Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Patrick Fitzgerald Ignored Witnesses who Contradicted Wilson
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's Leakgate investigation is coming unraveled, as witness after witness steps forward to challenge a key premise of his controversial probe.
Was the identity of Joseph Wilson's wife Valerie Plame really a deep dark secret before she was "outed" by columnist Robert Novak in July 2003?
The number of witnesses now saying "No" has climbed to four - and none of them have apparently been interviewed by Fitzgerald's investigators.
On Wednesday, Wayne Simmons, a 27-year veteran at the CIA, told Fox News Radio: "As most people now know, [Plame] was traipsed all over Washington many years ago by Joe Wilson and introduced at embassies and other parties as 'my CIA wife.'"
Last week, Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WABC Radio's John Batchelor that during a 2002 conversation with Wilson while the two waited to appear on a TV show, Wilson casually mentioned that his wife worked at "the Agency."
In Oct. 2003, NBC's diplomatic correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, told CNBC that Plame's occupation "was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger."
Mitchell added: "So a number of us began to pick up on that."
And in Sept. 2003, NationalReviewOnline's Cliff May wrote that when Plame's CIA connection was mentioned in Novak's column - "That wasn't news to me."
"I had been told that [Plame was CIA] - but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of."
The day his report appeared, May told the Fox News Channel's John Gibson: "I knew this, and a lot of other people knew it."
In fact, rumors now swirl around Washington that Plame used to take her friends to lunch at the CIA's cafeteria.
So what has Mr.Fitzgerald - who was hailed as a "prosecutor's prosecutor" only weeks ago - done with the avalanche of testimony that contradicts his stated claim that Plame's job "was not widely known"?
Apparently nothing.
In the six days since he's gone public, Gen. Vallely says prosecutors have yet to contact him.
Ms. Mitchell has been mum since her "widely known" comment resurfaced last week, offering no indication whether Fitzgerald has bothered to check her story out.
If Mr. May has been interrogated, he's also keeping it to himself.
And Mr. Simmons has made no mention of any contact with Fitzgerald's team.
On the other hand, the prosecutor's prosecutor made a big show of interviewing two of the Wilsons neighbors just four days before he announced his indictment of Lewis Libby - in a bid to establish whether Ms. Plame's occupation was indeed secret.
It was, as far as her neighbors were concerned. But the revelation that Fitzgerald had waited till the last minute to confirm such a key aspect of his case raised more than a few eyebrows.
Now, with four witnesses on the record saying they knew what the Wilsons' neighbors didn't - and two of those witnesses coming forward even before the Leakgate investigation began - it's beginning to look like Mr. Fitzgerald deliberately ignored critical testimony that would have compelled him to close up shop well before he ever got to Mr. Libby.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's Leakgate investigation is coming unraveled, as witness after witness steps forward to challenge a key premise of his controversial probe.
Was the identity of Joseph Wilson's wife Valerie Plame really a deep dark secret before she was "outed" by columnist Robert Novak in July 2003?
The number of witnesses now saying "No" has climbed to four - and none of them have apparently been interviewed by Fitzgerald's investigators.
On Wednesday, Wayne Simmons, a 27-year veteran at the CIA, told Fox News Radio: "As most people now know, [Plame] was traipsed all over Washington many years ago by Joe Wilson and introduced at embassies and other parties as 'my CIA wife.'"
Last week, Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WABC Radio's John Batchelor that during a 2002 conversation with Wilson while the two waited to appear on a TV show, Wilson casually mentioned that his wife worked at "the Agency."
In Oct. 2003, NBC's diplomatic correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, told CNBC that Plame's occupation "was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger."
Mitchell added: "So a number of us began to pick up on that."
And in Sept. 2003, NationalReviewOnline's Cliff May wrote that when Plame's CIA connection was mentioned in Novak's column - "That wasn't news to me."
"I had been told that [Plame was CIA] - but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of."
The day his report appeared, May told the Fox News Channel's John Gibson: "I knew this, and a lot of other people knew it."
In fact, rumors now swirl around Washington that Plame used to take her friends to lunch at the CIA's cafeteria.
So what has Mr.Fitzgerald - who was hailed as a "prosecutor's prosecutor" only weeks ago - done with the avalanche of testimony that contradicts his stated claim that Plame's job "was not widely known"?
Apparently nothing.
In the six days since he's gone public, Gen. Vallely says prosecutors have yet to contact him.
Ms. Mitchell has been mum since her "widely known" comment resurfaced last week, offering no indication whether Fitzgerald has bothered to check her story out.
If Mr. May has been interrogated, he's also keeping it to himself.
And Mr. Simmons has made no mention of any contact with Fitzgerald's team.
On the other hand, the prosecutor's prosecutor made a big show of interviewing two of the Wilsons neighbors just four days before he announced his indictment of Lewis Libby - in a bid to establish whether Ms. Plame's occupation was indeed secret.
It was, as far as her neighbors were concerned. But the revelation that Fitzgerald had waited till the last minute to confirm such a key aspect of his case raised more than a few eyebrows.
Now, with four witnesses on the record saying they knew what the Wilsons' neighbors didn't - and two of those witnesses coming forward even before the Leakgate investigation began - it's beginning to look like Mr. Fitzgerald deliberately ignored critical testimony that would have compelled him to close up shop well before he ever got to Mr. Libby.
