The President Declassified

 

What happened:

A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.

The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr. Bush violated any law or rule. However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter.[...]

"Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was Ôpretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was Ôvery important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out," Mr. Fitzgerald wrote.

Mr. Libby is said to have testified that "at first" he rebuffed Mr. Cheney's suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. "Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE," the prosecution filing said.

All together now, one more time:

If the president decides to declassify information, he has that legal right. So, it's not about a law being broken here, and it's not about Valerie Plame-Wilson's name. But it does show us the first evidence that the president himself wanted some of this information put out in the media.

And again:

[...] the President has the authority to declassify materials at his discretion, a point hammered home by the Washington Post as well:

Experts said the power to classify and declassify documents in the federal government flows from the president and is often delegated down the chain of command. In March 2003, Bush signed an executive order delegating declassification authority to Cheney.

One can argue about the wisdom of George Bush in declassifying the Iraq NIE when he did, but let's remember that the press had been clamoring for that information ever since the fall of Baghdad three months earlier. The WMD stockpiles had not been found, and Joe Wilson among others had claimed that "Bush lied". In response, Bush declassified the NIE [relating to Iraq only] so that everyone could see what exactly the intelligence services had told him about Iraq's WMD programs. Now everyone wants to proclaim George Bush a criminal for releasing the information that the entire media establishment demanded he reveal.

This isn't brain surgery, folks.  Research may be tedious, but it really is necessary before reaching your conclusions.

Once again:

This is the same "scandal" the press tried to sell a few months ago. I wrote about it here. The Sun article (unlike some other press accounts) explains clearly what was going on. Intelligence insiders like Joe Wilson were leaking a combination of falsehoods and minority views to the press in order to challenge the administration's decision to go to war with Iraq. This was deeply unfair. In October 2002, the intelligence agencies presented to the administration their "consensus estimate" with regard to Iraq's WMD programs.

And now everyone is shocked, shocked to find that..."Bush has the authority to declassify material. In fact, he has the ultimate authority to do so, and he is only responsible to the voters in the execution of these duties. And the estimate on Iraq and WMD involved in this story was released to the press on July 18, 2003, at a White House briefing."

So, what is the breaking news story here? Properly declassified information has been released to the press who have demanded it ad nauseam. And? Equally if the President had not declassified the information the same accusers would be shouting him down for withholding.

If you are still having problems with this whole Plame/Wilson/Bush theme, my friend Tom Maguire who has been relentlessly on this from the word go last year, brings you up to speed in relation to the recent 'revelation'. Some more from him here, in answer to Andrew Sullivan.

Saddam Hussein must be laughing daily at how stupid we are. In the meantime, we are funding Hamas to blow up our embassies, well admittedly not any longer, but more about that tomorrow....

From The Anchoress on the 'breaking news' of the wagging finger:

The press has made a rather big deal over the fact that an “unscreened questioner” got to shake an admonishing finger at the president, asking him if he wasn’t “ashamed” of - you know, being George W. Bush.
Fortunately, Gateway Pundit did not rely on the take of the Big-Time Professional Journalist and went to The White House Website to get the actual exchange - part of which he links to at his site, along with some video you must go see..

More @ Instapundit,  Gateway Pundit, Austin Bay Blog, Dr. Sanity, Cold Fury, Right Wing Nut House, Decision '08, Blogs for Bush, Dan Riehl, Sister Toldjah, The Washington Monthly, The RCP Blog, The Corner on National, The Reaction, Rawstory, Carol Platt Liebau, Gateway Pundit, USS Neverdock, The Corner on National (2),  The Real Ugly American, Balloon Juice, Outside The Beltway, The Huffington Post, Andrew Sullivan

Comments

[brian]

It bears mentioning that not only is Alexandra right on again, but Joe Wilson was, and is wrong about what he asserted, lied in fact in his ironically titled book "The Politics of Truth".

The Senate Intelligence Committee investigation and subsequent report torpedoes many of his theories and proclamations. Saddam did indeed seek to purchase uranium from not only Niger but other African countries. The attempt wasn't successful, but it was attempted, and that's what was distorted into "Saddam never acquired uranium from Niger".

The 16 words deal was all about Saddam's intent to acquire the materials for a nuclear program of some kind. No one said that Saddam bought the uranium, but that's what everyone wailed about incessantly including Joe "The Truth" Wilson.

Political warfare is required from the White House, if it's ever to accomplish anything, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with exposing a liar as a liar. Incidentally, the process by which the President of the United States declassifies information is pretty much when he thinks it's neccessary. Period.

