Joe Wilson threatens legal action against Maj. Gen. Vallely

In a follow up to this post – where I linked up to a World Net Daily article that reported Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely as saying JoeWilson ‘outed’ his wife to him in the spring of 2002 in the Fox News green room – Joe Wilson is now threatening legal action against Maj. Gen. Vallely if he doesn’t retract his statements:

Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s attorney is demanding Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely retract a statement he made to WND that the man at the center of the CIA leak case “outed” his own wife as a CIA employee in conversations more than a year before her identity was revealed in a syndicated column.

A demand letter was sent by Christopher Wolf, partner at Proskauer Rose LLP and counsel for Wilson, to both Vallely and WND tonight.

It disputes Vallely’s claim that Wilson mentioned Valerie Plame’s status with the CIA in conversations in 2002 in the Fox News Channel’s “green room” in Washington as they waited to appear as analysts.

“As you know, that assertion and the claim that Ambassador Wilson revealed to you or to anyone that his wife worked for the CIA is patently false, and subjects you and anyone publishing your statements to legal liability,” states the letter.

It continues: “We are writing to demand that you immediately retract the assertion attributed to you and to insist that you stop making the false allegation. In addition, we request that you identify all persons or entitites (sic) to whom you made any claim that Ambassador Wilson revealed his wife’s employment at the CIA to you.”

The e-mail received by WND included earlier comments by Wilson to his attorney.

“This is slanderous,” Wilson wrote. “I never appeared on tv before at least July 2002 and only saw him maybe twice in the green room at FOX. Vallely is a retired general and this is a bald faced lie. Can we sue? This is not he said/he said, since I never laid eyes on him till several months after he alleges I spoke to him about my wife.”

WND attempted to reach Wilson and Wolf for a phone interview, but Wolf responded in an e-mail, saying: “We do not wish to make a statement. Our demand for retraction of the false and libelous statments (sic) stands. We demand that the article be removed from your Web Site and that any printed versions be retracted, and that an official retraction and apology be issued.”

In a subsequent e-mail, Wolf explained that he had not intended to append an e-mail from Wilson.

“The earlier version appended additional e-mails that were not intended for you and I would ask you to discard them, please,” he wrote. “Specifically, you do not have permission to re-produce or quote from those e-mails sent to you in error. The authors of those e-mails retain all rights in those communications, including copyright and rights under applicable privilege law. Please be advised that your use of those e-mails in any way will compound your liability for the publication of the libelous statements which prompted my letter.”

Maj. Gen. Vallely:

“I think he’s panicked that somebody is going to take him on,” said Vallely tonight. “He can make statements, and yet he’s not brought in under oath.”

[…]

“He was a total self promoter,” said Vallely. “I don’t know if it was out of insecurity, to make him feel important, but he’s created so much turmoil, he needs to be investigated and put under oath.”

I’ll second that!

Related Toldjah So posts:

Big Bang Hunter says:

November 6, 2005 at 3:06 pm

– The weasle is squirming in his lair… Especially interesting that his atty. is worried about those emails… You should go over them carefully because undoubtedly theres something there that may refute one of Wilsons claims… Probably a timeline conflict….

– This is total whistling in the cemetary, grand standing on Wilsons part. Like Kerry, the last thing on this planet either of them want is to stand under the glaring lights of an open, no holds bared, everything comes out, witnesses get questioned, type of public exposure….

– Kerry will never follow through on his limp wristed threats to take on O’Neill and the Swifties for fear of having to actually produce that form 180 and publicly expose the real truth of his military records, and Wilson will never appear in a court of law where he has to testify under oath. Just isn’t going to happen. Him and his legal team will stonewall and bluster and try to win this through agressive press releases. He knows his goose is cooked if just a handfull of people he bragged to about his “Cia wife” at D.C. cocktail parties come forward.

– I’m thinking at some point the left is going to stop opening “disaster-gates”. There always seems to be a “Rovian Tiger” behind door number anything for those guys. *chuckle*

– Big Bang

November 6, 2005 at 3:35 pm

– Incidently, this may be one time when Wilson finds himself lying against irrefutable proof, and thus his statements in the emails about the meetings would immediately call in to question his varacity, since debunking each and every one would be a simple matter of checking with FOX officials.

– Additionally I understand that at times the goings on in the green room are recorded…. wouldn’t that be a smoking gun for Wilson Arnold….. *snicker*…I’m loving it….

Media Lies says:

November 6, 2005 at 4:09 pm

It’s pistols at dawn. Choose your seconds….

….Yesterday I read a story which quoted Gen. Vallely saying that Joseph Wilson had told him in 2002 that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA in the WMD area. Since the provenance wasn’t all that solid (he said, she said), I stuck it a mental file for …

Don Surber says:

November 6, 2005 at 5:03 pm

The Spy Who Outed Me

Who outed Valerie Plame? Her husband, says Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely.

Sister Toldjah says:

November 6, 2005 at 11:10 pm

We shall see in the coming days, mi amigo

Howard Veit says:

November 7, 2005 at 8:02 am

I also posted on the WND piece and within it I asked the rhetorical question: How come this clown had the story for almost a year and said nothing? Vallely is another one of those FOX “experts” who have a background, but not a lot of smarts. I think he is most probably lying.

PCD says:

November 7, 2005 at 9:29 am

Howard,

I don’t think Vallely is lying. We have many documented instances where Joe Wilson has been caught lying, so why no benefit of the doubt by you for Vallely, yet you swallow all of Wilson’s lies? Are you a blind partisan?