Matthews, Mitchell, and O'Beirne combined for Plame misinformation triple-team
On the October 13 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, National Review Washington editor Kate O'Beirne, and host Chris Matthews presented false and misleading statements concerning the investigation into the alleged outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame. Mitchell wrongly asserted that Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, claimed that Vice President Dick Cheney "dispatched" him to Niger in 2002 to investigate the alleged sale of yellowcake uranium to Iraq. Matthews stated as fact the disputed claim that Plame "suggested her husband for the mission" to Niger. And O'Beirne confused two statutes that may have been violated when Plame's identity was leaked to the press -- the 1917 Espionage Act and the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- and wrongly attacked Wilson's credibility by claiming he was "[n]o expert in weapons of mass destruction."
Mitchell, claiming she wanted to "clear something up," stated that "[t]here had been inaccurate reporting -- some of it came from Wilson's mouth himself -- that he was dispatched by the vice president." Wilson, however, never claimed that Cheney or Cheney's office sent him to Niger. As Media Matters for America has noted, Wilson -- in his July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed and in numerous televised appearances -- claimed he was sent to Niger by the CIA to answer questions from Cheney's office regarding the purported sale of uranium to Iraq. The false claim that Wilson stated or implied that Cheney sent him to Niger (literally a Republican National Committee talking point) is significant to the controversy surrounding the White House's alleged outing of Plame. In an attempt to justify the purported leaking of Plame's identity to the press, the White House claimed that it had a legitimate interest in setting the record straight by disclosing that Plame, not Cheney, was actually responsible for Wilson's being sent to Niger.
Responding to Mitchell's remarks, Matthews commented that "[o]f course Valerie Plame suggested her husband for the mission." But what Matthews presented as fact is a matter very much in dispute. Unnamed intelligence officials have been quoted in the press claiming that the CIA -- not Plame -- selected Wilson for the mission. Also, CIA officials disputed the accuracy of a State Department intelligence memo that reportedly indicates that Plame "suggested" Wilson's name for the trip. Moreover, the Senate Intelligence Committee did not officially conclude that Plame suggested the trip in its 2004 "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq."
O'Beirne, in an attempt to dismiss the possibility that leaking Plame's identity violated the law, apparently confused the Espionage Act and the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) -- two statutes under which special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is reportedly considering seeking indictments. Responding to Matthews's comment that White House officials "could have still broken the law to whack" Wilson, O'Beirne said: "Yes, that underlying Espionage Act is pretty darn hard to break. They could've been unaware ... of what her status was at the CIA." The Espionage Act does not, however, specifically address the identities of covert agents, but instead deals generally with the unlawful distribution of classified information to individuals not authorized to receive it. O'Beirne's comments echo the language of the IIPA, which states that revealing the identity of an undercover agent is illegal only if the leaker was aware of the agent's covert status. Conservatives have questioned whether any law was broken in Plame's outing by claiming that the IIPA sets very high hurdles for prosecution, while apparently ignoring the other laws that may have been violated in the Plame leak. According to the IIPA:
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
Also, O'Beirne attempted to undermine Wilson's credibility by claiming he was "[n]o expert in weapons of mass destruction." But as Media Matters noted, it is unclear how a lack of expertise in weapons of mass destruction would prevent Wilson from successfully investigating the reported sale of a commodity such as yellowcake uranium, particularly given that he had taken a similar trip to Niger in 1999 to investigate possible purchases by Iran.
From a discussion with New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, Matthews, Mitchell, and O'Beirne, on the October 13 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MITCHELL: Chris, I actually wanted to clear something up, because I was involved in that back then. And, in fact, one of the things that the administration, the Vice President's Office, was trying so desperately to clear up was that Dick Cheney, in his trips to the CIA, did not solicit Joe Wilson to go. There had been inaccurate reporting -- some of it came from Wilson's mouth himself -- that he was dispatched by the vice president. This was clearly the case, according to the Vice President's Office, where the vice president asked a lot of questions about the uranium in Niger. And as a result, he was tasked to go.
