Former vice president Dick Cheney told the FBI that he had no idea who leaked information to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA.
The FBI summary of Cheney’s interview from 2004 reflects that the vice president had deep misgivings about Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador in Africa who said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence about Iraq.
Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the probe of who leaked Plame’s identity to the news media. At the end of Libby’s trial, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said “there is a cloud over the vice president” in the leaking of Plame’s identity.
After Libby’s conviction, former president George W. Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence, but rejected Cheney’s vehement appeals to pardon Libby, which would have canceled his conviction.
The FBI interview summary was released on Friday to a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sued to get the material under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
In the interview, whose participants included Fitzgerald, Cheney told agents that he did not recall having a conversation with Bush about either Plame or her husband.
The vice president said he probably discussed Wilson with Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, but told the FBI he would not have talked to Rove about Wilson’s wife.
Cheney’s denials that he talked about Plame are among the few things in the lengthy interview with the FBI that Cheney appeared certain about. He repeatedly said he could not recall key events.
Among them, he said he did not recall discussing Wilson’s wife with Libby before her CIA employment was revealed by conservative columnist Robert Novak in mid-July 2003.
Evidence at Libby’s criminal trial showed that Cheney had told Libby about Wilson’s wife in mid-June 2003.
According to courtroom testimony, Rove was one of Novak’s sources for his column disclosing Plame’s CIA identity and Rove and Libby were sources for Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper, who also wrote a story identifying Plame.
Cheney said he was unaware of any discussions Libby may have had with Rove about Wilson or Wilson’s wife, and Cheney said Libby did not tell him about any such discussions.
The vice president advised the agents that he had no idea what Libby knew on the days before Plame’s CIA identity was publicly revealed.
Cheney said he did not recall whether he told Libby about Wilson’s wife and her employment at the CIA or if Libby revealed to the vice president his independent knowledge about that fact.
In a New York Times piece in July 2003, Wilson accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence about Iraq’s efforts to buy a uranium “yellowcake” in the African nation of Niger. Bush referred to the yellowcake during his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union speech to Congress as he was trying to rally support for the war with Iraq. Yellowcake is a powdered form of uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS