilson’s statement that Iraq wasn’t seeking uranium from Africa before the war.
July 11, 2003: Time reporter Matthew Cooper speaks with Karl Rove. Rove assured him that “material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson’s mission and his findings.”
July 18, 2003: Those portions of the NIE are officially declassified. **
So basically the information is disseminated 10 days before the official declassified version is released. Unless I’m mistaken, Libby told selected information from the NIE report and did not pass the actual document (which hadn’t been prepared yet), which would allow him to selectively slant the information. And the actual declassified version released was problematic enough. See Sen. Graham’s letter to the Washington Post.
The Washington Post puts it nicely: "Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald described a ‘concerted action’ by ‘multiple people in the White House’ – using classified information – to ‘discredit, punish or seek revenge against’ a critic of President Bush’s war in Iraq.
That’s the prosecutor’s assessment. Sounds sneaky and unethical to me, especially from a president with a holier-than-thou attitude about leaks.
I’m sorry, John. I didn’t think, after my previous two posts, that it was necessary to qualify things again. Repeatedly typing “Bush et al” or “Bush and friends” or “members of the Bush administration” is tedious. The same goes for my characterization of “technical” – I concede that I am not a lawyer, nor a political junkie, nor do I assume that politicians are always lying.
The forcefulness of the statements I quoted, taken at face value, are meant to convey an “Honest Abe” type of politician; the notion of a “leak”, as put forth there, is characterized as a blanket statement – no 10 day discrepancy, no verbal-only agreement concerning only semi-available information. The very fact that this is even a dicussion says that the episode was not honest, straightforward, and forthright. If you need me to, I’ll agree again – given no codified law concerning formal procedures for declassifying documents, it appears that nothing illegal was done. I find it difficult to grant that the very act of the president saying something out loud is acceptable as declassification; that is a technical point that doesn’t meet my common sense notion. If you (or others) wish to stick to that, I concede again that I have no common ground, outside of legal definitions, on which to argue the point. And that’s OK – but I (and many others, it seems) see it as shady, underhanded, and unethical. How it is that you and others don’t see it as unethical is beyond me.
I’m still not sure why you keep telling me that presidents declassify information. Let me be clear: I understand that the president has the power to declassify information. I would have thought there was a formal procedure for it; as indicated by reporter’s questions in the quote in Clark K’s post above (i.e., “…when things are declassified there’s usually a stamp put on it, a date written on it…”), it’s rather unexpected – even by people who cover the news in Washington – that a wink and a nod is all it takes. To my mind, untrained in legal background and having no reason to even consider the possibility that there’s none of the usual governmental red-tape involved in something as weighty as declassifying information, this is just another example of how skeevy Bush et al are.
As I’ve said, repeating now for the third time (fourth if you include my reply to John Mace above), legally – that is, technically – that may be (probably is indeed) beyond dispute. Yes, you’re right. And I should also make clear, yet again, that it’s not this particular piece of information that is necessarily an issue, although you seem fixated on it (if there were proof of Bush leaking Plame’s name, then that would distinctly be an issue). I simply don’t understand the viewpoint that “walking a fine line” equates to ethical, or even acceptable, behavior. And I’m aghast with flabber that people insist on defending such actions, given the seemingly endless repetoire of such incidents.
Except that “multiple people in the White House” ≠ Bush.
Digital Stimulus: If you want to characterizes Bush’s verbal declassification order as sloppy, I’ll agree. But sloppy isn’t the same as unethical.
Thanks. Sorry I didn’t acknowledge this… I guess I was focused on Biggirl’s assertions.
I think I can see how this all happened now. Maybe something like this:
Libby: Hey boss, I’ve got Judith Miller calling me night and day to comment on that Joe Wilson piece. What can I tell her?
Cheney: Tell her <this stuff> form the NIE report.
Libby: Isn’t that classified?
Cheney: No, Bush told me he’s ordered it declassified. It might take a week or so to get the actual report out to the press, but go ahead and talk to her on background.
-or-
Cheney: Hey boss, we’ve got some trouble with Joe Wilson saying Saddam didn’t try to buy yellowcake from Niger.
