Did Tenet Resign Because of Leak Scandal?
Did Tenet Resign Because of Leak Scandal?
Vice President Cheney’s claim in Tuesday’s New York Times that he learned of Valerie Plame’s status from former CIA Director George Tenet, draws our attention back to an odd confluence of events in the first week of June 2004.
Within the span of four days in June, Tenet met with President Bush to submit his resignation, the White House announced that President Bush had consulted an outside attorney to represent him in the Fitzgerald investigation, and it was reported that Vice President Cheney had been interviewed by Fitzgerald. In that order.
June 2, 2004: Bush speaks at Air Force Academy; Tenet meets him upon arrival at White House to tell him that he was going to resign.
June 2, 2004: McClellan tells press the night of June 2 that Bush hired an attorney.
June 3, 2004: In press gaggle, McClellan notes that Tenet called Card the afternoon of the 2nd to ask for meeting with Bush. Tenet and Bush meet for 45 minutes.
June 5, 2004: New York Times reports that Cheney was interviewed by Fitzgerald.
Press coverage of Tenet’s resignation noted that the timing seemed odd. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, commented “I can’t remember any resignation that has struck me as more startling than this one,” she said. “I suspect there is going to be more of a story to tell than just personal reasons.”
What could account for this confluence of events? Had Tenet found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to tell Fitzgerald some damaging information about the Vice President and thought he needed to leave the Administration because of it? Did Tenet deliver some bad news to Bush the evening he met with him that would prompt the White House to feel the need to announce that the President had sought outside legal counsel? It’s speculation, but there is no denying that the timing is curious.
– Jennifer Palmieri
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probably… Ari certainly did… the timing is just too coincidental to be coincidence…
October 27th, 2005 at 5:08 pmAh-haaa! Sherlock Holmes, eat your heart out. It should smells more and more rotten by the day. Truth and Justice, don’t fail us now!
October 27th, 2005 at 5:08 pmFrom crooks and liars:
“Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources…read on”
Here’s a crucial piece of info: ” Had the withheld information been turned over, according to administration and congressional sources, it likely would have shifted a portion of the blame away from the intelligence agencies to the Bush administration as to who was responsible for the erroneous information being presented to the American public, Congress, and the international community.”
Here’s a new key player: “Administration sources also said that Cheney’s general counsel, David Addington, played a central role in the White House decision not to turn over the documents.”
There is a lot to discuss here, but: “I doubt if the votes would have been there,” Roberts said. Rockefeller asserted, “We in Congress would not have authorized that war, in 75 votes, if we knew what we know now.”
October 27th, 2005 at 5:08 pmMr. X ?
October 27th, 2005 at 5:08 pmComment, trolls?
October 27th, 2005 at 5:10 pmInteresting, interesting, interesting. Suppose Fitzgerald is looking into this? I guess not likely, unless it goes to motive for leaking Plame’s name.
Will the Miers replacement drown out any indictments? I say yes if indictments limited to Rove and lower, no if indictments (or unindicted co-conspirator) go higher. Maybe that’s obvious.
October 27th, 2005 at 5:12 pmAnd let’s not forget that medal of freedom…
October 27th, 2005 at 5:13 pmSorry to hijack the thread like that. This is for all the trolls that have been using that previous senate investigation as their rhetorical fig leaf. Guess what guys, you’re argument is now flappin in the breeze.
October 27th, 2005 at 5:18 pmSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…(I’m a troll, being verwee verwee quiet) comment by ’stealth’
October 27th, 2005 at 5:21 pmThe fact that Tenet’s name has not been all over the Plame investigation story has always struck me as very curious.
Why not? It was his employee for God’s sake. He surely was asked about Wilson’s activities by the WH.
Yet for some strange reason, his name has hardly been mentioned. The first time I heard about Tenet was from Libby’s note saying Cheney got the ID from him.
Very, very curious indeed.
Today on EWM: The Twelve Days of Miers: An inappropriately early holiday motif song parody/commentary.
October 27th, 2005 at 5:26 pmCurious; thats one word, “Scandalous” is another word more fitting perhaps. Mr. Tenet could easily hold the key that unlocks to do door to learning about statements (leading to the impeachment )made in the Oval Office.
