Condoleezza Rice Testifying at Sterling CIA Whistleblower Trial on WMD Claims

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Courtroom Sketch by Debra Van Poolen

Today, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to testify at the trial of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling. Coverage of the trial can be tracked at: exposefacts.org/blog/the-latest

On Wednesday, CIA officials testified against Sterling while behind a wall.

Rice appears on the cover of New York Times reporter James Risen’s book, State of War, which the government alleges Sterling was a source for.

MARCY WHEELER, emptywheel at gmail.com, @emptywheel
Wheeler writes widely about the legal aspects of the “war on terror” and its effects on civil liberties. She is the “Right to Know” journalist for ExposeFacts and blogs at emptywheel.net. She has been covering the Sterling trial at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. for ExposeFacts.org.

She tweeted Wednesday: “Remember, Condi Rice asked not JUST that NYT not publish @JamesRisen‘s Merlin story, but that NYT stop him from reporting on it.” See her piece: “Condi Rice Asked Jill Abramson to Stop Jim Risen from Reporting on Merlin.”

Wheeler’s most recent pieces include: “The Sterling Trial: Merlin Meets Curveball,” “Jeffrey Sterling: The Government’s Circumstantial Case,” “Operation Merlin: The Russian’s Case Officers” and “Government Declares a Monopoly on the Right to Call James Risen as a Witness.”

GARETH PORTER, porter.gareth50 at gmail.com, @GarethPorter
In the courtroom this afternoon, Porter is an investigative journalist and author of the just-released book Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare. He recently wrote the piece “Four Ways the West Got the Iran Nuclear Issue Wrong.”

RAY McGOVERN, rrmcgovern at gmail.com
In the courtroom this afternoon, McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years and now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.

He said today: “A huge screen between us and judge, jury, prosecution and defense loomed before us as a 12-foot-tall metaphor for the smoke and mirrors we could hear but not see Wednesday at the first “public” day of Sterling’s trial on ten felony charges. Thus, it seems altogether fitting and proper, I suppose, that ‘mushroom-cloud’ Condoleezza Rice is expected to blow into court today to testify for the prosecution team.”

McGovern recently wrote the piece “Crime and CIA Embarrassments” and spoke along with Norman Solomon and David Swanson at a news conference Wednesday outside the courthouse. [YouTube video]

NORMAN SOLOMON, solomonprogressive at gmail.com, @xposefacts, @normansolomon
In the courtroom this afternoon, Solomon, who is available for a limited number of interviews, has been covering the Sterling trial for ExposeFacts.org. His recent pieces on the trial include: “The Revenge of the CIA: Scapegoating Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling” and “Sterling Trial Opens in Security-State Matrix.” Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction, which has a petition regarding the Sterling prosecution at DropTheCharges.org. The petition now has more than 54,000 signatures.

ExposeFacts is a project of IPA.