MATTHEWS: I acknowledge that that's their defense, but don't we know now the fact that the trip was, in fact, triggered. Of course Valerie Plame suggested her husband for the mission. But the mission was triggered by the inquiry by the vice president, and the vice president was denying that at that time, wasn't he?
MITCHELL: In fact, that's not the case. The trip was triggered by the vice president's inquiries on the part of NSC [National Security Council] and CIA officials who were eager to answer his questions.
MATTHEWS: Right.
MITCHELL: He did not necessarily know that any trip was even under way at the early stages of that trip.
MATTHEWS: Sure, but they --
MITCHELL: That's what they were trying to clear up. That's why they jumped up. And that was probably the original motivation.
[...]
MATTHEWS: Because he said there was some kind of a deal going on, and says the only thing Niger has to sell is uranium. It might be that that involved uranium, right?
O`BEIRNE: So given those questions that were raised, people said, well then how did he wind up getting sent, given that he is no expert.
MATTHEWS: Well, he was an expert in African relations. He had been an ambassador in that part of the world, right?
O`BEIRNE: No expert in weapons of mass destruction, and given that his findings, people don't find particularly persuasive, what was he doing over there? And the innocent answer would be, his wife works at the CIA, and she recommended him.
MATTHEWS: Everything you say could be true, and they could have still used -- they could have still broken the law to whack him. That's still possible, too. We will find out.
O`BEIRNE: Yes, that underlying Espionage Act is pretty darn hard to break. They could've been unaware --
MATTHEWS: Is it hard to --
O`BEIRNE: -- of what her status was at the CIA.
MATTHEWS: I understand that if you distribute -- Bob check me, but -- both, of you. But I understand the Espionage Act says if you distribute classified information --
O`BEIRNE: Knowingly.
MATTHEWS: -- then it's classified. Even if you get it from somebody else, a reporter, but you know it's classified, you are guilty.
in any case, the security pledges signed by rove and libby stated that they could only release info they knew to be de-classified. if they didn't know, they weren't to release it. they should have been fired, at the very least, the moment it was known they discussed plame's status with reporters. imagine this same scenario in a clinton white house. we had 8 years of phony outrage over every clinton non-scandal. and all we have from the right now is protecting rove and attacking his critics with nonsensical arguments. hypocrites and worse. these people did serious damage to our national security.
Not only should they have been fired but also prosecuted, any really honorable President would have to eventually concede this, the Bush regime is...........vacant of any honor. The reminder of the Clinton smear years and how sophomoric it all was really makes the current ignoring of the rule of law so upsetting, Never has an administration had such cheerleaders posing as reporters/journalists, these shameless three are just a few in a sea of propagandists.
Ah, yes. To quote Jon Stewart:
"Talking points. They're true...because they're said a lot."
Points like these are simply laughable. It's been said again and again, but obviously these three haven't heard, lack of intent cannot be used as a defence. Also, this whole dispute over who referred Wilson: how does that change whether or not Rove and Libby were involved? But of course, we know the answer to that already. It doesn't, but it's irrelevant, so beat the heck out of it.
Does Chris Matthews have any reverence for the facts? He's shooting his mouth off so G-Dam'd much that it's inconceivable he's thought about 90% that comes out.
Someone at NBC News please put a muzzle on this guy.
Twice in the last few months Matthews has interjected comments apropos of absolutely nothing which unmask him as a covert neocon. A few months ago when Wolfowitz had been appointed to the World Bank, Matthews delivered a little paen of praise about how Wolfowitz had served very successfully in a moslem country and understood their culture etc. He never explained what this had to do with the Bank appointment. More recently he slipped in a comment that Jimmy Carter "didn't understand anything about inflation." I think history shows that Carter understood it better than Nixon (remember price controls? Now there's a nice conservative solution) or Ford (He who gave us Whip Inflation Now buttons.) In my opinion Carter applied the classic conservative economic solution. He freed the market in interest rates which promptly shot up making money more expensive and thus fixing the inflation. When I consider that Republicans are still looking for excuses to knock those high interest rates without mentioning that they were a bad-tasting cure it seems horribly unfair of Matthews and also an attempt to let the neocons eat their cake and have it too. Has anyone else caught other examples of Matthews true position leaking out from behind the facade?
