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Robert Novak died today of brain cancer.

Novak will perhaps be best remembered -- if at all -- as one of the most compulsive professional liars to have wormed his way inside the Beltway, and that's saying something. And when it came to the interference he ran to protect the Bush-Cheney administration -- culminating in his central role in the Valerie Plame affair -- and his resulting efforts to cover his tracks, it even had historic proportions. Novak himself had constantly lied about this role, and was fond of accusing the people uncovering his tracks of lying. (See Marcy's authoritative work on Novak for more.)

Unsurprisingly, his friends are now eager to make us all forget this. Tim Carney's remembrance omits any mention of it whatsoever. And then there was Fred Barnes on Fox this morning, who simply followed in his friend's footsteps and flatly lied about the Plame case:

Barnes: Bob -- you know, Bob was unruffled by the whole thing. He had to get a lawyer, but, ah, you know, it was no problem to him.

Of course, it turned out that he was the first one to hear from anybody in the Bush administration about Valerie Plame, uhm, being a part, and her husband, you know, helping her husband get this, go to this trip to Africa, and then say that President Bush had -- what President Bush had said about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium in Africa was wrong.

They're still discussing it. It turns out that President Bush was right.

But anyway, Bob was caught up in this scandal, he'd heard about it first, and reported it in his column, and then was perfectly comfortable being the center of attention in a legal case that went on for years and years.

WTF? It's long been an established fact that Novak's reportage was wrong, and in fact was just a propaganda-driven smear on behalf of the Bush administration, since Plame in fact had nothing to do with Joe Wilson getting the Niger assignment. (George Tenet himself explained: "Mid-level officials in CPD [The CIA’s Directorate of Operations Counterproliferation Division] decided on their own initiative to [ask Joe Wilson to look into the Niger issue because] he'd helped them on a project once before, and he'd be easy to contact because his wife worked in CPD.")

And since when has it "turned out" that "Bush was right" about the Niger yellowcake? Not only was the report on which he based the claim he made in the State of the Union built from set of hoax documents, but the White House ignored warnings that this was likely the case. Moreover, there has been no subsequent evidence to suggest that Saddam indeed sought yellowcake from Niger.

Ah, but such things as facts and truthfulness matter little to people like Robert Novak and Fred Barnes. All they care about is covering their tracks. Lying is what they do, right up to their final breaths.

The McCain campaign ducks David Schuster's questions about how power lobbyist William Timmons, was involved in a lobbying effort on behalf of Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s “to ease international sanctions against his regime,” by saying there are no lobbyists in McCain's camp. I kid you not.

...we’ve had no associations with any lobbyists on our campaign

Murray Waas has the video posted...

Murray Waas goes into great detail why the Bush administration is making a big mistake using executive privilege and not letting Rove and Harriet testify about the US Attorney Firing scandal.

The dog days of summer, a Summer Olympics, a presidential election– and even other administration scandals have largely drowned out the issue of the firing of the nine U.S. attorneys.

But either this fall, or even before, all of that is almost certain to dramatically change.

And claims of executive privilege by the President of the United States to disallow his top aides to testify on Capitol Hill could prove devastating to his own political party. Republican House and Senate candidates are no doubt going to be damaged by the executive privilege claims becoming a front and center issue just prior to the election. In the end, the President’s continuing claim of executive privilege– whether made for high minded reasons of constitutional law, obstinacy, or for political calculation– could prove to be a last unwanted legacy that George Bush leaves behind for his own political party...read on

As Murray notes earlier in his piece---The Bushies were even overruled by a former Ken Starr and George Bush appointed judge named John Bates on this issue...

Murray Waas' explosive investigative reporting on how more BushCo. cronyism led to a quarter of a billion dollars in payouts to loyal GOPers from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has led to at least one DOJ offical to be fired so far.