October 27th, 2005 at 5:33 pmInteresting. I think Fitzgerald’s investigation may produce more information than I expected. Hmmm. Fitzmas is tomorrow, everybody get up early to open their presents!
October 27th, 2005 at 5:44 pmI had the misfortune of tuning into Limbaugh today for a few minutes and he seems to think that this whole CIA leak investigation is a coup attempt by the CIA. Better tell the righties to get their tin foil hats.
October 27th, 2005 at 5:49 pmMichael Scheuer knows, I’ll bet. And yeah, I’ll bet it’s a coup also. Good riddance.
October 27th, 2005 at 6:02 pmRemember this?
Asked if he knows information that the 9/11 commission does not know, Cheney replied, “Probably.”
–June ‘04
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/18/cheney.iraq.al.qaeda/
October 27th, 2005 at 6:09 pmI remember, Louis.
October 27th, 2005 at 6:18 pmEveryone who was bullied into going along with this war partaking in the coup.
Cheney and Rumsfeld were at war with the CIA. Tenet was highly thought of by those inside the CIA. Tenet didn’t like how Cheney treated the CIA. Tenet(Mr. X?) got his revenge?
October 27th, 2005 at 6:58 pmNow will Cheney claim executive privilege concerning that information? If he does, he should be denied and charged with conspiracy. I’m willing to bet he wasn’t trying to convince Addington that they should submit the info, but was overruled.
October 27th, 2005 at 7:09 pmI’m disappointed there is not a greater response to this thread. The other blogs have made note of the “treason is okay” mentality held by many. To take it a step further, both conservative and liberal news sources have made the concept of changing the CIA appear normal with a so-called “regime change”. Even more remote and indirect is this concept and notion that the fight between the WH and the CIA is normal politics, and should not be scrutinized for illegal behavior.
October 27th, 2005 at 7:10 pmClearly, this is not the philosophy held by most people. I never thought I would see the day I would find myself in a position to defend the CIA. Yet here we are. I’m hoping these guys win this. I feel they have been truly disrupted and seveely damaged by this WH and this war, not to mention Plame and Wilson. Every time I try to get a blog to discuss the disarray at the CIA, it gets ignored by people on this site. But I’m here to tell you, this is what it is all about. We should be terrified that the CIA is in shambles.
As for Tenet, screwed by BushCo or not, he should go down as well for not having the cahones to speak up and do the right (as in Justice and Truth) thing. Flush the medal, its worthless.
October 27th, 2005 at 7:14 pmHow about the many former CIA members who quit during Porter Goss’ arrival and shake-up of the CIA? What do they have to say and when will they say it?
I don’t know when you were ignored Brian. Most who frequent this site usually are willing to take a bite on such a topic.
October 27th, 2005 at 7:19 pmThis story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801549_pf.html
Got less than 60 hits on HuffPo.
October 27th, 2005 at 7:25 pmSo why give Tenet the Medal of Freedom?
October 27th, 2005 at 7:33 pmjohn –
at this time, thats the 2,000 dollar question.
October 27th, 2005 at 7:35 pmhe may have resigned because of this, but i guess we will find out more tomorrow. :D
So Cheney instigated a coup within the CIA by screwing Tenet, then called upon Goss as a “yes man”, then neutered the CIA by making them answer to yet another “yes man” Negroponte. Add all this to the rest of BushCo/Cheneyburton’s scandals and the blood of our country’s founding fathers begins to boil though long dead.
Where’s my torch and pitchfork?
October 27th, 2005 at 7:44 pmThe medal of fredom was the political equivalent of hush money.
And if Bush wasn’t stupid enough to pick a fight with Joe Wilson, it would have worked.
October 27th, 2005 at 8:02 pmBush & cheney forgot one thing. While they can screw with political appointed agency heads who have at most an eight year life span. . . it’s the career agency folks (CIA, FBI, military, etc.) who worked hard to give the administration the correct data. But the administration works up a nice make believe story and heads off to war. When problems arise, they blame the career agency folks. Eventually these folks will even the score. It’s just a matter of time.
October 27th, 2005 at 8:07 pmI’ve never understood Tenet’s relationship with this administration. Like, he was a Clinton appointee….why didn’t this administrion finger him with the 9/11 intel failure? “It was Clinton’s (apointee’s) fault.” And why didn’t they finger him with the bad Iraq WMD intel?