It was Paul Volker's stragem to beat "Stagflation", raise interest rates, that branded Carter as ignorant with respect to economics, and as luck would have it, Volker's ploy worked, but not until Reagan was president, or I should say in SPITE of ignorant supply side Reaganomics.
But nobody remembers this. All they remember is the lies spewed from the Reagan election campaign machine. I still hear people like Dennis Miller blasting Carter. No president in the last 50 years inherited a worse economic situation than Carter, with Clinton being a close second, and of course the next Democrat president in 2009 will rival either of them. Anyone seeing a pattern here?
mdprime is so right when it comes to who referred Wilson, it just doesn't matter and is a very effective distraction away from the outing of Plame. The framers of the talking points among the conservatives must really be worried, they are spinning out of control and let us only hope they lose their ability of continuing to frame the discussion with false and misleading tangents. Zappatero brings up a really good point about Matthews and his rapid delivery on the air, some people can't absorb much of what he says because it is just toooo fast. He was a print journalist at one time and drank way toooo much coffee.
As far as the Espionage Act goes, these pundits routinely forget to question their premiss that it is hard to violate with asking themselves why the CIA asked for an investigation? It goes without saying that perhaps the spooks at the Company would understand the Espionage Act and therefore realized it was a good possibility it had been violated. Title 18 has got to have a few worried at the White House, ten years in prison for Libby and Rove would have Bush getting his pardon list started, what a long list it could be!
Andrea Mitchell is hawking her book, she's been on more talk shows than anyone (good thing she doesn't need another face lift just yet)..and Matthews is trying to keep his job by leaning right, so transparent. I have no respect for any of them anylonger. They should have all brought out the FACTS long ago...where are the Woodwards and Bernsteins of this world????
Andrea, please understand, no one is buying the Bush/Rovian talking points anymore. Bush's approval rating is in the tank. People have read enough to know that Wilson never suggested that Cheney asked him to go to Niger. Every time you restate it, everybody knows you are lying through your teeth and just exposing your partisan agenda. Andrea, its time to get with the times. Old talking points that worked two years ago don't fly anymore. Although a lie travels half way around the world before truth laces up its boots. Truth is catching up with all of you. Get some new material or try something new for a change,like becoming an accurate, fact checking, non-agenda driven journalist. What you're doing now is stale and worn out. Your Bush button is showing and the country is on to you.
Again, last night on Fox, BO -- I think, they were out there flapping about how wilson/Plame had outed themselves before the leak. The Republicans really want to make this go away and save their grand leader's evil masters, um I mean, faithful side kick.
I wrote Matthews (again!) and Katie, how come no way to contact Mitchell?
I always say this all the time now, send a polite letter letting them know they have been caught lying so why do they continue to do so? They disgrace the name "JOURNALIST" by continuing to lie about something that they plainly know is a lie.
So if everyone does this, and it only take a minute to do so, they will eventually realize that they are being watched and caught in their lies. THEN I send one to the network as well and tell them to try and regain a little journalistic integrity.
Never hurts.
Such a shame our journalists have become paid liars for this administration. Just pathetic.
I wanted to pass this link along to anyone who is interested. It is a thorough discussion by a prosecutor on the approach to indicting on this law, which many claim to be unindictable. Read the whole thing -- and learn! What I can't get, is why these people are so uninformed, or are they just really whores?
