Cheney to be indicted?

[cynatnite]

Could a sitting VP be indicted? I wondered after reading this:

A lawyer who knows Mr. Libby's account said the administration efforts to limit the damage from Mr. Wilson's criticism extended as high as Mr. Cheney. This lawyer and others who spoke about the case asked that they not be identified because of grand jury secrecy rules.

On July 12, 2003, four days after his initial conversation with Ms. Miller, Mr. Libby consulted with Mr. Cheney about how to handle inquiries from journalists about the vice president's role in sending Mr. Wilson to Africa in early 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq was trying acquire nuclear material there for its weapons program, the person said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/politics/01leak.html?ex=1285819200&en=d7891fa6eb556825&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Didn't they indict Spiro Agnew?

I don't remember the timing of the events but Spiro did resign in disgrace.

[Independent_Liberal]

5. Yes, he got indicted over a tax code violation and resigned.

Then Ford became VP.

[longship]

11. Agnew argued that he couldn't be indicted

Agnew claimed that a sitting vice president could not be indicted. His solilitor general ruled that he *could* be indicted. Agnew tendered his resignation and appeared in a MD court where he plead nolo contendere to a felony. I believe that the resignation came first, but I don't think it mattered.

[malaise]

2. Wasn't he house shopping recently

Can't help but wonder for whom was he shopping??

No wonder the knees had clots. He must have been praying/preying real hard.

Edit- sp

[McCamy Taylor]

3. Can you say "Chest pain"?

[applegrove]

4. I doubt very much if Cheney actually let the name Plame pass through

his lips to a reporter. So how would he be guilty of anything?

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. He told Libby to go after Wilson

that's all the head honcho ever has to do. They never get their own hands dirty.

[applegrove]

7. Nobody is being investigated for "going after Plame". They are being

investigated for outing her name. I think. Unless there is some other law that is being violated other than the ones we have already read about.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Going after Wilson

included outing his wife. Cheney was just trying to kill two birds with one stone.

[applegrove]

12. But the crime was using Plame's name. Not attacking political opponents.

Am I wrong?

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. Wilson blowing the whistle on Bush

was the catalyst. Outing his wife's identity was meant to punish both of them. However, they also outed the company that Plame used has a cover and therefore blew the cover of many other people, so there was probably other motivations at work here. Like needing to kill an operation that was getting too close to the truth about WMD's and Iraq?

[spindrifter]

9. Aaron Burr was

indicted but not tried. Cheney apparently is also lookiing at possible indictment by the French government for his role with Halliburton in Nigeria. That was publicized in 2004, so I don't know whether there is any momentum left in that.

[FormerRepublican]

10. Conspiracy to commit a crime would be an indictable offense.

So would lying to the Grand Jury and/or obstruction of justice.

[AlCzervik]

13. I really, really hope it's Rove.

[havocmom]

15. Naw, hope for Cheney. If he goes down, he will take out Rove and the rest

in spite. It'd be a two-fer!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. This is why Bush changed his criterion to firing people "convicted"

Bush had originally said that he would fire anybody charged with leaking national security secrets. Then some time later, a few days or weeks later?, he changed it to say anyone convicted of leaking secrets. He must have gotten a message from his puppet master that if his master went down, so would he.