Re: Dick Cheney "can't recall 72 times"...is he senile or a liar?
- From: Dave B <debco99@xxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:23:08 -0800
On Mon, 2 Nov 2009 19:11:04 -0800 (PST), Too_Many_Tools
<too_many_tools@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We already know that he shoots his friends in the face.
Whether he is a liar or senile, the idiot was not fit to serve as Vice
President.
So why did Bush allow him to continue to serve?
What does Dick Cheney have on George Bush?
TMT
Cheney FBI interview: 72 times of can't recall
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Pete Yost, Associated Press
Writer
Mon Nov 2, 11:58 am ET
WASHINGTON ? Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously declared
in the Valerie Plame affair that "there is a cloud over the vice
president." Last week's release of an FBI interview summary of Dick
Cheney's answers in the criminal investigation underscores why
Fitzgerald felt that way.
On 72 occasions, according to the 28-page FBI summary, Cheney
equivocated to the FBI during his lengthy May 2004 interview, saying
he could not be certain in his answers to questions about matters
large and small in the Plame controversy.
The Cheney interview reflects a team of prosecutors and FBI agents
trying to find out whether the leaks of Plame's CIA identity were
orchestrated at the highest level of the White House and carried out
by, among others, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.
Among the most basic questions for Cheney in the Plame probe: How did
Libby find out that the wife of Bush administration war critic Joseph
Wilson worked at the CIA?
Libby's own handwritten notes suggest Libby found out from Cheney.
When Libby discovered Cheney's reference to Plame and the CIA in his
notes ? notes that Libby knew he would soon have to turn over to the
FBI ? the chief of staff went to the vice president, probably in late
September or early October 2003.
Sharing the information with Cheney was in itself an unusual step at
the outset of a criminal investigation in which potential White House
witnesses were being ordered by their superiors not to talk to each
other about the Plame matter.
In the FBI interview of Cheney on May 8, 2004, investigators
specifically asked the vice president and his lawyers not to talk to
other witnesses in the probe. It was important to ensure that
everything be done to keep the recollections of other witnesses from
being influenced, Fitzgerald told Cheney, according to the FBI
interview summary. Cheney lawyer Terrence O'Donnell replied that he
could not make a binding commitment to refrain from discussing the
interview with people who may need to help O'Donnell properly
represent his client, the FBI summary stated.
Eight months earlier, Libby had gone to Cheney, telling the vice
president that "I have a note saying that I had heard about" Plame's
CIA identity "from you," according to Libby's grand jury testimony.
And what did Cheney say in response? Fitzgerald asked Libby.
"He didn't say much," Libby testified. "You know, he said something
about 'From me?' something like that, and tilted his head, something
he does commonly, and that was that."
Cheney's version of the conversation, as related in the FBI interview
summary?
Cheney "cannot recall Scooter Libby telling him how he first heard of
Valerie Wilson. It is possible Libby may have learned about Valerie
Wilson's employment from the vice president ... but the vice president
has no specific recollection of such a conversation."
On another basic point, Cheney simply refused to answer.
Fitzgerald had gathered evidence that Cheney apparently persuaded
President George W. Bush to hurriedly declassify portions of a prewar
National Intelligence Estimate on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The declassification was followed by Libby providing the information
to a New York Times reporter while simultaneously talking to reporters
about Plame's CIA identity.
As Fitzgerald pressed the issue in the FBI interview, Cheney refused
to confirm any discussion with Bush, saying that he must refrain from
commenting about any private or privileged conversations he may have
had with the president.
It was an instance of Libby, who had testified two months earlier to a
federal grand jury, being more forthcoming than Cheney.
Prosecutors obtained information about the leaking of the declassified
NIE from Cheney's chief of staff, who testified that he had talked to
New York Times reporter Judith Miller about the National Intelligence
Estimate following the "president's approval relayed to me through the
vice president." It was that point that investigators wanted to pin
down with Cheney, who refused to say whether he had ever advised Libby
that the president had decided to declassify the NIE.
Cheney's FBI interview is a study in contrasts.
Expressing uncertainty on many areas he was being questioned about and
refusing to discuss another area altogether, Cheney was emphatic on at
least one basic point.
According to the FBI summary, Cheney said there was no discussion of
using Plame's employment with the CIA to counter her husband's
criticism that the Bush administration had manipulated prewar
intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. There was no discussion,
Cheney insisted, of "pushing back" on Joseph Wilson's credibility by
raising the issue of nepotism, the fact that Wilson's wife worked for
the CIA, the same agency that dispatched him to the African nation of
Niger to run down the report of an agreement to supply uranium
"yellowcake" to Iraq.
It was one example of Cheney being categorical and Libby seeming
uncertain.
"In a prior FBI interview, you indicated it was possible that you may
have talked to the Vice President on Air Force Two ... about whether
you should share the information with the press about Wilson's wife?"
the prosecutor asked Libby in his grand jury testimony.
"It's possible that would have been one of the times I could have
talked to him about what I had learned," Libby replied.
"As you sit here today, do you recall whether you had such a
conversation with the vice president on Air Force Two?" the prosecutor
asked.
"No, sir. My, my best recollection of that conversation was what I had
on my note card which we have produced which doesn't reflect anything
about that," Libby replied.
Libby was indicted, tried and convicted for perjury, obstruction and
lying to the FBI. The president commuted his 30-month prison sentence,
but rejected Cheney's pleas in the last days of the administration to
pardon the vice president's former chief of staff.
The Cheney interview summary was released Friday to the watchdog group
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sued to
get the material under the Freedom of Information Act.
___
On the Net:
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:
http://www.citizensforethics.org
Learned it from Clinton
db
.
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