[link to www.tomdispatch.com]
let's not forget mitchell attacking kerry because he criticized alan greenspan in one of the debates. she conveniently forgot to mention she's married to greenspan.
read judy miller's nyt article on line this morning. two things stood out. in her second meeting with libby on july 8, two days after wilson's op-ed in the times, libby wanted her to attribute her source to a "former hill staffer", which technically he was. but in the first meeting with her it was agreed his designation would be "senior administration official", as in novak's case. clearly attempting to distance the white house from any anti-wilson campaign. also, at the end of the letter libby sent to miller in jail, saying she could testify freely, he ended the letter with: "the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss plame's name or identity with me." miller told the grand jury that she thought he might be suggesting how she should testify.
Where are the incredulous reporters commenting on Miller's testimony? Does anyone else find it unreasonable that a veteran "journalist" could write "Valerie Flame" in her notebook and not document or remember the source of that information? Then "Victoria Wilson"?
Was Libby feeding close names because he was aware of the law and did not want to "name" her??? Did Miller knowingly write false names in collusion with this attempt to skirt the law?
The times article illustrated the tension about reporting on this case. Now that the cat is out of the bag (or the bag is out of the slammer), we need some aggressive journalism to help resolve these issues. Where is the media?
danemo:
When a reporter is talking to a source and taking notes, it's often the case that they will scribble down names phonetically, with the intent to check out the proper spelling later. When you're getting a story, especially a "leaked" scoop, you don't keep interrupting the source to spell names, etc. That would both interrupt the flow of information, AND remind the leaker that his words are actually going down in the record, perhaps to burn him later.
Obviously, Miller hadn't heard Valarie Plame/Wilson's name before, and was writing down (taking real-time dictation) what she thought she heard her source (Libby) say.
That she now claims she doesn't know how those obvious references to Plame being named got in her notes on a call to Libby defies all logic, and brands her as a Bush whore who even now tries to cover for her masters (turns out she had already been banned from covering WMD stories, since she got THAT information so spectacularly WRONG by carrying the White House talking points to the reading public, presented as "facts").
In short, after telling all, she needs to go BACK to jail.
Judy Miller's story is being torn to shreds as we speak. Fitzgerald isn't buying it at all. Cheney/Libby and Rove rolled in s--t and that stink is on 'em. Miller has tried to protect them, went to jail to do so, lied with them about the Iraq war. My question: Was Miller in the employ of the White House to sell the WMD/Iraq War? The pattern of employment was there, ala Armstrong Williams and others. Propaganda by any other name - this White House learned at the knee of Goebbels and he would be so very proud.
I've been away a few weeks, and it looks like the rightwingers have gone into hiding.
The question I have for these guys, Rove and Libby and anyone else involved in this "smear Wilson conspiracy" (we know for a fact these two were involved ...), is that the President specifically told America that he demanded to know if anyone was involved in the effort to discredit Wilson using his wife, and they all told him they WERE NOT involved.
So, either they, as public officials working for the American People, LIED to the Commander in Chief, or that CinC is lying to us about what they told him.
Can Americans be served if the President's closest counselors are responding to his demands to know the truth by lying to him? About outing CIA ops, about any OTHER information they are entrusted with?
It's clear that the president now knows he was given false information when he directly demanded truthful answers. Every day that now goes by, we know that our president is satisfied having advisors who ignore his demands for information, lie to him, mislead him, and keep him from the truth.
Surely, the president can't do the prosecutor's job. But HIS job includes insisting on the integrity of his advisors, for the sake of the nation, and his decision making. Every day that passes, we now know that the president is OK with being lied to and kept ignorant, and he APPROVES of advisors who disrespect his demands to be told the truth.
Or, they TOLD him the truth and he's lying about not knowing.
great to see you back tex, I've missed you buddy.
solon:
Happy to be back. It'll take a while to get up to speed on what our rightwing pals are up to on this site.
Needless to say, I fully understand if they've gone to ground. There isn't a single issue of importance to America that Bush and his Republicans haven't made a hash of. Corruption, mismanagement, cronyism, and elitism (ignoring the plight of most Americans) are finally taking enough of a toll that Americans are finally waking up.
