Deadline July 7 for latest subpoena in Plame CIA leak case

More subpoenas have been issued in the case that keeps on going -- the CIA Valerie Plame leak investigation.

Top Bush officials, including former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, leaked stories to reporters disclosing Plame's identity as a CIA operative, ostensibly to discredit the anti-Iraq war views of her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

Now the House Judiciary Committee, following in the footsteps of the House Oversight Committee, wants to see FBI notes of interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as well as interviews on the case from some top names that used to work for them -- political guru Karl Rove, vice presidential aide Scooter Libby, already convicted of lying in the case, and Scott McClellan, the former spokesman with a hot kiss-and-tell book.

In the past, the Justice Department has dismissed the requests on grounds of executive privilege. This time the deadline is July 7, but no one expects the results to be any different.

The committee's news release and link to the subpoena are here.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: M. Spencer Green /AP

Comments

[Timmah!]

The system of checks and balances is being thwarted by an administration that has acted in ways that have cast suspicion on itself. Congress must use their full power if necessary to get responses to their subpoenas. Inherent contempt should be considered if the subpoenas are ignored.

The bottom line is that the administration can not hide their activities from Congress. They can hide their activities from the public (and hence from our enemies) but they may not hide their activities from duly elected congressmen and congresswomen.

Our democracy is in jeopardy if Congress fails to exercise its rights to investigate the activities of the executive branch, during a time when the administration has acted in ways that cast suspicion upon itself.

[keith]

This is stupid. A total waste of taxpayer dollars and time. Meanwhile, Rome is burning.

[Christine Beatty]

I never thought that any president would be able to make Nixon look like a law-adbiding executive, but then most moderate Americans could not have envisioned a swaggering, arrogant yahoo like Bush in their worst nightmares. And he was "elected" *twice*? Makes one frightened for the future of the country if the average voter is that gullible.

[nick Mitsoulis]

America is entering its dark ages its going to be the most turmoil period in known history treason is know the fad soft fascism is know alive and heading towards a nazi style fascism very soon the second civil war could only be 2 years away i suggest everyone buy guns and amo and head to Washington because we all know who the criminals are lets take back the country

[edgar allen po]

They ain't gonna do nothing to them. Why? Because they all got dirt on each other. And Nancy Polosi is to busy enjoying her queens-man-ship. Maybe they did to show the sensitveness of CIA programs and used Plame as an example to "State Secrets" for "National Security" but its national security to protect the rich and CIA cronnies. "The only way to win and be on top of the game, is to break all the rules"

[savecalifornia]

Liberal BS from the slanted and completely biased LATimes. So biased they believe theoir own bs.

All the while - their garbage opinions drive readers away, cause subscriptions to decline, ad revenue to drop and job ;losses all over the paper.

And yet - these same geniuses cling to their liberal crap - this article being just one of many. Maybe they can hope theior Hollywood friends will part with some of their cash when the fianl dsay of reconining comes - the day the :ATimes shgutters its doors for the last time.

It is coiming very soon.

[dick]

"I cannot recognize the verdict of guilty. . . . It was my misfortune to become entangled in these atrocities. But these misdeeds did not happen according to my wishes. It was not my wish to slay people. . . . Once again I would stress that I am guilty of having been obedient, having subordinated myself to my official duties and the obligations of war service and my oath of allegiance and my oath of office, and in addition, once the war started, there was also martial law. . . . I did not persecute Jews with avidity and passion. That is what the government did. . . . At that time obedience was demanded, just as in the future it will also be demanded of the subordinate. [1]" - Adolf Eichmann

"act of terrorism" means an activity that -- (A) involves a violent act 
or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal 
laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal 
violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or 
of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce 
a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by 
intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government 
by assassination or kidnapping.

Ref: United States Code Congressional and Administrative News, 98th Congress, 
Second Session, 1984, Oct. 19, volume 2; par. 3077, 98 STAT. 2707 (West 
Publishing Co., 1984).


