Fitzgerald's New Filing Draws Cheney Closer Into Plamegate

by Steve

Image courtesy of Newsweek

This will likely be the week that Karl Rove learns his fate in the Plamegate case. Over the weekend the AP ran a story, followed up by Newsweek and the Post yesterday, that Dick Cheney was deeply involved in the effort to find out about Joe Wilson and his trip the day after Wilson’s op-ed hit the New York Times, further reinforcing the previous filing by Patrick Fitzgerald that Scooter was acting at the direction of Cheney with presidential authorization. This serves to eliminate Scooter’s defense that his actions in discussing Wilson and his wife’s job weren’t just “casual disclosures.” Furthermore, the latest filing by Fitzgerald, also states that Libby was told about the dangers of revealing a CIA officer’s identity right after the Novak column, making any subsequent discussions by Scooter of Valerie Plame’s CIA job legally problematic for him. The late Friday filing also reveals that Scooter not only briefed a New York Times reporter (Judy Miller) on the contents of the 2002 NIE at Shooter’s direction at a time when it was still classified, but actually gave a copy of a portions of it through another government official (John Hannah?) to the Wall Street Journal for a pro-administration editorial later that month, again at a time when the document was still classified. For Rove’s part, Jason Leopold reported Saturday that after Fitzgerald spent several hours Friday at the offices of Rove’s attorneys, Fitzgerald gave them an indictment that day, saying that Rove had 24 business hours to get his affairs in order.

Both the Post and Newsweek refer to a late Friday Fitzgerald filing, whereas a May 5th court hearing transcript was also released last Friday as well, so there may be some confusion here that I will try and sort out as we go along today and tomorrow.