Fox & Friends advanced false suggestion that DOJ is "stand[ing] idly by" in alleged "outing of" CIA operatives
While discussing the John Adams Project -- an ACLU initiative that allegedly took pictures of CIA interrogators and allowed defense lawyers for detainees at Guantánamo Bay to show them to detainees -- frequent Fox News guest and former CIA operative Wayne Simmons claimed that the Justice Department will "stand idly by and allow this illegal outing of potentially covert CIA operatives," to which Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade agreed that the "White House, the administration, should move against" the group. In fact, the Justice Department reportedly already opened an investigation into the allegations, which was not mentioned by any Fox & Friends host.
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Kilmeade and Simmons claim Obama administration "should move against" John Adams Project
From the September 10 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
GRETCHEN CARLSON (co-host): All right, so we saw in that video clip -- that was a producer for The O'Reilly Factor approaching somebody with the John Adams Project, basically saying, hey, why are you showing pictures of what could be covert, secret CIA faces to prisoners down at Guantánamo Bay? Why would somebody do that in your mind, Wayne?
SIMMONS: Well, look. O'Reilly's crew did a great job on this as they do on most things, but this just points out to the American people another example of not only has the White House -- this administration -- attacked the CIA. The Justice Department is, in my opinion, attacking the CIA. And now I suggest to you that they will stand idly by and allow this illegal outing of potentially covert CIA operatives, who are, as we all know, the number one single point of protection for the United States, Americans, and national security interests outside of the United States.
KILMEADE: Hey, Wayne, here's the thing. It's illegal. You can't do this. So the White House, the administration, should move against this John Adams Project, against the people in the ACLU doing this.
SIMMONS: Yeah, Brian. They should move on these people so fast -- anyone who's part of this, the John Adams Project, those that are -- that came up with this idea. They should dismantle the program, and they should put these people in jail. I mean, you've got to understand the ramifications that this is a real situation where they are actually taking this information about American agents and they are sitting down with the enemy -- with the enemy.
CARLSON: Yeah, but why would they do that, Wayne?
SIMMONS: And they are showing them who these people are.
But the Justice Department reportedly already has opened an investigation
New York Times: There is an investigation, and the detainees' lawyers have already been questioned. The New York Times reported on August 21 that "[t]he Justice Department is investigating whether three military defense lawyers for detainees at the Guantánamo prison illegally showed their clients photographs of C.I.A. interrogators" and that "[a]gents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation approached the three lawyers with the Judge Advocate General's Corps nearly two weeks ago." From the article:
The Justice Department is investigating whether three military defense lawyers for detainees at the Guantánamo prison illegally showed their clients photographs of C.I.A. interrogators, two leaders of civilian legal groups that are working with the defense lawyers said Thursday.
Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation approached the three lawyers with the Judge Advocate General's Corps nearly two weeks ago, said Anthony D. Romero, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is helping the military lawyers defend the detainees in military commissions.
The agents informed the uniformed lawyers of their right to remain silent, and then questioned them about whether they showed their clients pictures of Central Intelligence Agency officials -- possibly including covert agents -- that came from an "independent investigation" by the A.C.L.U. and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Mr. Romero said.
[...]
The A.C.L.U. is working with the defense lawyers' association in a joint effort to provide civilian lawyers and research assistance to the military defense lawyers. The lawyers are representing clients who have been charged with terrorism crimes related to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, before a military commission.
As part of that effort, called the John Adams Project, researchers have been trying to identify which C.I.A. officials participated in harsh interrogations of the detainees under the Bush administration's program of secret C.I.A. prisons. President George W. Bush ordered the Qaeda suspects transferred to the prison at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006.
Defense lawyers contend their clients were illegally tortured and are considering calling the C.I.A. officers to the witness stand if the military commission trials -- which President Obama halted shortly after he took office, but has since proposed reviving in a modified form -- are resumed. Several of the detainees could be executed if convicted.
Joshua Dratel, a lawyer with the John Adams Project and a former board member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, also confirmed that the group had learned about two weeks ago that the F.B.I. had questioned three military defense lawyers about photographs allegedly obtained by John Adams Project researchers and provided to the lawyers. [New York Times, 8/21/09]
Man, they HATE that Dick Cheney and that Karl Rove for outing Valerie Plame, don't they? Well, don't they????
This wimpy liberal John Adams Project is only trying to get justice for people who have been tortured. If you really can't see why that is contemptible, while what Cheney/Rove did was perfectly acceptable, then you're probably not a Republican or FOX 'News' fan.
Here's the FACTUAL answer from CBS Evening News, Sept.7, 2006...
(CBS) In an exclusive interview with CBS News national security correspondent David Martin, Richard Armitage, once the No. 2 diplomat at the State Department, couldn't be any blunter.
"Oh I feel terrible. Every day, I think I let down the president. I let down the Secretary of State. I let down my department, my family and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson," he says.
When asked if he feels he owes the Wilsons an apology, he says, "I think I've just done it."
In July 2003, Armitage told columnist Robert Novak that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, and Novak mentioned it in a column. It's a crime to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA officer. But Armitage didn't yet realize what he had done.
So, what exactly did he tell Novak?
"At the end of a wide-ranging interview he asked me, 'Why did the CIA send Ambassador (Wilson) to Africa?' I said I didn't know, but that she worked out at the agency," Armitage says.
Armitage says he told Novak because it was "just an offhand question." "I didn't put any big import on it and I just answered and it was the last question we had," he says.
Armitage adds that while the document was classified, "it doesn't mean that every sentence in the document is classified.
"I had never seen a covered agent's name in any memo in, I think, 28 years of government," he says.
He adds that he thinks he referred to Wilson's wife as such, or possibly as "Mrs. Wilson." He never referred to her as Valerie Plame, he adds.
"I didn't know the woman's name was Plame. I didn't know she was an operative," he says.
...So don't blame Cheney or Karl Rove or Fox News. "Google" it or check other sources and get the facts, just as I did. Learn to think for yourself, weigh the facts and draw your own conclusions. Don't just follow the Liberal party line. It makes you look foolish.
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"The John Adams Project demonstrates, if nothing else, the arrogance of some lawyers who will stop at nothing to try to gain an advantage for their clients, even to the point of exposing members of the CIA to the threat of bodily harm or death. It bespeaks a kind of attitude in which the lives of those who protect our freedom are disposable before the altar or winning a case."
Treason????? For Plame??? Why is this not as/more important? As the article says, she was an analyst outed to the newspapers, these are actual Field Agents whose identity IS A LOT MORE IMPORTANT!--THEY would be OUTED to our ENEMIES...
Get a life people! Open your blind-sighted eyes. Get rid of your POLITICAL BIAS!