I was told that Murray's post called " The Price of Political Favoritism and Cronyism: Lost Lives," was used as source material during the hearing. While the lead cronyist----Robert Flores did testify, his his chief of staff, Michelle Dekonty, informed the committee through counsel that she was invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Well, she got fired.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform this morning held a hearing on alleged favoritism in the awarding of grants by the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). While Robert Flores testified at length, his chief of staff, Michelle Dekonty, informed the committee through counsel that she was invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination...read on

Dan Abrahms covers this story. I watched Huckabee deny Murray's column on The TODAY Show the other day, but ABC news also carried the same charges that we ran here.

Murray Waas used something that our media lacks, shoe leather and that wonderful practice of investigative reporting that brought more light to Huckabee's monstrous antics in releasing the murderous rapist Wayne Dumond because of pressure from the right wing noise machine when he was Governor. Since our media is content with mostly asking Huckster "Jesus" questions, it's about time the real Mike was exposed.

Arianna:

The way that Mike Huckabee has handled the furor caused by the Huffington Post's coverage of his role in the release of Wayne Dumond, a serial rapist who went on to rape and kill at least one other woman, has been very revealing. And troubling.

Huckabee's response has been to fudge the truth, point the finger at everyone in sight, and -- that old standby -- blame the messenger.He also claimed "the Huffington Post just doesn't want to give the whole story of what was going on." Really? Our original story on the Dumond case was over 4,000 words long and offered what even the American Spectator deemed a "detailed, convincingly irrefutable" presentation of the evidence in which HuffPost "backs up every single word." What's more, we included links to a number of never before published documents from the governor's own files...read on

I know Murray well and his reporting is impeccable, so we'll see how much follow up our media does on this story. I did see Meredith Vieira ask Huckabee about this story and he offered no facts in his defense...It's not surprising since there are none...Except of course---to blame Bill Clinton.

Huffington Post:

As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.

Confidential Arkansas state government records, including letters from these women, obtained by the Huffington Post and revealed publicly for the first time, directly contradict the version of events now being put forward by Huckabee.

While on the campaign trail, Huckabee has claimed that he supported the 1999 release of Wayne Dumond because, at the time, he had no good reason to believe that the man represented a further threat to the public. Thanks to Huckabee's intervention, conducted in concert with a right-wing tabloid campaign on Dumond's behalf, Dumond was let out of prison 25 years before his sentence would have ended.But the confidential files obtained by the Huffington Post show that Huckabee was provided letters from several women who had been sexually assaulted by Dumond and who indeed predicted that he would rape again - and perhaps murder - if released.[..]

Huckabee kept these and other documents secret because they were politically damaging, according to a former aide who worked for him in Arkansas. The aide has made the records available to the Huffington Post, deeply troubled by Huckabee's repeated claims that he had no reason to believe Dumond would commit other violent crimes upon his release from prison. The aide also believes that Huckabee, for political reasons, has deliberately attempted to cover up his knowledge of Dumond's other sexual assaults.

In 1996, as a newly elected governor who had received strong support from the Christian right, Huckabee was under intense pressure from conservative activists to pardon Dumond or commute his sentence. The activists claimed that Dumond's initial imprisonment and various other travails were due to the fact that Ashley Stevens, the high school cheerleader he had raped, was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas, and the daughter of a major Clinton campaign contributor.

Holy cow, it's unbelievable how far the right wing's obsession about the Clenis goes. Huckabee is desperately trying to put daylight between himself and Dumond because Dumond's release was all about discrediting Clinton. Again. Hillary was spot on right about that "vast right wing conspiracy". And the saddest thing is I don't know that Huckabee's base would be as concerned about these kind of ethical issues to not vote for him. Do they care about Huckabee's complete lack of knowledge of the Iranian NIE? Or evolution? Let's face it, the bar for Republican understanding has been set pretty low.

UPDATE: Huckabee: God Responsible for My Rise in Polls  Oy.

