Why do I have to read news like this in my brother’s blog rather than major media? Read today’s column — scroll down to “Fitzgerald lets loose”.
[The NY Sun’s Josh] Gerstein writes that according to [special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s latest] filing, Libby “testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded ‘National Intelligence Estimate’ on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush.”
…
That reporter, of course, was Judith Miller.
Here’s an excerpt from Fitzgerald’s filing: “Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was ‘pretty definitive’ against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was ‘very important’ for the key judgments of the NIE to come out.”
Gerstein writes: “Mr. Libby is said to have testified that ‘at first’ he rebuffed Mr. Cheney’s suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. ‘Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE,’ the prosecution filing said.”
That is, as my brother says “a shocker”.
Yet, he writes, “In fact, as of this writing, none of the major news outlets has published a word on the subject.”
(Although, I see that since he wrote that, at 12:35 the Associate Press has moved the story.)
