cia leak investigation

When it looks like these missing emails may have altered other investigations then it is time for a criminal probe into it:

Apparent gaps in White House e-mail archives coincide with dates in late 2003 and early 2004 when the administration was struggling to deal with the CIA leak investigation and the possibility of a congressional probe into Iraq intelligence failures.

Here is where the Plame case may come into play in this:

Among the times for which e-mail may not have been archived from Vice President Dick Cheney's office are four days in early October 2003, just as a federal probe was beginning into the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA identity, an inquiry that eventually ensnared Cheney's chief of staff.

Pretty convenient that emails would happen to be missing from those four days, and Melanie Sloan seems to concur:

The document dump from the Department of Justice has shown one very well-known name on the list of those to possibly be fired:

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents.

The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show.

Now isn't it ironic that Fitzgerald was also on the short list of names to fire? No there isn't anything political here. One prosecutor who brought down a corrupt Republican congressman, Randy Cunningham, gets fired right after her investigation leads to indictments of the former third ranking person at the CIA. Now we have the man who successfully prosecuted Scooter Libby also on the list.

I wonder how Fitzgerald didn't "distinguish" himself? I guess this isn't distinguishing to the administration:

Fitzgerald also won the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2002 under Ashcroft

Fitzgerald has been coined one of the best prosecutors in the nation. That was well before the Libby trial. He has brought down some major corruption within government. This should remove any doubt on the entire purge and prove these firings were political.

It has gone way to far now:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells us the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.

I got only one thing to say - JAIL. Every single one of them need sent to prison for crimes against the Constitution of the United States. We have completed the transition to becoming a police state.

Fitzgerald is presenting new information to the grand jury today.

Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald appeared this morning to present
information to a new grand jury in the CIA leak investigation.

Fitzgerald has been probing for two years what role senior Bush
administration officials have played in leaking a CIA operative name to the
media in 2003.

Today's appearance was the first time that Fitzgerald has gone back to a
grand jury since the Oct. 28 indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of
staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

At that time, the original grand jury probing the case expired.

With the new grand jury, Fitzgerald continues to consider charges against
White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who failed to reveal to the FBI and
the grand jury in the early days of the investigation that he had provided
information about CIA analyst Valerie Plame to Time magazine reporter
Matthew Cooper.

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Could this lead to a new round of leaks, Sunday morning talk show appearances
and speculation? Maybe we will just get lucky and have another indictment in a
couple weeks. It is the Fitzmas season.

Via
Raw Story:

Reporter in leak case to take leave of
absence effective immediately

10/15/2005 @ 4:19 pm Filed by John Byrne and Jason Leopold

New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who spent 85 days in jail
protecting her source in the recent CIA leak investigation, will take an
indefinite leave of absence effective immediately.

Advertisement "Judy is going to take some time off until we decide what
she is doing next," Times' spokesperson Catherine Mathis told RAW STORY
Saturday afternoon.

RAW STORY spoke with Miller by telephone at the New York Times newsroom
in Washington Friday evening. She said that she had not previously been
questioned about her plans going forward, and deferred extended comment to
her publicist.

The Times' Sunday story asserts that Miller has not signed a book deal as
previously reported.

"She said she thought she would write a book about her experiences in the
leak case, although she added that she did not yet have a book deal," the
article says. "She also plans on taking some time off but says she hopes to
return to the newsroom."

Two reporters inside the newsroom say they have heard Miller will resign
from the paper.

Miller was not cooperative with the Times internal probe, reporters told
RAW STORY Thursday. This was confirmed in the New York Times' internal
probe.

"In two interviews, Ms. Miller generally would not discuss her
interactions with editors, elaborate on the written account of her grand
jury testimony or allow reporters to review her notes," the Times reporters
wrote.

The paper's executive editor, Bill Keller, says Miller provided a
"detailed report."