On the National Journal Report that the Attorney General Advised the President to Shut Down the OPR Investigation of the NSA Program

"I am extremely concerned by the report that the Attorney General may have known he was a target of an internal investigation relating to his authorization of the illegal NSA wiretapping program, and yet advised the President to effectively shut down the probe by denying investigators the necessary security clearances.   Congress and the American public deserve to know whether the Attorney General of the United States acted ethically and appropriately.  The President should immediately issue the clearances needed to permit the Office of Professional Responsibility's NSA investigation to proceed, regardless of whether the Attorney General himself is a target. That investigation should also consider whether the Attorney General conducted himself properly in making his recommendation to the President.  Obviously, the Attorney General must recuse himself from any further involvement in this matter. 

"Whether Department of Justice attorneys acted lawfully and ethically in connection with the NSA program is only one question that remains unanswered more than five years after that illegal program commenced.  Congress still must investigate how and why the Administration conducted illegal wiretapping of American citizens rather than following the law that Congress passed to permit such surveillance."

Update: Here's a new letter sent to Alberto by Kennedy, Feingold, Durbin, and Schumer

Murray Waas has the best article posted about this today:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee today that President Bush personally halted an internal Justice Department investigation into whether Gonzales and other senior department officials acted within the law in approving and overseeing the administration's domestic surveillance program.---"It was the president of the United States himself who prevented this investigation from going forward. In obstructing the investigation, he was protecting the people around him, and not protecting the Constitution," Hinchey said.

Heck, Murray is lying-Newsday is lying. Everyone is lying except Novak. Bill Harlow just didn't protest enough and to hell with a CIA agent. She probably never had undercover work years earlier that might have been compromised because he printed her name...

Video -WMP Video -QT  (I edited Hannity out 2:58)

COLMES:  So you're saying "Newsday" was wrong in this report, and Murray Waas, "National Journal," was wrong...

NOVAK:  Absolutely.        

COLMES:  ... and these people have purposefully misrepresented you?        

NOVAK:  I never give motives, but I know that the Murray Waas piece in the "National Journal," which interestingly was not picked up by anybody, was totally wrong and a total lie. 

Continue reading »

In a new article by Murray Waas, Bush told the special prosecutor in his testimony that he wanted Cheney to personally lead the charge against Joseph Wilson to discredit him because Wilson had publicly attacked Saddam's WMD capability and the threat he posed which would undermine Bush's credibility to go to war with Iraq. He also gave Cheney instructions as the Leaker in Chief to disclose highly classified information to do it.

President Bush told the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that he directed Vice President Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with the president’s statement.

      Bush also told federal prosecutors during his June 24, 2004 interview in the Oval Office that he had directed Cheney, as part of that broader effort, to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration, but also discredit Wilson, the sources said.

The article also outlines that Bush threw Cheney under the bus in his interview about the leaking of Valerie Plame's name. 

Bush had previously feigned a lack of knowledge about any person in his administration leaking information about Valerie Plame and at first vowed to fire anyone involved in leaking her name. This is the exchange from June 10th, 2004

Continue reading »

Howard Kurtz has a piece up about Murray Waas and his battle with cancer. 

Waas says his near-death experience made him more determined to report on how the country got into both Persian Gulf wars, with their life-and-death stakes. After watching on Capitol Hill when the first Gulf War resolution was approved in 1991, Waas interviewed two men at the Vietnam War Memorial who said two of their friends had died in that war and questioned why the United States was getting into another one. He saw in this "the mirror image of my own life" -- the unresolved questions about why his cancer was missed -- and vowed to fully investigate the war. Cancer almost cost me my life, but the experience led me to do the most important reporting of my career," he says...read on

Murray writes his own at The Huffington Post: "A Reporter's Bias"

Murray Waas breaks another explosive story:

Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft continued to oversee the Valerie Plame-CIA leak probe for more than two months in late 2003 after he learned in extensive briefings that FBI agents suspected White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of trying to mislead the FBI to conceal their roles in the leak, according to government records and interviews.

