Did Cheney confirm he’s the source of the Plame leak?
VP on “Meet the Press” implies he did.

(I will post my “9/11″ related story tomorrow.)

Today, the day before the fifth anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration went on a PR Blitz, sending White House members to all the major network Sunday shows: Condi on Fox and CBS, and NBC gave VP Cheney the full hour on “Meet the Press”.

During the program, the Vice President continued to spin the Bush Administration line that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States, despite the long-admitted “no connection to 9/11” and now the newly revealed “no connection to al Qaeda either“… which we have since learned is from a FEBRUARY 2002 PRE-WAR Pentagon report!

But buried in all this spin, what may be the most amazing admission of all: Vice President Cheney implies he in fact was the source that outed covert CIA agent Valery Plame Wilson! (see “Armitage” story below for more info on the subject).

FROM THE TRANSCRIPT:

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn back home, domestic politics, and talk about the whole situation involving Scooter Libby, your former chief of staff, who was indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald. This was a document that was released in the investigation. It’s a New York Times op-ed piece with your handwriting on it. And that handwriting says, “Or did his wife send him on a junket?” referring to Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, who was a CIA, CIA agent. Did you, in any way, authorize Scooter Libby to release her name or her occupation to the press?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Tim, Scooter Libby is, he’s a good man. He’s a friend of mine. He’s somebody—one of the most competent and capable people I’ve ever known. He’s entitled to the presumption of innocence. But there is a legal matter pending, there is going to be a trial next year, I could well be a witness in the trial, and much as I would like to talk about, and I certainly have strong opinions about the case, I think it’d be totally inappropriate for me to do so.

MR. RUSSERT: There was a story in the National Journal that Cheney authorized Libby to leak confidential information. Can you confirm or deny that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I have the authority as vice president under executive order issued by the president to classify and declassify information. And everything I’ve done is consistent with those authorities.

MR. RUSSERT: Could you declassify Valerie Plame’s status as an operative?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I’ve said all I’m going to say on the subject, Tim.

I have argued for the past couple of years that NONE of the people (that we know of) that spoke to reporters about the true employer of Ms. Plame (the CIA) had the authority to request the identity of a covert agent working for the CIA. Only the President, Vice President, maybe the National Security Advisor and Director of the NSA could obtain that kind of information, and of those people, ONLY Bush and Cheney had an ax to grind against Plame’s husband Ambassador Joe Wilson for exposing their lies about Iraq trying to obtain nuclear material from Niger. It HAD to be Cheney.

And now he has basically admitted it on national television, essentially DARING people to impeach him, hiding behind the cloak of an Excutive Privledge that he may not even have.

Former President HW Bush put it best (video) when he called those who leak the name of covert agents, “the most insidious of traitors“.

It’s not just an impeachable offense, it’s a CRIME that DEMANDS an immediate investigation!

This entry was posted on September 10, 2006 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Political News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.