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becca1223
PO3
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 293
Location: Colonial Heights, VA
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 Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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Apparent CIA front didn't offer much cover
By Ross Kerber and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 10/10/2003
At first glance, 101 Arch St. seems like the perfect setting for a spy story: an elegant office building downtown with an upscale restaurant, lots of foot traffic, and a subway entrance to stage a getaway.
"It's a great place to blend in," said Rob Griffin, regional president of Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the real estate firm.
The CIA may have thought so too. Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative once listed as her employer Brewster Jennings & Associates. A company by that name has a listed address but no visible presence at the 21-story office tower.
Plame's exposure as an intelligence operative has become a major controversy in Washington. Former intelligence officials confirmed Plame's cover was an invention and that she used other false identities and affiliations when working overseas. "All it was was a telephone and a post office box," said one former intelligence official who asked not to be identified. "When she was abroad she had a more viable cover."
That's a good thing, considering how little work seems to have gone in to establishing the company's presence in Boston, intelligence observers said. While the renovated building houses legal and investment firms, current and former building managers said they've never heard of Brewster Jennings. Nor did the firm file the state and local records expected of most businesses.
Both factors would have aroused the suspicions of anyone who tried to check up on Brewster Jennings, said David Armstrong, an Andover researcher for the Public Education Center, a liberal Washington think tank.
At the least, a dummy company ought to create the appearance of activity, with an office and a valid mailing address, he said. "A cover that falls apart on first inspection isn't very good. What you want is a cover that actually holds up . . . and this one certainly doesn't."
Some in the real estate industry believe something was amiss, if not illegal. "It's almost like out of a spy novel -- the tenant that wasn't there," said Griffin, who once oversaw management of the tower. "And they picked a nice address."
The collapse of Plame's cover could compromise any other operatives who claimed to work for Brewster Jennings. Although former officials wouldn't confirm that Plame's cover company used the Arch Street address, they offered no other explanation of the phantom tenant.
Plame's identity as a CIA operative was disclosed July 14 by the conservative newspaper columnist Robert Novak, who implied that the information came from "two senior administration officials." Just eight days before, her husband, Joseph C. Wilson, a former US ambassador, had written in The New York Times that the Bush administration relied on discredited intelligence in alleging sales of uranium from Niger to Iraq.
Yesterday, Plame didn't return a message left with Wilson requesting an interview, but she had listed her employer as "Brewster-Jennings & Associates" in a filing when she donated $1,000 to Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. She listed her occupation as "analyst."
A spokeswoman for Dun & Bradstreet Inc., a New Jersey operator of commercial databases, said Brewster Jennings was first entered into its records on May 22, 1994, but wouldn't discuss the source of the filing. Its records list the company at 101 Arch St. as a "legal services office," which could mean a law firm, with annual sales of $60,000, one employee, and a chief executive identified as "Victor Brewster, Partner."
That person isn't listed elsewhere. But the address is certainly known, a tower finished in 1988 at the corner of Summer and Arch streets with 405,511 square feet of office space, then housing the upscale Dakota's restaurant, since succeeded by Vinalia. Many commuters pass through the building as they exit the Downtown Crossing subway station. 101 Arch was sold last year to CB Richard Ellis Investors of Los Angeles for an estimated $90 million.
Dun & Bradstreet records on Brewster Jennings show that on June 1, 2000, "sources contacted verified information" the day before, but a D&B spokeswoman wouldn't discuss what that means.
The D&B records give a phone number for the company, but it wasn't in service yesterday. Verizon wouldn't comment. A spokesman for the US Postal Service wouldn't say whether a post office box was associated with the company.
Vince Cannistraro, the CIA's former counterterrorism chief, said that when operating undercover outside the United States, Plame would have had a real job with a more legitimate company. The Boston company "is not an indicator of what she did overseas," he said.
Brewster Jennings was the name of the president of the former Socony-Vacuum oil company, a predecessor of Exxon Mobil Corp. But the Jennings family denies any connection, said a grandson, Brewster Jennings, a real estate investor in Durango, Colo. He said that since the firm was named as a CIA front he's heard from many friends and family members who "find tremendous humor in all this."
Boston Globe
note: URL converted to hypertext/me#1 |
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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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| don't miss my posting above - the url address has been changed by Me#1 to 'leading authorities' but it is from 'JCWILSON' - his own company's site, and it is dated 1998. It mentions Valerie Plame, and it is obviously before the twins because they are not mentioned. |
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Navy_Navy_Navy
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Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 5777
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Rdtf wrote: | ohhh lookie what I found - now tell me, is this dated 1998?! Call in the calvary! 
