Nothing Aside: Promoting The Leakers

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October 31, 2005

Promoting The Leakers

So Cheney has lost his Chief of Staff "Scooter" Libby to a five count indictment. Ouch. That hurts. It hurts especially bad because Libby filled several roles in the Vice President's office. In addition to being Cheney's Chief of Staff, he was also his National Security Advisor. With Libby gone, Cheney had to find someone who could take over Libby's duties. You might think that he would clean up his operation a bit and bring in someone new, fresh and untainted by the current leak investigation. And of course you would be wrong:

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney, moving swiftly to replace an indicted aide, on Monday named attorney David Addington as his chief of staff and John Hannah as his national security adviser.

Both positions had been filled by I. Lewis Libby, who resigned Friday when he was indicted on perjury and other charges in a 22-month investigation of the unmasking of an undercover CIA officer.

Addington has been Cheney's counsel and Hannah has been his deputy national security adviser.

So who are these guys? Why are Addington and Hannah bad picks? Because they are probably the two people most involved in the leak case of anyone in the Vice President's office. By promoting these two guys, Cheney is essentially saying "Come and get me. I dare you."

Just read this account of Addington. He's more tangled up in this leak mess than just about anyone else:

Addington was deeply immersed in the White House damage-control campaign to deflect criticism that the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to administration and congressional sources.

Moreover, as a pivotal member of the vice president's office, Addington also attended strategy sessions in 2003 on how to discredit Wilson when the former ambassador publicly charged that the Bush administration misled the country in pushing its case for war, according to attorneys in the CIA leak probe.

Further, Addington played a leading role in 2004 on behalf of the Bush administration when it refused to give the Senate Intelligence Committee documents from Libby's office on the alleged misuse of intelligence information regarding Iraq.

...

According to the grand jury indictment, Libby met with Addington "in an anteroom outside the Vice President's office." The indictment did not name Addington, but identified him as "Counsel to Vice President." The indictment says that Libby asked Addington, "in sum and substance, what paperwork there would be at the CIA if an employee's spouse undertook an overseas mission."

The indictment does not say what actions, if any, Addington took to learn more about Plame's CIA employment.

Four days after the Libby-Miller breakfast and Libby's discussion with Addington, Libby gave Miller additional information on Wilson and Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Miller's testimony.

If Libby stands trial, it appears all but certain that Addington will be a crucial witness against Libby, according to attorneys involved in the case. That is because the indictment charges that Libby told a "fictitious" account to the grand jury that he only learned of Plame's CIA employment from journalists, rather than from classified information.

The indictment charges that Libby committed perjury by testifying to the grand jury that he only first learned of Plame's CIA employment from NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert, and that Russert told him that the information about Plame had been common knowledge for some time. Russert, however, testified to the grand jury that he never told Libby about Plame.

Instead, the indictment charges, Libby learned about Plame and Plame's possible role in recommending her husband for the Niger mission from government officials: an undersecretary of state; a CIA officer who regularly briefed Libby on national security issues; an unidentified "senior CIA officer"; and Vice President Cheney himself.

Libby in turned shared that information with a number of officials in the vice president's office, according to the indictment: Addington; John Hannah, the deputy national security advisor; and Catherine Martin, then Cheney's press secretary.

It would not have been inappropriate for the various officials to have learned of Plame's identity as a CIA officer and discussed it among themselves, as long as they did not disclose the information outside of government circles, as Libby allegedly did, according to Fitzgerald's indictment.

The role of Addington differs from that of the other officials, however, in that it is the only known instance in which Libby tried to get a member of the vice president's office to find out additional information about Plame, according to the indictment.

If this thing blows open any further, I see the makings of a conspiracy charge. But here is the real meat of why Addington's promotion to Libby's position is nothing more than a big screw you to investigators and all Americans who want to know why national security was threatened in order to rub out a political opponent:

Addington regularly attended detailed strategy sessions with Libby and other members of the vice president's staff to discuss how they might discredit Wilson and blunt his allegations that the White House misrepresented information on the Niger mission, according to government officials with detailed knowledge of those meetings. During those discussions, Addington and others discussed the possibility of selectively releasing classified information to Congress that would discredit Wilson, according to the same sources.

At the same time, Addington worked with Libby and Cheney in a broader effort to blunt congressional criticism that the administration selectively used intelligence information, and misrepresented other information, to make the case to go to war. In that instance, Addington played a key role in withholding information from Congress. It was his involvement in that effort that has drawn congressional ire in recent days.

And just for good measure, there's this:

During confirmation hearings of Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general, it was revealed that Addington helped draft the White House memo that concluded that the Geneva Convention against torture did not apply to prisoners captured in the war on terror. The memo declared that terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

By promoting Addington, Cheney is completely disregarding any and all calls for an acknowledgement of wrongdoing. It makes sense that Cheney wouldn't want to admit that his office went over the line, but this move essentially says, "We went over the line, and we'll do it again."

And what about Hannah? He is the elusive connection between the offices of the Vice President and the office of John Bolton when he was head of arms control at State. He could not possibly be more entwined in this story than he is.

Cheney is challenging the investigator to come after him. He blatantly does not care about national security if he is rewarding national security crimes with promotion.

02:42 PM in National Security | Permalink