[Huan]

Legally, declassification is very different from a leak.
Practically, a willful release of information is very different from unauthorized loose lips.

Words have meaning. Use them appropriately.

[Alexandra]

Michael,

The new press secretary, I think it was McLellan's third press conference in as many days, made a statement in answer to a question by a member of the press shortly after the one you just pointed out during the same session on July 18th 2003, where he said:

This was, as I said, an opportunity to share some important facts with the American people that had recently become declassified. And that's what we did earlier today.

The government does not declassify hundreds of pages of documents of which only a specific part was declassified on the day of the press conference. It is simply unrealistic to think that this is the way any bureaucracy is able to function. An order is given and then it takes time for the documentation to be separated as it had to be in this case, and for one part to remain classified as it did.

The documents were obviously declassified during the course of at least two weeks prior, and most probably longer, with the press informed once the documentation was in order, and available for viewing.

The President's signed order is the actual LEGAL time the documents were declassified, (in this case Dick Cheney had the executive order 13292 issued by President on March 25, 2003, which gave him the power to issue that order) and that would certainly NOT have been on the day the press was briefed. The announcement of the declassification was made to coincide with Prime Minister Blair's arrival and the discussions taking place surrounding this topic. The preparation of that as well as the order given would have been done well before that.

In order for the hundreds of pages to have been separated and only a specific part made available for viewing (only part of the documentation was declassified) it is utterly naive to think they were declassified on the very day the press conference was called. It was simply released to the vultures on that day, anyone who has dealt with any Administration is aware of that.

[Michael van der Galien]

I disagree with this article: is he able to declassify stuff? Yes, but there is a procedure to do so. He chose to bring it out through Libby, while acting to others as if it was still classified. HE didn't let anyone, who normally should know, know that he 'concidered' it declassified. Give me a break; it was classified info, but it was convenient to put it out on the streets quickly, that is exactly what happened. He chose to declassify it because it was useful for political reasons. In fact, this meant that certain information important for national security came out on the streets. Besides that This is not the end of it; during the conversations Libby had with those reporters he also gave up the identity of mrs. Plame. He was told to give up certain classified information in conversations with journalists, in those same conversations he told the journalists of Plame's identity. See a connection there? Does that automatically mean that Cheney or Bush also, logically, told him to do so? No, not automatically. But it should raise eyebrows. Lets just say there is good reason to investigate that further. It is very suspicious.

We should not forget that at the core of European liberalism, thus American conservatism, lays a healty-mistrust of the government. We should not abandon that. These people have power. Lots of power. That means we should limit them and control them constantly. If we refuse to do so, democracy is partially destroyed.

There are normal ways to declassify intelligence. He chose not to. Why not? For political gains. That is unacceptable behaviour, especially for a President who is so 'against' leaking classified information. Why didn't they just say from the start that they released this information themselves? Why all the secretive behaviour? Why acting as if they didn't have anything to do with it? I can only think of one answer; they did not want the public to know that they themselves released this information.

Isn't this funny?

"According to Fitzgerald, Libby testified before a grand jury that President Bush and Cheney authorized the release of that information shortly before Libby's meeting with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003. The information was drawn from the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate prepared by the CIA about Iraq's interest in weapons of mass destruction."

BUT:
"But 10 days later, McClellan told reporters at the White House that the estimate had been "officially declassified today" -- July 18, 2003 -- making no mention of the earlier declassification that Libby described in his sworn testimony. If that statement was correct, reporters pointed out, then the material was still classified at the time Libby disclosed it."

EXACTEMUNDO. The White House did not concider it to be officially declassified until 10 days after LIbby leaked the information.

McLellan finds a 'great', ahem, defense:
"But he also tried to clarify his 2003 remarks to reporters, stating that what he meant on July 18 of that year when he said the material had been declassified that day was that it was "officially released" that day.
"I think that's what I was referring to at the time," he said"

No Scott, that is not what you said at the time. You said that it had been officially declassified on that day. Nice try though.

article

[Ghost Dansing]

Yeah right. Great rebuttal.

Dubya and his Republican administration subscribe to the Nixonian theory that when a president does it, it's not illegal — or maybe it's the divine right of kings. God has been pretty active in Republican politics lately: Tom DeLay said God told him to drop out of his re-election race.

If the administration were seriously trying to declassify something in the national interest, wouldn't it have Dubya explain his decision or have his Scottish terrier yip it out from the podium, rather than having Scooter whisper it in Judy's ear?

