May 14, 2006: Document Implicates Cheney in Libby Outing of Plame Wilson

A photograph of the copy of Wilson’s op-ed annotated by Dick Cheney. [Source: Department of Justice / New York Times] (click image to enlarge)Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, pursuing charges that former vice-presidential chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby lied to his grand jury about revealing the identity of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see January 2004, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004), introduces into evidence a document that directly implicates Libby’s former boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, in Libby’s allegedly criminal behavior.
Notated Clipping - Fitzgerald submits an original clipping of a New York Times op-ed written by Plame Wilson’s husband, Joseph Wilson, challenging the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger (see July 6, 2003). The clipping bears notations in Cheney’s own hand, as well as Cheney’s fingerprints. Cheney’s commentary reads: “Have they done this sort of thing before? [Cheney is referring to the CIA’s decision to send Wilson to Niger to investigate the uranium claims—see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002.] Send an amb. to answer a question. Do we ordinarily send people out to do pro bono work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?” It is unclear when Cheney made the notes, but prosecutors believe they were taken before the July 14, 2003 column by Robert Novak that outed Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003). According to Fitzgerald’s filing, Cheney’s copy of the op-ed is now “at the center of the sequence of events leading” to Libby’s alleged perjury and obstruction of justice. [CNN, 5/14/2006; New York Times, 5/14/2006; Newsweek, 5/16/2006]
'Acutely Focused' Attention of Cheney, Libby on Wilson - The filing goes on to state that Cheney’s notes support the idea that Wilson’s op-ed drew the attention of Cheney and Libby, and “acutely focused” their attention on Wilson’s assertions “and on responding to those assertions.… The article, and the fact that it contained certain criticisms of the administration, including criticism regarding issues dealt with by the Office of the Vice President, serve both to explain the context of, and provide the motive for, many of the defendant’s statements and actions at issue in this case. The annotated version of the article reflects the contemporaneous reaction of the vice president to Mr. Wilson’s op-ed article, and thus is relevant to establishing some of the facts that were viewed as important by the defendant’s immediate superior, including whether Mr. Wilson’s wife had sent him on a junket.” [CNN, 5/14/2006; Newsweek, 5/16/2006] Libby testified before the grand jury about the annotated op-ed, and that testimony is now entered into evidence. Libby said he recalled discussing the issues with Cheney, and said of those conversations: “I recall that along the way he asked, ‘Is this normal for them to just send somebody out like this uncompensated, as it says?’ He was interested in how did that person come to be selected for this mission. And at some point, his wife worked at the agency, you know, that was part of the question.” A prosecutor asked Libby, “Was it a topic that was discussed on a daily basis… on multiple occasions each day in fact?” Libby answered, “Yes, sir.” Libby acknowledged that during that time, Cheney indicated that he was upset about the Wilson article and what he considered to be false attacks on his credibility, saying: “I recall that he was very keen to get the truth out. He wanted to get all the facts out about what he [Cheney] had or hadn’t done—what the facts were or were not. He was very keen on that and said it repeatedly. ‘Let’s get everything out.’” During his testimony before the grand jury, prosecutors did not believe Libby’s assertion that Cheney might have “scribbled” notes on the Wilson op-ed on July 14, the day Novak’s column was published. Libby testified: “And I think what may have happened here is what he may have—I don’t know if he wrote, he wrote the points down. He might have pulled out the column to think about the problem and written on it, but I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.” [National Journal, 1/12/2007]
Cheney's Other Actions - Fitzgerald has already asserted that Cheney had attempted to pass Wilson’s trip to Niger off as a “junket”—essentially a taxpayer-funded excursion with little real purpose—to discredit Wilson’s claims about the Iraq-Niger affair. Fitzgerald has also asserted that Cheney, acting with the approval of President Bush, authorized Libby to disclose some of the classfied portions of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (see October 1, 2002, June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003) to reporters to rebut some of Wilson’s claims. The Cheney notes provide, in reporter Michael Isikoff’s words, “significant new context to that assertion.” The notes show that Cheney had “personally raised questions about Wilson’s trip right after the publication of the Wilson column—and five days before Libby confirmed to Time reporter Matt Cooper that he had ‘heard’ that Wilson’s wife… had played a role in sending him to Africa” (see July 13, 2005). [CNN, 5/14/2006; Newsweek, 5/16/2006]
Cheney 'at Center of Campaign to Discredit Wilson' - Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein later write, “The annotation places Cheney at the center of the campaign to discredit Wilson, aware early on that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent.” [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 217] Plame Wilson herself will write: “Given Cheney’s vaunted decades of government service, it is frankly unbelievable that he would ask such questions. He would have known that the CIA frequently sends US citizens abroad, on a pro bono basis, to answer specific intelligence questions. It is even quite possible that the CIA debriefed employees of Halliburton, the multinational company that Cheney headed prior to becoming vice president, when they returned from business trips in restricted countries of interest to the United States. Cheney’s marginal notes should be more accurately interpreted as marching orders to staff on how to spin Joe’s story so that Cheney could stay as far from it as possible while simultaneously undermining Joe’s credibility.” (Emphasis in the original.) [Wilson, 2007, pp. 288]