On what basis was Mary McCarthy fired? Was there any real evidence that she passed along classified info
to Dana Preist about the CIA's secret prisons? In light of the
WaPo article by Jeffrey Smith, it seems that she may have been fired and framed in order to counter her belief that the CIA lied to congress about the illegal imprisonment and torture of detainees.
Given the interest of Cheney and Bush in the revamp of the CIA, and given the corruption and partisanship of Porter Goss's tenure there, I believe that with some digging we will find the smoking gun that allows us to connect Cheney and perhaps Bush to the coverup of torture and rendition by the CIA... these would be War Crimes and Impeachable Offenses. If proven, Cheney and perhaps Bush might as well turn in their pssports because they would never be able to travel anywhere without fear of arrest. They certainly would have added another impeachable offense to their repertoire.
More below...
In the WaPo article, Smith lays out what seems to have happened to McCarthy. First some background on McCarthy...
McCarthy's friends, including former officials who support aggressive interrogation methods, resist any suggestion that she handled classified information loosely or that political motives lay behind her dissent and the contacts she has told the agency she had with journalists. She was, in the view of several who know her well, a CIA scapegoat for a White House that they say prefers intelligence acolytes instead of analysts and sees ulterior motives in any policy criticism.
They allege that her firing was another chapter in a long-standing feud between the CIA and the Bush White House, stoked by friction over the merits of the war in Iraq, over whether links existed between Saddam Hussein's government and al-Qaeda, and over the CIA-instigated criminal inquiry of White House officials suspected of leaking the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.
Now, McCarthy has denied giving any classified information to Priest. At the time of her firing, McCarthy was the agency's deputy inspector general, who for the previous year had been probing allegations of criminal mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last June, Smith says...
[McCarthy] was startled to hear what she considered an outright falsehood, according to people familiar with her account. It came during the discussion of legislation that would constrain the CIA's interrogations.
...
McCarthy also told others she was offended that the CIA's general counsel had worked to secure a secret Justice Department opinion in 2004 authorizing the agency's creation of "ghost detainees" -- prisoners removed from Iraq for secret interrogations without notice to the International Committee of the Red Cross -- because the Geneva Conventions prohibit such practices.
So the question becomes, why was McCarthy really fired? And at whose direction? Was it really Goss or Foggo? Given the tight grip that Cheney (now demonstrably - in his own handwriting) exerted on the CIA, wouldn't you think that there may be evidence of his involvement in the McCarthy firing? If a referal was really made to the Justice Department in the McCarthy case, will prosecutor's uncover evidence of Cheney's involvement in the firing. Is there an annotated copy of Dana Priest's article in Cheney's file analogous to his annotated copy of Joe Wilson's article? And - given how agitated he seems to get over Cheney's assumption of the role of President - would Bush have really let this one get by him?
Why not let Fitz handle this one too? I know that none of this is likely in an Abu Gonzalez Justice Department, but you never know... maybe there is another Patrick Fitzgerald or Mary Kay Butler in there somewhere.
If Dick wants to play hardball, let's show him how hard it gets.