Leading Authorities |
Ahahahahahah! Yes, it sure is dated November 1998!
I'd say, "I'll alert the media," but unlike Dudley Moore, our media simply doesn't care.
Good find. 
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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becca1223
PO3
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 293
Location: Colonial Heights, VA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:28 pm Post subject: |
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Could it be that Joe Wilson had plotted the outing of his wife's identity in order to write and sell a book. Was he the originator of the outing? If true, things are going a lot better than he originally planned, and the sad thing is...Joe Wilson might be the last one laughing.
Too bad the liberals aren't God loving people, or this whole thing might have just taken a full circle back to Wilson. |
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kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:33 am Post subject: |
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Wilson said today on CNN with Wolf Blitzer....
transcript
CNN WOLF BLITZER REPORTS
July 14, 2005 - 17:00 ET
| Quote: | WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.
BLITZER: But she hadn't been a clandestine officer for some time before that?
WILSON: That's not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I'll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that's why they referred it to the Justice Department.
She was not a clandestine officer at the time that that article in Vanity Fair appeared. And I have every right to have the American public know who I am and not to have myself defined by those who would write the sorts of things that are coming out, being spewed out of the mouths of the RNC... |
Open mouth, insert foot...
and this was after his big-to-do presser with NY's Senator Schumer
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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:51 am Post subject: |
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Did you see his live press conference? The moron is talking about something very serious, standing next to Senator gloomer schumer and asking for Rove's security clearance to be pulled, and he makes a joke about lawyer jokes? I couldn't believe it. How insulting and unprofessional. And this guy was a paid and trusted Diplomat?  |
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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:17 am Post subject: |
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Drudge has this up right now-
| Quote: | | NY TIMES CLAIMS EXCLUSIVE NEW DETAILS OF EVENTS SURROUNDING CIA LEAK, SOURCES TELL DRUDGE... DEVELOPING LATE OUT OF WASHINGTON... MORE... |
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Navy_Navy_Navy
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Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 5777
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:02 am Post subject: |
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NYT July 15, 2005
Man, they're going to beat this drum to death!
| Quote: |
Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer
By DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON, July 14 - Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said Thursday.
Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.
After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too."
The previously undisclosed telephone conversation, which took place on July 8, 2003, was initiated by Mr. Novak, the person who has been briefed on the matter said.
Six days later, Mr. Novak's syndicated column reported that two senior administration officials had told him that Mr. Wilson's "wife had suggested sending him" to Africa. That column was the first instance in which Ms. Wilson was publicly identified as a C.I.A. operative. The column provoked angry demands for an investigation into who disclosed Ms. Wilson's name to Mr. Novak.
The Justice Department appointed Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a top federal prosecutor in Chicago, to lead the inquiry. Mr. Rove said in an interview last year that he did not know the C.I.A. officer's name and did not leak it.
The person who provided the information about Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak declined to be identified, citing requests by Mr. Fitzgerald that no one discuss the case. The person discussed the matter in the belief that Mr. Rove was truthful in saying he did not disclose Ms. Wilson's identity.
On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote another column in which he described calling two officials. The first source, who is unknown, was described by Mr. Novak as "no partisan gunslinger" who provided the outlines of the story. The second, confirming source, Mr. Novak wrote, responded, "Oh, you know about it."
That second source was Mr. Rove, the person briefed on the matter said, although Mr. Rove's account to investigators about what he told Mr. Novak was slightly different. Mr. Rove recalled telling Mr. Novak: "I heard that, too."
Asked by investigators how he knew enough to leave Mr. Novak with the impression that his information was accurate, Mr. Rove said he heard portions of the story from other journalists, but had not heard Ms. Wilson's name.
Robert D. Luskin, Mr. Rove's lawyer, said Thursday, "Any pertinent information has been provided to the prosecutor." Mr. Luskin has previously said that prosecutors have advised Mr. Rove that he is not a target in the case, which means he is not likely to be charged with a crime.
In a brief conversation on Thursday, Mr. Novak declined to discuss the matter.
The conversation between Mr. Novak and Mr. Rove seemed almost certain to intensify the question about whether one of Mr. Bush's closest political advisers played a role in what appeared to be an effort to undermine Mr. Wilson's credibility after he challenged the veracity of a key point in Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech, alleging that Saddam Hussein had sought nuclear fuel in Africa.