The terrible thing is, there isn't a single issue that continued application of Rightwing policy will not make worse and worse. Iraq is worse, Afghanistan is worse, the deficit is worse, jobs are worse, the environment is worse, health care costs are worse, gas prices are worse (and, whoo-wee, wait until folks start getting hit with natural gas heating bills in a month or so!). And Republican policy will only make matters worse and worse.
Who was it that asked Americans if they were better off than they were four years ago? If you were WORSE off, then it was time for "a change", said that guy ... Ronnie Reagan.
He was sure right about that. The upper 5% of elitists who have much more money thanks to Bush should continue to vote Republican in their best short-sighted financial best interests. The rest of us should vote to throw these crooks, scoundrels, and death mongers OUT.
Hiya Tex.
"So, either they, as public officials working for the American People, LIED to the Commander in Chief, or that CinC is lying to us about what they told him."
I think that's called "providing plausible deniability." Except not quite so plausible as one would like.
Sagra:
I get the "plausible deniability" thing, but it has one rule. The "man in charge" gets to plead ignorance (because nobody told him what was going on), but he has to avoid making very public statements that he has demanded the truth from his people and ordered them to come clean.
Certainly the minions, especially when involved in partisan dirty tricks, know to leave the big guy out of the loop. When Reagan said there was no "arms for hostages" deal, he wasn't on record as having demanded to be told of all such activities carried out by his people. When that "demand" element is added, then the Prez is no longer in the position of claiming ignorance. If he doesn't know after he has DEMANDED to know, then he is being misled and lied to by people who work FOR US. These public servants ultimately serve THE PUBLIC, and when they're lying to our leader, they violate that trust in a very big way.
Put another way, the president doesn't have the luxury of forgiving OUR servants when they are on record as having lied to him (we don't need a trial or an indictment to know for certain this is already the case). The president owes it to the office to get rid of public servants who ignore the demands of our president. They are crooks and traitors, in my view, who pervert our system of government by restricting/controlling information which our leader needs in order to properly lead.
In short, "plausible deniability" ends when the president takes proactive measures to NOT be uninformed. Bush asked Rove and Libby and others if they were involved in the Wilson/press leaks, and they told him NO (if we are to believe Bush's clear statement that he had been assured they weren't involved).
But they WERE involved. They lied to the president. They must go. Pray for the integrity of prosecutor Fitzgerald. He may be our only hope.
For Rove, Libby, and perhaps Cheney, it is a legal issue. For Bush, it is now a character issue.
A strong leader would have fired and replaced Rove and Libby by now. Bush is showing that he doesn't have the character to be a leader. Loyalty is only honorable to a degree, for Bush it is his opiate, his crutch, and his tragic flaw all rolled into one.
phreak:
The Bush family is very, very big on "loyalty". The rightwing sing the praises of how LOYAL Bush is to his friends.
Before we swoon at this tremendous character indicator, it would be wise to realize that such LOYALTY is seen dramatically in organized crime. Such loyalty demands that you protect the collective absent any other considerations of ethics, morality, justice, rule of law, or common sense.
In short, Loyalty is not a VIRTUE unto itself. Loyalty only attempts to perpetuate the goals of the collective. If the goals are evil, it is a loyalty to evil.
Loyalty by itself, thus, is not a laudable trait.
Congratulations on doing your homework and writing a fascinating and powerful article! The work Media Matters does is fantastic. I especially appreciate the links at the bottom of the article to write to Hardball, MSNBC, and other news outlets that "got it wrong." Keep up the good work!
The misleading information continues. Today on Hardball (10/17/05) Chris Matthews again presents false and misleading statements concerning the investigation into the alleged outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame. Mathews wrongly asserted that Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, claimed that Vice President Dick Cheney "dispatched" him to Niger in 2002 to investigate the alleged sale of yellowcake uranium to Iraq. Matthews again stated as fact the disputed claim that Plame "suggested her husband for the mission" to Niger. Tune in as more subtle and misleading information is sure to continue.