The goat of the disclosure

This was not the case in America for a long time - the last time high -ranking officials of the administration, the indictment in the criminal case was issued 17 years ago - it was the famous Iran -Contract scam . But even then, really, no one got into prison. Walter Score Libby, a former chief of the apparatus and adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, can sit down. Of course, not for 30 years, to which it can hypothetically be sentenced, but still for a real term.

The dramaturgy of the Libby trial is most reminiscent of the soap operas of our Soviet childhood - ballads from girlish albums. In these heartbreaking narratives, all the characters turned out to be relatives: the killer recognized his sister, the prosecutor in the convicted person - the son, the nun, the nun in the prosecutor - her husband, and all of them, unable to endure grief and realizing their guilt, went out of each other by their own free will to where the highest judges are waiting for them.

In this story, which has been stretching for five years with a liner, everyone who was involved in at least some sort of side by at least somewhat. And it may very well turn out that there is not a single actor who would not regret that this story was involved.

The case of a leakage of secret information from the White House originates on January 28, 2003. On this day, President Bush turned to Congress with the annual message "On the situation of the country", which was almost entirely dedicated to the upcoming war with Iraq. In this speech, the president referred to Iraqi attempts to buy a batch of uranium ore (more precisely - oxide of uranium, "yellow cupcake") in one of the countries of Africa.

Six months later, after Saddam’s regime ceased to exist, but they never found the prohibited weapons in Iraq, the retired diplomat Joseph Wilson, the ambitious man and with great ties, wrote an article in which he said on the instructions of the CIA to check the information about Iraqi attempts to buy Uranus and did not find any traces of the transaction; Nevertheless, dubious information came to the president’s speech.

The White House tried to shift the guilt of intelligence, but the director of the CIA George Tenete did not want to turn into a scapegoat. An unwritten bureaucratic law says that an official who does not want to atone for the sins of the boss should leave, - George tenet did so. The then presidential adviser to the National Security of Condolisia Rice had to be confessed to the error - her deputy Stephen Hadley took the guilt. Their loyalty was rewarded: Rice became the state secretary, and Hadley took her place in the National Security Council.

The ambassador Joe Wilson of his exposure did not get away with. Exactly a week after the publication of his article in the press, information appeared that for a trip to Niger Wilson, his wife, an employee of the CIA, Valerie Plyim, recommended. In other words, the spouses, and at the same time, were accused of protectionism and families. But most importantly, the name of Ms. Playm-an operational reconnaissance officer who worked abroad under a stranger’s name fell into print. This information constitutes a state secret. Their disclosure may draw up a criminal offense if the culprit had access to them on duty and abused his official position.

The Ministry of Justice at the request of the Tenet started a leak. The federal district prosecutor from Chicago Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate him. He began with the most convenient end - he called for the response of journalists, and from the administration he demanded to free the witnesses from the obligation not to disclose the source. By order of the president, all key officials of the White House signed typical paper, which states that the lower signature does not object to his name to be named in the testimony of the federal large jury, despite the previously reached confidentiality agreement.

Strictly speaking, this document has no legal force: a journalist, like any other citizen, is obliged to testify in a criminal case. But some journalists prefer to reveal their sources imprisonment - it was this decision that Judith Miller has now made the former New York Times correspondent. She was sent to the bars for disrespect for the court and spent 85 days there, until her source took pity on her - Lewis scooter Libby. However, many colleagues believe that Miller thus tried to wash his professional reputation, soaked with too close ties with the White House and the Pentagon.

In October 2003, the author of the note at the Washington Post Robert Novak gave an interview to the MSNBC television company Tim Zhazrotu, also one of the actors of the history of leakage. “It seemed very strange to me,” said Novak, “that the mission is entrusted with a diplomat who has no experience in the field of non -proliferation, who was critical of the war and never worked in intelligence. Therefore, in a conversation with a high -ranking administration officer, I, among other things, asked him to explain this decision to me, and he said his wife works in the department for non -proliferation, she was his own. I recommended. "It was said in a relaxed manner, and it was said by a person who is in no way a political killer (Partisan Gunslinger)."

