Friday, June 04, 2004
Bush, an attorney, and an subpoena?
It looks like the Valerie Plame investigation has gotten a lot more interesting. Bush has confirmed that he spoke with an attorney outside of the government.
Why is this important? Let me explain...
The White House has in-house attorneys, and they are regularly consulted on numerous matters. However, there is only one reason why President Bush would seek outside council: Whatever he has to say needs to be protected by the attorney-client privilege. That's right, he has something to hide.
The White House conversations with its own attorneys are not protected by this standard in private legal matters. Anything said to one of the in-house lawyers can be subpoenaed and anyone who conversed with a White House official can be compelled to testify.
Bush had something pretty important to say if he wanted it protected by attorney-client privilege. Think about it. He has free legal council, the best in the world, available 24-hours a day. What would cause a man to seek outside council under these circumstances? He needs to discuss a private legal matter that he doesn't want subpoenaed. George W. Bush has something to hide.
Now, what is it that he may know that he really doesn't want to be public knowledge? Speculation is centered on an article from left-wing paper Capitol Hill Blue, a liberal version of the Drudge Report. The Blue article cites closed-door grand jury testimony claiming that Bush had direct knowledge of the leaking of Plame's CIA identity, but did nothing to stop it from happening.
This is damning.
Remember, revealing the identity of an undercover agent is a federal crime. Doing so not only threatens the life of the outed spy, it destroys all the work the spy was conducting, and seriously exploits the work she was doing for intelligence.
This is a serious offense.
Far more serious than lying about Monica...
Yeah, Monica. See how this all comes together? When Bill Clinton was facing an open-ended investigation into the Whitewater/PaulaJones/Lewinski scandals, a separate court battle came all the way to the Supreme Court. It was decided that the President and his in-house attorneys did not have attorney-client privilege.
That's right.
The Republican's have officially screwed their own.
They did so by forcing the issue on Clinton, making him consult an outside attorney for private legal matters because he had something to hide. Clinton would never have made this public move, with its obvious motivation, for any other reason. If he had nothing to hide, he would never have gone outside his in-house council.
Bush has to consult with an outside attorney about a matter he didn't want on the record. In so doing, he made it clear that he was hiding something, and has fired up speculation over his crime. The same rabid neo-cons who celebrated the moment it was clear Clinton had something to hide are not feeling so great right now. They realize what this means. Bush made the move because he had something to hide.
It is looking more and more likely that the President will be called before a grand jury, and gathering from his coversation with the attorney, he has something fairly relevant to add. Whether we get to hear it or not still remains to be seen. Yet, this incident demonstrates an incredible turn toward Watergate.
The rats are running scared
With the Chalabi-Iran probe looking into Pentagon neo-cons, the ongoing lack of evidence supporting the rationale for war with Iraq, the 9-11 Commission results due in a month, the imminent human rights report which is likely to be damning to the Bush adminstration...
After all of the lies told about Iraq, about pre-9/11 intelligence, about the departure of the bin Ladin family after 9/11, after the Halliburton no-bid contracts and Enron financial support...
Maybe this time, we will officially see George W. Bush for what he is:
A criminal.
Why is this important? Let me explain...
The White House has in-house attorneys, and they are regularly consulted on numerous matters. However, there is only one reason why President Bush would seek outside council: Whatever he has to say needs to be protected by the attorney-client privilege. That's right, he has something to hide.
The White House conversations with its own attorneys are not protected by this standard in private legal matters. Anything said to one of the in-house lawyers can be subpoenaed and anyone who conversed with a White House official can be compelled to testify.
Bush had something pretty important to say if he wanted it protected by attorney-client privilege. Think about it. He has free legal council, the best in the world, available 24-hours a day. What would cause a man to seek outside council under these circumstances? He needs to discuss a private legal matter that he doesn't want subpoenaed. George W. Bush has something to hide.
Now, what is it that he may know that he really doesn't want to be public knowledge? Speculation is centered on an article from left-wing paper Capitol Hill Blue, a liberal version of the Drudge Report. The Blue article cites closed-door grand jury testimony claiming that Bush had direct knowledge of the leaking of Plame's CIA identity, but did nothing to stop it from happening.
This is damning.
Remember, revealing the identity of an undercover agent is a federal crime. Doing so not only threatens the life of the outed spy, it destroys all the work the spy was conducting, and seriously exploits the work she was doing for intelligence.
This is a serious offense.
Far more serious than lying about Monica...
Yeah, Monica. See how this all comes together? When Bill Clinton was facing an open-ended investigation into the Whitewater/PaulaJones/Lewinski scandals, a separate court battle came all the way to the Supreme Court. It was decided that the President and his in-house attorneys did not have attorney-client privilege.
That's right.
The Republican's have officially screwed their own.
They did so by forcing the issue on Clinton, making him consult an outside attorney for private legal matters because he had something to hide. Clinton would never have made this public move, with its obvious motivation, for any other reason. If he had nothing to hide, he would never have gone outside his in-house council.
Bush has to consult with an outside attorney about a matter he didn't want on the record. In so doing, he made it clear that he was hiding something, and has fired up speculation over his crime. The same rabid neo-cons who celebrated the moment it was clear Clinton had something to hide are not feeling so great right now. They realize what this means. Bush made the move because he had something to hide.
It is looking more and more likely that the President will be called before a grand jury, and gathering from his coversation with the attorney, he has something fairly relevant to add. Whether we get to hear it or not still remains to be seen. Yet, this incident demonstrates an incredible turn toward Watergate.
The rats are running scared
With the Chalabi-Iran probe looking into Pentagon neo-cons, the ongoing lack of evidence supporting the rationale for war with Iraq, the 9-11 Commission results due in a month, the imminent human rights report which is likely to be damning to the Bush adminstration...
After all of the lies told about Iraq, about pre-9/11 intelligence, about the departure of the bin Ladin family after 9/11, after the Halliburton no-bid contracts and Enron financial support...
Maybe this time, we will officially see George W. Bush for what he is:
A criminal.
