The CIA leak case isn't over by a long shot -- and Cheney is still at the center of the story.
By Jeff Lomonaco
Web Exclusive: 10.13.06
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Behind closed doors at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia this week, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton is considering what classified information I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and national security adviser, will be able to use to defend himself against charges of obstruction of justice, false statements, and perjury. To bring Libby to trial, the special prosecutor in the case, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has to avoid the risk of graymail -- the defense strategy of forcing the prosecution to drop the case because of classified information the defense would reveal at trial. Jury selection in Libby’s trial is scheduled to begin January 16.
Nonetheless, in the wake of the recent disclosure that Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s deputy in the State Department, was syndicated columnist Robert Novak's initial source for his July 2003 column identifying Valerie Plame Wilson as an undercover CIA officer, the conventional wisdom -- typified by The Washington Post’s editorial page -- is that the case is effectively over, and that it amounts to very little. “One of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Plame's identity to ruin her career and punish Wilson -- is untrue," according to The Washington Post.
Armitage may have leaked the information first. But it seems clear that White House officials, including those in the Office of the Vice President, also coordinated an effort to leak the information at almost the same time. In fact, according to the charges against him, Libby leaked Plame’s identity to a reporter twice before Armitage ever spoke with Novak.
Conservative partisans have used the Armitage revelation to try to undermine Fitzgerald's prosecution of Libby. Nonpartisan commentators, surprised that Armitage was Novak's first source, have ignored the fact that the Wilsons were the target of an administration vendetta all the same. Fitzgerald has already, in the discovery phase of Libby's prosecution, presented substantial evidence that there was an effort by Libby and Vice President Cheney, with assistance from Karl Rove, to expose Plame's job at the CIA. Indeed, one of the most intriguing questions is how Fitzgerald will follow up on the suggestions he has already offered that Cheney directed Libby to tell New York Times reporter Judith Miller about Plame.
From the outset, FBI investigators -- and then Fitzgerald and the grand jury -- pursued leaks from both the White House and Armitage. Their work has revealed a White House, and particularly an Office of the Vice President, fixated on Wilson and his accusation, in a July 6, 2003, New York Times piece, that the administration had twisted the intelligence on Iraq’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, which threatened to expose the baseless justification for the war and undermine Cheney’s credibility. The week that Wilson's op-ed appeared, the White House went into crisis mode; there were multiple meetings daily about the matter.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12101Can't wait to see what the Wilson's discover.
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