[jim]

We are not victims. Do not vote for anyone that is currently in power. The whole lot... dems and republicans alike are the worst the country has experienced in modern times. They are self serving, bigoted, hypocrits who deserve to be voted out of existence.

They do not eat their own. You cannot have an oversight committee look into the unlawful activities of our leaders and expect anything of substance. We need a new slate.... we need honest people following the will of those who are willing to vote. And those who are too lazy to vote need to shut up.

Bush will be remembered as the worst of the worst.... Nixon was a saint. Bush is a dumb version of Millard Fillmore.

[Mike in TX]

Treason may not be called treason anymore, but it remains a crime, unless Bush nullified that law with a signing statement. Probably not. Selling out your intelligence operatives to the MSM must be criminal. But why haven't the perpetraitors been held to account? Primarily because Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have neither the spines nor the passion to uphold the Constitution that 1) they swore an oath saying they had, 2) they told all their voters they had prior to the 2006 midterm elections. Now, in the middle of the most ominous Consitutional crisis in recent history, one of the most disturbing crimes that is a part of the crisis is being treated as a ho-hum affair divided along party lines (..."no one expects the results to be any different..."). NO, this is a key part of the Bush legacy and a key act that deserves IMPEACHMENT, particularly when connected to the numerous other impeachable offenses Bush and Cheney have committed.

[Average Joe]

Don't you all just love the right wingers who defend the Bush/Cheney administration to no end? If a Democrat administration outed a CIA covert operative to silence dissent regarding certain individuals' political motivations, do you think idiots like Rush Limbaugh (he's a friggin' prescription drug abusing, Neo-Nazi facist for the love of God), Anne Coulter, Hugh Hewitt, and their ilk wouldn't be screaming from the top of their lungs incessantly about treasonous activity? Don't you think a Republican lead Congress would be holding hearings to no end until it got to the bottom of it?

This situation transcends partisan political agendas and rises to the level of Benedict Arnold's helping the British. Arguments against a bonafide investigation of the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity to Robert Novak, as cut and dried an instance of treason as we've seen in recent years, have no basis or standing. My money is on waiting until Bush/Cheney and their operatives leave public office for a quasi-serious investigation into the Plame Affair, after the dust settles from the 2008 general election. The guilty parties need to be punished publicly and harshly, no matter how high their standing at the time of the transgressions, actions such as those at issue transcends politics and rises to personal aggrandizement, enrichment and consolidation of political power to the detriment of our country and strikes at the heart of all American Citizens, and our mutual best interest as a people. Actions such as the outing of our nation's covert intelligence personnel truly is worthy of a no tolerance reponse of punishment by We the People, let's not let the guilty get away scot free, send the message.

[Iconoclast]

After having just read the 10 Planks to the Communist Manifesto and realizing that they are all present in todays BushCo fascist state it is clear to me after earlier having read the Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, John Bolton, William Kristol etc., etc., PNAC agenda of 2000 that detailed their agenda of our invasions into Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran via a massive buildup of our Military Industrial Complex to usurp the Mideastern oil supply while aiding these Zionist neocns entanglement of alliances with Israel it finally dawned on me that indeed the events of 9-11 were the "catastophic and catalysing event" they required as stated on page 51 of their Rebuilding Americas Defenses document.

Clearly given the scope of all events that have and continue to occur under this cabal, it is no stretch to believe that 9-11 was indeed an inside job utilized to aid and abet their treasonous activities and agenda.

It takes no Einstien to come to that conclusion. Now we are on the verge of attacking the Fourth country in that agenda, that being Iran and America, you haven't seen nothing yet when it comes to fascism.

We have been lied to about this country being a "democracy" when indeed it was created a "republic." Democracies always fall to a police state then communism.

John Lennon was right! Its time boys and girls.

Our dummy boy President led by Dick Cheney and the boys need to be forcibly removed from office, tried and hung for treason as well as the Democratic/Republican Congress which aids and abets them.

Take America back and restore the republic they so much want to destroy and have perverted.

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
Thomas Jefferson