[Plame Affair]

The Big Article

The Times today reports that Libby's source for the name of Joe Wilson's wife was ... (drum roll) ... Dick Cheney. Her name came to Cheney from former CIA director George Tenet, but--and this is a big but--there's no indication that either knew she was an undercover agent or that her identity was classified. Libby, however, is not out of hot water:

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

Whoops. Again, it ain't the crime that gets you, it's the lying about the crime. Proving the former is hard, the latter not so much so. You'd think that with the White House's obsession with Bill Clinton, they'd have learned this lesson.

This is easily the hottest article in weeks, and everyone in the blogosphere's discussing it. My commentary thus redundant, I will--well, I'll give it anyway:

• The article demonstrates one powerful point: Cheney was investigating Wilson for the smear campaign that predictably ensued. I have no doubt that this is legal, but it could be a big political problem for the White House.
• Remember the WH spin a few weeks (months?) ago that the leak might have come from a reporter? Another of the catalogue of lies. (Question: Did Libby hang the WH out to dry with this story first, or was it generated by the WH?)
  
• Although there's no indication that Cheney's in trouble, we have no idea what he told Fitzgerald under oath. If he was trying to keep his story straight with Libby's, he may well face perjury and/or obstruction of justice charges.
• A sitting Veep can be indicted.
• The New York Times badly needed to be the paper to break this story.

When, oh when, will Patrick Fitzgerald tell us what he knows? We're dyin' ovah heah.

[Okay, let's update the conversation with some of the pithier commentary on this revelation. Oliver Willis: "Even if no specific law was broken, shouldn’t it be cause for removal or resignation if the vice president used the power of his office to uncover classified data as fuel for a political vendetta?" He has more.

Kevin Drum reports that Fitzgerald "asked for, and obtained, the full version of an Italian parliamentary inquiry into the forgery of the pre-war documents that claimed Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger." He has a good deal more, including a timeline.

Andrew Sullivan: Okay, so Cheney was the source of the leak, but who was the source of Plame's status as an undercover agent?

Digby catches Cheney in a lie on national television (sounds a lot like Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations" lie: "I did not screw that man, I don't know that man.")

Laura Rozen, reporting at TAPPED, has more info on the Italian Connection, which should eventually become a thriller starring Matt Damon.

Tom Maguire has--as you would expect--exhaustive analysis, and finds potential wiggle room for Libby and the Veep (see if you find it as implausible as I).

It goes on and on, so I'll leave you with Mark Kleiman, who offers a nice speculative counterpoint to Tom.

Fin.]