And, conversely, why did he let them get away with it?
Was there a “quid pro quo”? Were they (Bush-Tenet) holding mutually incriminating info on each other? Maybe a mini-MAD arrangement?
October 27th, 2005 at 8:08 pmQuirky Posts
Updated posts on lots of things, including Miers, the Grand Jury and strange, strange stuff from the west coast.
October 27th, 2005 at 8:39 pmAs for the answer in the post, I think the answer is ‘naaah.’
You’d have to convince me that *anyone* involved in this had the scruple to resing when busted. None of the other players, implicated even more closely, have resigned. (But it’s still early on Thursday, lol!)
Tenet was getting Miers’d before there was a term for it. The right wanted his pelt to deflect blame away from the boy in the codpiece.
October 27th, 2005 at 8:43 pmHmmm…this just gets curioser and curiouser.
October 27th, 2005 at 9:10 pmTenet HAS been noticeably quiet from the beginning.
I have speculated that Mr. X might be the former loyal soldier, Powell, but I wonder if it could be made-a-fool-of Tenet?
Kinda off the subject, but I found this interesting:
“He was very friendly and he looked happy. He was very relaxed,” one of the shop’s owners said, adding: “The shoe shine guy doesn’t ask questions. Customers have a right to privacy.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051027/pl_nm/bush_leak_dc_33
So, the shoe shine guy working for tips offers people he doesn’t know the professional courtesy of privacy – privacy that the White House was obligated to provide, but denied the CIA.
There’s a lesson there.
October 27th, 2005 at 9:14 pmwhy doesn’t the June 2, 2002 press release work at whitehouse.gov? the first of the month and the third work fine…
October 27th, 2005 at 10:10 pmThis story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/ content/ article/ 2005/ 10/ 18/ AR2005101801549_pf.html
Got less than 60 hits on HuffPo.
This is Think Progress, not HuffPo. I don’t know why you would be ignored here. The CIA angle is something that I would definitely discuss. I think your assertion that we should be afraid now that the CIA is in shamblse. WHat these freaking NeoCons did was completely disrupt every aspect of our national security. They should be tried for treason.
October 27th, 2005 at 10:12 pm…i mean 2004. even spookier…
October 27th, 2005 at 10:12 pmThe bottom line is that the vast majority of americans are by definition ‘middle class’. However, the present administration is ‘upper class’…These two entities cannot ‘GEL’ together anymore than oil and water.
We like to use our brains to make our decisions, not our wallets.
“do the chikens have large talons?”
October 27th, 2005 at 10:55 pmDo chickenhawks have large talons? Course not boy, they’re ankle biters boy, ankle biters.
October 28th, 2005 at 7:47 amTake into consideration this bit from Capitol Hill Blue:
The President’s abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works.
“Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn’t hear of it,” says an aide. “That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying ‘that’s it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now.”
Tenet was allowed to resign “voluntarily” and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as “God’s will.”
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4636.shtml
Perhaps there’s something else here.
October 28th, 2005 at 11:17 amCome on now… you would have to be an idiot to believe that Bush and Cheney had nothing to do with the outing of Valarie Plame. Why all the mystery? I guess its because Bush and Cheney have covered their tracks so well and have their partners in crime ready to fall on the sword in place of them.
October 28th, 2005 at 11:40 amBattleship Maine, 911, Anthrax, Wellstone Assassination, 911, etc. It is all in the timing. The Republican party is organized crime.
October 28th, 2005 at 2:09 pmHere is the likely scenario in my view.
Cheney asked Tenet for the info. Tenet said no way. I need Bush to ask me. Bush asked Tenet, Tenet gives the info to Bush, Bush to Cheney, Cheney to Libby.
Cheney says “This came from Tenet”. He is technically correct. But Tenet gave it to Bush first.
October 28th, 2005 at 5:53 pmDuh! Tenet’s “falling on his sword” about “faulty intelligence” was a quid pro quo for being allowed to resign without “blame” and getting the medal. It was an attempt to deflect investigation into where the “reasoning” for war really came from.
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November 26th, 2005 at 6:36 amEric
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