“I was just following orders” – Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza told Jurors that her attempt to silence the New York Times from publishing their article came as a direct order from President George W. Bush. She said: “The president and I talked about it and decided I should ask the New York Times leadership to come to the White House for a meeting to discuss why that story should not be published… I certainly understood the [implications] of the White House asking the New York Times not to publish a story. That’s why I talked first to the president about whether we should even do so”... Rice said she was gravely concerned when she heard the Times had gotten wind of the closely guarded CIA program, which involved a Russian nuclear engineer working with the spy agency to try to entice the Iranians into adopting designs altered by scientists at a U.S. national laboratory... Rice also confirmed that at the meeting held in her office and attended by then-Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet she asked the Times not only to withhold the story but to cease reporting on it and to get rid of all documents relating to it... The Times ultimately declined to run the story. However, Risen published it three years later in his book “State of War.” After the book was published, the FBI stepped up a criminal investigation into the leak. Sterling, one of several former CIA handlers for the Russian engineer at the center of the operation, was indicted in 2010 on charges that he leaked details of the operation to Risen. The ex-CIA officer faces 10 felony counts, including unauthorized disclosure of national defense information, mail fraud and obstruction of justice...
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:33:12 +0000
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