Despite these briefings, which took place between October and December 2003, and despite the fact that senior White House aides might become central to the leak case, Ashcroft did not recuse himself from the matter until December 30, when he allowed the appointment of a special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, to take over the investigation. According to people with firsthand knowledge of the briefings, senior Justice Department officials told Ashcroft that the FBI had uncovered evidence that Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, had misled the bureau about his role in the leaking of Plame's identity to the press."

Another aspect of this story that is bad news for Libby:

     " Libby also told the FBI that a day or two before he spoke to Cooper and Miller, he was told about Plame by NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert. According to Libby's first FBI interview, which is summarized in the grand jury indictment of Libby that was handed up in October 2005: "During a conversation with Tim Russert on NBC News on July 10 or 11, 2003, Russert asked Libby if Libby was aware that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA; Libby responded to Russert that he did not know that, and Russert replied that all the reporters knew it." On July 12, 2003, Libby spoke with Miller and Cooper, telling them that Plame worked for the CIA."...read on

Russert has already said that Scooter called him complaining about a Hardball episode which had nothing to do with Plame.

Hinchey Introduces Measure to Force Bush Administration To Reveal Who Blocked Justice Dept. Probe of NSA Warrantless Surveillance Program

It looks like Gonzales blocked the clearances.

In an effort to find out who blocked an internal U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation of the agency's role in the National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless surveillance program and the reasons for doing so, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) today introduced a resolution of inquiry in the House that would force top members of the Bush administration to turn over all materials related to the termination of the probe...read on"

Murray Waas and the National Journal broke more news today on this story. It looks like Gonzales blocked the clearances himself:

     But earlier this month, DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility Counsel H. Marshall Jarrett again wrote [PDF] to Hinchey: "We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program.--Without these clearances, we cannot investigate this matter and therefore have closed our investigation."

After the clearances were denied, a reporter asked Gonzales, "Did Mr. Jarrett come to you and ask you to assist him in getting those clearances?" Gonzales replied, "It would not be appropriate, and I would not get into internal discussions or the give and take that happened between the attorney general and other folks within the Department of Justice." "You were aware of this personally?" the reporter asked

"Again, I'm not going to comment on anything," Gonzales replied....read on"

You can view the series of letters between Hinchey and Jarrett by clicking on the following links: here, here, here, and here.

Developing...

Novak promises to cover up for Rove!

Rove throws him under the bus.

Murray Waas:

On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men.

It goes deeper:

Suspicious that Rove and Novak might have devised a cover story during that conversation to protect Rove, federal investigators briefed then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on the matter in the early stages of the investigation in fall 2003, according to officials with direct knowledge of those briefings.Rove also told the grand jury, according to sources, that in the September 29 conversation, Novak referred to a 1992 incident in which Rove had

However, it looks like Rove threw Novak under the bus to Fitzgerald:

Rove also told the grand jury, according to sources, that in the September 29 conversation, Novak referred to a 1992 incident in which Rove had been fired from the Texas arm of President George H.W. Bush's re-election effort; Rove lost his job because the Bush campaign believed that he had been the source for a Novak column that criticized the campaign's internal workings.

Rove told the grand jury that during the September 29 call, Novak said he would make sure that nothing similar would happen to Rove in the CIA-Plame leak probe. Rove has testified that he recalled Novak saying something like, "I'm not going to let that happen to you again," according to those familiar with the testimony. Rove told the grand jury that the inference he took away from the conversation was that Novak would say that Rove was not a source of information for the column about Plame. Rove further testified that he believed he might not have been the source because when Novak mentioned to Rove that Plame worked for the CIA, Rove simply responded that he had heard the same information.

This is a huge story. Read the whole thing.

Murray Waas going to Yearly Kos

Waas is going to participate in the Plame panel...

Jane also debunks a piece by Ann Marie Squeo:

"...has a rather embarassing piece in the Opinion Journal full of the usual canards regarding bloggers and online journalists and their "one-sided analysis" of stories. Before she steps out and makes a public display of such ignorance again, she might want to familiarize herself with Murray’s work on the Plame case...read on"