The conversation with Mr. Novak took place three days before Mr. Rove spoke with Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter, whose e-mail message about their conversation reignited the issue. In the message, whose contents were reported by Newsweek this week, Mr. Cooper said to his editors that Mr. Rove had talked about Ms. Wilson, although not by name.
After saying in 2003 that it was "ridiculous" to suggest that Mr. Rove had any role in the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's name, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, has refused in recent days to discuss any specifics of the case. But he has suggested that President Bush continues to support Mr. Rove. On Thursday Mr. Rove was at Mr. Bush's side on a trip to Indianapolis.
As the political debate about Mr. Rove grows more heated, Mr. Fitzgerald is in what he has said are the final stages of his investigation into whether anyone at the White House violated a criminal statute that, under certain circumstances, makes it a crime for a government official to disclose the names of covert operatives like Ms. Wilson.
The law requires that the official knowingly identify an officer serving in a covert position. The person who has been briefed on the matter said that Mr. Rove neither knew Ms. Wilson's name nor that she was a covert officer.
The revelation of Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak raises a question the White House has never addressed: whether Mr. Rove ever described that conversation, or his conversation with Mr. Cooper, with the president. Mr. Bush has said several times that he wants all members of the White House staff to cooperate fully with Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation.
In June 2004, at Sea Island, Ga., soon after Vice President Dick Cheney met with investigators in the case, Mr. Bush was asked at a news conference whether "you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found" to have leaked the agent's name.
"Yes," Mr. Bush said. "And that's up to the U.S. attorney to find the facts."
White House officials may argue that Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak did not amount to leaking the name of the agent. But to critics of Mr. Bush - including the Democrats who have called for Mr. Rove's resignation - that is splitting hairs, and Mr. Rove in effect confirmed her identity, even if he did not name her.
Mr. Novak began his conversation with Mr. Rove by asking about the promotion of Frances Fragos Townsend, who had been a close aide to Janet Reno when she was attorney general, to a senior counterterrorism job at the White House, the person who was briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Novak then turned to the subject of Ms. Wilson, identifying her by name, the person said. Mr. Novak said he knew that in contrast to Mr. Wilson's suggestion in his Op-Ed article that he had been sent to Niger because of Mr. Cheney's interest in the matter, Mr. Wilson had been sent at the urging of his wife.
Mr. Rove's allies have stressed that he did not call reporters with information about the case, rebutting the theory that the White House was actively seeking to intimidate or punish Mr. Wilson by harming his wife's career. They have also emphasized that Mr. Rove appeared not to know anything about Ms. Wilson other than that she worked at the C.I.A. and was married to Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Fitzgerald has indicated that his investigation is winding down, but many aspects of it remain shrouded in secrecy. It is unknown who Mr. Novak's other source might be or how that source learned of Ms. Wilson's identity as a C.I.A. official. By itself, the revelation that Mr. Rove had spoken to a second journalist about Ms. Wilson may not necessarily have a bearing on his exposure to any criminal charge in the case.
But it seems certain to add substantially to the political maelstrom that has engulfed the White House this week after the disclosure that Mr. Rove had discussed the matter with Mr. Cooper of Time magazine. Mr. Cooper's e-mail message to his editors, in which he described his discussion with Mr. Rove, was among documents that were turned over by Time Inc. executives recently to comply with a subpoena from Mr. Fitzgerald.
A reporter for The New York Times, Judith Miller, who never wrote about the Plame case, refused to cooperate with the investigation and was jailed last week.
In addition to focusing new attention on Mr. Rove and whether he can survive the political fallout, the revelation is sure to create new partisan pressure on Mr. Bush. Already, Democrats have been pressing the president either to live up to his pledges to rid his administration of anyone found to have leaked the name of a covert operative, or to explain why he does not believe Mr. Rove's actions subject him to dismissal.
The new revelation also leaves Mr. McClellan, the White House spokesman, in an increasingly awkward situation. Two years ago repeatedly assured reporters that neither Mr. Rove nor several other administration officials were responsible for the leak.
The case has also threatened to become a distraction to the White House and Republicans as Mr. Bush struggles to keep his second-term agenda on track and as he prepares for one of the most pivotal battles of his presidency, over the nomination of a Supreme Court justice.
All week, as Democrats have been demanding that Mr. Rove resign or provide a public explanation, the political machine that Mr. Rove built to bolster Mr. Bush and advance his agenda has risen up to defend its creator. The Republican National Committee has mounted an aggressive campaign to cast Mr. Rove as blameless and to paint the matter as a partisan dispute driven not by legality, ethics or national security concerns, but by a penchant among Democrats to resort to harsh personal attacks.