"The president believes the leaking of classified information is a very serious matter," Scott McClellan said. "And I think that's why it's important to draw a distinction here. Declassifying information and providing it to the public, when it is in the public interest, is one thing. But leaking classified information that could compromise our national security is something that is very serious. And there is a distinction." And thank goodness we have a White House that gets that distinction. Democrats who don't, he sniffed, are guilty of "crass politics."

Translation: If Dubya wants the information out, it's good for the country to make it public. If Dubya doesn't want the information out, it's bad for the country to make it public.

That's how America got mired in Iraq in the first place. The administration ruthlessly held back classified information that contradicted its bogus case for war, and leaked classified information that supported it.

Interestingly, after posting last night, I recalled that Senator Graham had tried to get portions of the classified NIE that hadn't been declassified in the unclassified version declassified, because it made intelligence points that argued against war. He was unable to do that before Dubya commenced the invasion...all during the same time period where apparently Dubya had secretly declassified the NIE.

Go read his book.

[Francis W. Porretto]

The press is absolutely slavering for any morsel of disreputable news about President Bush or anyone in his Administration. That's been clear for quite some time; it was made inescapably clear by the now-famous David Gregory meltdown over Dick Cheney's hunting accident. Old Media journalists seem to feel that the Administration's first and most sacred duty is to provide them -- its overt adversaries -- with dirt on itself.

Which is one of the reasons I admire Dubya and think highly of his crew. President Bush consistently carries himself in a presidential and dignified manner, and his lieutenants overwhelmingly follow his lead. Contrast the Bush Administration's record in this regard with that of the scandal-plagued, insufferably puerile Clinton Administration, which, even though defended by the whole Old Media, could not help becoming a national disgrace.

[weekenderman]

Ghost: Did you even read Alexandra's brilliant original post before you left your response?

Because it basically refuted everything you just wrote . . .

[Ghost Dansing]

The gradual emergence of the contents of scooter's grand jury testimony is important not only because it contradicts the president’s public denials of the leaks, but also for potentially placing the president at the center of a smear campaign.

If that project rose to the level of a criminal conspiracy, or if anything done to further that goal was in fact illegal, it is dubya himself who must be called to account. That is a very troubling development indeed.

Cheney told Libby that dubya had “specifically” authorized officials in the summer of 2003 to reveal certain contents of the secret U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

There will, of course, be an argument over whether Bush or Cheney actually had that authority (which is vested in the Director of Central Intelligence by a law on the books since 1949) but that is not the big issue.

Rather, the disclosure of this deliberate Bush leak that was given to Judith Miller of The New York Times and others, provides new evidence that the White House regarded the top secret NIE not as an intelligence appreciation but as fodder for political warfare.

The new evidence also says something about the self-serving nature of Dubya's secrecy. This administration has moved on many levels to restrict public—and even official—access to information. Cutting off flows of data formerly routinely provided to Congress or the public, blocking access to the records of former presidents mandated by the Presidential Records Act, curbing the Freedom of Information Act, refusing to describe to Congress its domestic communications interception program and most recently reclassifying documents in the public domain for years. Suddenly we see dubya, without a care, releasing secret records he felt would bolster his case.

Interestingly, if Libby’s testimony is accurate, documents were to be simultaneously deemed secret and declassified, depending upon White House whim, convenience, or legal liability.

Evidently, Scooter told the grand jury that “he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials—including Cabinet level officials—were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, as well as the report about Wilson’s trip and other materials assembled by CIA officer Robert Walpole regarding Iraq’s weapons programs used for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s speech to the United Nations Security Council a couple of weeks later.

There is probably and argument that under the Bush administration's own interpretation of the Espionage Act, currently being used to prosecute to prosecute two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the act of declassification to abet a leak could itself amount to a criminal conspiracy, in this case by President George Bush himself. Indeed, the law makes it necessary for the NIE data not to be classified in order for Libby to legally leak it.

So then what?...well...the whole thing doesn't even get scooter off the hook. Apparently outing Plame wasn't even a part of this whole "declassification" thing by dubya...not yet anyway.

So that issue is still out there.

And of course, scooter's testimony is apparently showing the President and Vice President departed radically, and disturbingly, from long-set procedures with respect to classified documents...and, oh by the way, dubya and dick might end up being targets of the grand jury to answer a few unanswered questions in this whole thing.

As John Dean would say:

"There will be more devastating revelations from the Libby case, I am certain. I have written of this matter in the past, and anticipate writing more in the future. The Commander-in-Chief-can-do-no-wrong veneer is wearing off, thankfully. For a nation that cannot hold its commander-in-chief responsible is something other than a democracy."

Amen