Novak said then that under any circumstances he would not reveal his sources. "Will you go to jail?" - asked him. “You are a lawyer,” Novak answered. “In your opinion, am I guilty?” “Today I am not engaged in private practice,” he said with the highest smile with the smallest smile and repeated the question. “We will not dramatize,” Novak closed the topic. “I won’t give my source, that's all.”

The name of the source was eventually revealed by the journalists Michael Izikoff and David Korn in the book " Hubris " (Hubris), according to their information, the culprit of the leakage were not vile intriguers in the White House, but Richard Armitudge - the former first deputy state secretary, which resigned in February, immediately after Kolin Powell (and, between Kolin Powell (and, between Kolin Otherwise, at one time was involved in the Iran -Contrac case).

Armitage belonged to the moderate wing in the administration. The Vietnamese veteran-free-man, in a private situation, skeptically spoke about the military plans of the "hawks", from which no one sniffed gunpowder. He did not take part in the creation of Casus Belli and seemed to have no personal reasons to do the dirty tricks of Wilson. Therefore, the version of malicious revenge was very shaken .

As Izikoff and Korn write, Armitudge is a well -known gossip; He simply loves to scratch his tongue on occasion, what journalists willingly use. But when the matter came, a serious, a thyazho-a-wester-saber with a bull neck was frightened of responsibility. He repented to his boss Colin Powell. He ordered to keep the story in complete secret. At his direction, the legal book of the State Department notified the Ministry of Justice that the First Deputy Secretary of State had important information in the case, and the Armitudge went for interrogation.

The prosecutor Fitzgerald did not find evidence that Armitudge knew that the name of the playing was a state secret, and did not find anything testifying to the evil intent. Armitudge helped and a voluntary turnout with a confession. Therefore, the prosecutor did not find grounds for holding a former diplomat accountable. When the Armitudge left the State Department, many have experienced a high appointment to him - the post of director of the CIA or even the Minister of Defense. The Senate would approve him as a clock. Now it is clear that the involvement in the leak made it impossible for his further arrival in the civil service. Armite went to the oil industry and now works as a member of the board of directors of Conocophillips.

In addition to Novak, Armitudge revealed the identity of Valerie Playm and another journalist - Bob Woodwordo from Washington Post, a living icon of American journalism. Woodword did not publish this information. At the same time, he repeatedly criticized the actions of a special prosecutor in different talk shows. There is some moral nuance. “Woodword was not obliged to disclose his confidential source,” writes David Korn. “But no one also forced him to go on television, criticize the investigation and at the same time be silent about his personal interest in this matter.”

Meanwhile, Libby languished under the investigation, although not in custody. The accusation of the disclosure of Gostaina was extremely difficult to prove. It was not presented to him. Fitzgerald was blamed for perjury and obstruction of justice. During the preliminary investigation, Libby showed that he himself learned from the journalist, namely from Tim Zhazort. Haughty, being summoned to the court as a witness, categorically denied this, and at the cross interrogation withstood an incredibly tough on -the -scale onslaught of protection. Libby, without a doubt, had the reason to dislike Wilson's ambassador: he, Libby, was directly related to the Iraqi intelligence dase, where he was also collected in unreliable materials.

The jury of the jury evidence according to one of the five episodes justified it, and four considered guilty. Libby’s lawyers claim that their lawyer showed forgetfulness, but not evil intent, and intend to achieve a new court. Unlike Tenet, the Libby scooter retained loyalty to the president even on the dock and can now count on the presidential pardon.

As for Bob Novak, he came out completely dry from the water. It turned out that Valerie Playm did not fail , but the Russian spy of Aldrich Aims, who worked in the CIA, gave a confession and is now serving a lifelong opinion on the court sentence.

And Valerie Plame is now Grand Dama, a secular lioness and a wedding general, who can be invited through an agency to perform at a corporate party. In general, all sisters in earrings.