But Mr. Bush said Wednesday that he would not prejudge Mr. Rove's role, and Mr. Rove was seated conspicuously just behind the president at a cabinet meeting, an image of business as usual. On Thursday, on the trip with Mr. Bush to Indiana, Mr. Rove grinned his way through a brief encounter with reporters after getting off Air Force One.
Mr. Bush's White House has been characterized by loyalty and long tenures, but no one has been at Mr. Bush's side in his journey through politics longer than Mr. Rove, who has been his strategist, enforcer, policy guru, ambassador to social and religious conservatives and friend since they met in Washington in the early 1970's. People who know Mr. Bush said it was unlikely if not unthinkable that he would seek Mr. Rove's departure barring a criminal indictment.
After his re-election last November, Mr. Bush thanked Mr. Rove, calling him "the architect" of the victory. Mr. Rove subsequently added to his role as senior adviser the title of deputy chief of staff for policy, a job that formally gave him broad authority over much of Mr. Bush's second-term agenda, including his call for an overhaul of Social Security.
Most recently, Mr. Rove has been at the center of the White House's deliberations over the choice of a nominee to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at the Supreme Court.
David E. Sanger contributed reporting for this article. |
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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Tanya
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 570
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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July 15, 2005, 8:27 a.m.
Who Exposed Secret Agent Plame?
How about the least likely suspect?
~snip~
"So if Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was a secret agent, who did? The evidence strongly suggests it was none other than Joe Wilson himself. Let me walk you through the steps that lead to this conclusion.
The first reference to Plame being a secret agent appears in The Nation, in an article by David Corn published July 16, 2003, just two days after Novak’s column appeared. It carried this lead: “Did Bush officials blow the cover of a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security — and break the law — in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?”
Since Novak did not report that Plame was “working covertly” how did Corn know that’s what she had been doing?
Corn does not tell his readers and he has responded to a query from me only by pointing out that he was asking a question, not making a “statement of fact.” But in the article, he asserts that Novak “outed” Plame “as an undercover CIA officer.” Again, Novak did not do that. Rather, it is Corn who is, apparently for the first time, “outing” Plame’s “undercover” status.
Corn follows that assertion with a quote from Wilson saying, “I will not answer questions about my wife.” Any reporter worth his salt would immediately wonder: Did Wilson indeed answer Corn’s questions about his wife — after Corn agreed not to quote his answers but to use them only on background? Read the rest of Corn’s piece and it’s difficult to believe anything else. Corn names no other sources for the information he provides — and he provides much more information than Novak revealed."
More here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200507150827.asp |
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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Ah Ha! |
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Tanya
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 570
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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But Wait! There's more! 
Rove Confirmed Plame Indirectly, Lawyer Says
Bush Aide Said Columnist Told Him Name
~snip~
"The lawyer, who has knowledge of the conversations between Rove and prosecutors, said President Bush's deputy chief of staff has told investigators that he first learned about the operative from a journalist and that he later learned her name from Novak.
Rove has said he does not recall who the journalist was who first told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, or when the conversation occurred, the lawyer said.
The New York Times reported the conversation between Rove and Novak in its Friday editions. The lawyer confirmed that account and elaborated on it. The account suggests that Rove could not have been Novak's original source but may have been a secondary source. Novak has refused to comment about his sources or to say whether he has cooperated with prosecutors.
The lawyer said that Novak showed up on a White House call log as having telephoned Rove in the week before the publication of the July 2003 column, which has touched off a two-year federal investigation and led to the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has refused to testify about her conversation with a source involved in the case.
The White House turned over call logs relating to the case, along with stacks of printed e-mails, at the request of federal investigators."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071500036_pf.html
So does this mean that the NYT has an insider to the investigations? A lawyer talking about an investigation?
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Tanya
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 570
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Tanya
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 570
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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Victory and Success Breed Contempt - Thanks Karl!
By Lisa Sarrach
July 14, 2005
"I love a Washington feeding frenzy don't you? I mean, aren't we all glued to our seats to watch the next roasting (I mean press briefing) starring Scott McClellan?
Months and years of a tightly wound and controlled Bush White House has forced the MSM (mainstream media) to lose their collective minds over the prospect of delivering Karl Rove's head on a silver platter to their friends on the Left side of the aisle in the Beltway.
And just as the Left continues to embarrass themselves with righteous indignation over President Bush's refusal to allow them to name the next Supreme Court justice, they now have set their sights on Mr. Rove, the "architect" of the president's elections and his closest advisor."
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/lsarrach/2005/ls_0714.shtml
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