Bush: Who’s Joe Wilson?
Cheney: Some guy the CIA sent to Niger to investigate. Didn’t you read that piece of his in the paper?
Bush: Come on Dick, you know I only read the comics.
Cheney: Anyway, we have to do something to counter his claim. Hows about you declassify this NIE report and we give that to the press. There’s some stuff in there we don’t want to let out, and we’ll keep that part classified, but most of it is safe to make public.
Bush: Whatever you say, Dick. Consider it declassified. Do I have to do anything else?
Cheney: No, I’ll take care of the rest.
Bush: You’re doin’ a heck of a job, Cheney! Hey, the next time you’re down in Texas, I’ll hook you up for some hunting with a friend of mine. She’s got a sweet little spread that’s just loaded with quail.
Bring me up to speed on a point, please, someone. It appears that the implication is that someone felt that Joe Wilson’s reliability could be impeached if it were shown that Vice President Cheney had not been to one who sent him to Africa on his investigation.
At what point did Ambassador Wilson claim that Cheney had sent him to Africa? Has he responded at all to any challenge to that assertion, and if so, how has he responded?
Do you have a cite for any of this? Because John Dean at FindLaw seems to be saying something else:
He says this re VP Cheney:
There have been quite a few people who seem aghast at the fact that the president actually declassified information.
Now this would be a straw man, unless you can explain why this declassification led to the exposure of intelligence assets or why the move was solely to “discomfort” Wilson, as opposed to countering the position he advanced.
No, this doesn’t answer the question. You said this:
The question is not why the release of this information in ANY form amounts to an effort to “punish or seek revenge against a critic of President Bush’s war in Iraq.” Special Counsel Fitpatrick has his own credibility problems, but I’ll concede that the information was declassified to counter a position Wilson advanced. That fact, by itself, does not makes this an unethical act.
But my question is, what sneaky, unethical purpose does providing the information to Miller in the way alleged serve, since that’s what you’re asserting.
I keep saying it in reaction to statements like this last sentence. If you understand all this, and sloppiness of the execution aside, what makes this skeevy? Please, be specific.
What, WHAT, exactly, is the untenable position you think is being defended, other than the activity that you specifically allow is legal? What is the fine line being walked? What bad thing occurred as a result of walking that line? What lapse occurred and what harm resulted? What misleading activity was conducted? Who was put in peril? What security was breached? What, please?
Yes, the President can declassify information. Fine.
But this Administration isn’t about Making Truth Free. No. They’re about intimidating people who contradict the lies they’ve put forth. Such as Mr. Wilson. That is the reason for our outrage.
Here’s some more information about their campaign, from the
The Union of Concerned Scientists (my Hubby – who is an environmental scientist – was just telling me about a more recent example of this tomfoolery, but I can’t find it online & don’t recall what it was & he’s still asleep, so I pulled this older information instead so as to offer cites).
Here’s an even older example of Bush’s disregard for disclosing the truth (the numbers refer to cites within the article):
To answer your central question, Stratocaster who’s in peril: All of us.
Plase identify the precise discrepancy between what Dean says and what I said.
This is a good question, one that I can’t quite figure out myself either. What’s to stop a President from claiming “Well, that was against the law from about 11:30 yesterday until almost noon, then I changed my mind so that became legal and it’s remained so, except for a brief period when I got mixed up and thought the previous executive order was still in effect, so I allowed my aide to violate the law, which wasn’t really the law anymore…” etc
This business of the President being free to change Executive Orders with no written notification is, I don’t know, the opposite of Thought Crimes. Thought Laws? Can you really tell the President “Bullshit, you didn’t really change your mind, you’re just saying you did”?
I understand what your position is and disagree. No worries there.
I think that the existence of a formal declassification procedure remains unresolved. Would you agree that if there is such a thing – specifically, a written, dated document or note indicating declassification – Bush et al acted unethically? Possibly illegally? Note that I’m not trying to trap you into anything, as your answer won’t change my opinion of the situation; nor do I really even want to convince you one way or the other. Just asking…