Dick Cheney and TreasonGate

From The New York Times:

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

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.

It is fairly obvious at this point that Scooter Libby will be charged. As The Times article notes: "[A]ny effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry."

The issue now is: Will anyone else in the Bush Administration be indicted? It's pretty clear that Libby lied to the grand jury -- he obviously thought it was worth committing perjury in order to protect his boss. One can only conclude that Cheney must have been up to his eyeballs in all this.

As noted in the New York Times article: "Mr. Libby’s notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson." Cheney clearly took the initiative in going after Wilson -- he was, after all, the one who asked the CIA director about Wilson -- and I really doubt that he merely put the ball in motion and left the rest of the dirty work up to subordinates.

Steve Clemons at The Washington Note has some interesting ideas on who else might be involved:

First of all, this means that Vice President Cheney has known all along that he was Scooter Libby's source -- and whether Libby had license from him or not to try and slaughter the reputation of Joe Wilson -- CHENEY KNEW.

The entire charade of President Bush stating that he wanted to get to the bottom of who leaked Plame's name -- and who was involved -- is no longer believable at any level. Cheney would not have failed to disclose this to Bush, and Bush played along as if none of his staff were involved. They confessed nothing -- accepted no responsibilty -- until forced by Fitzgerald. * * *

My hunch is that [Libby] went to trusted spear-carriers for Vice President Cheney -- the office and staff of Under Secretary of State John Bolton. Fred Fleitz, Bolton's chief of staff, maintained his CIA WINPAC portfolio and access as an active duty CIA staff member while he operated as Bolton's "acting" chief of staff. We know that Fleitz was a key part of the intelligence cherry-picking/stove-piping operation when it came to both the intel and policy response to various global WMD concerns -- in North Korea, Libya, Iran, and Iraq.

We also know that David Wurmser and John Hannah, who have both apparently cooperated after threats of legal action (i.e., time behind bars) with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald worked both for John Bolton's operation and the Vice President's office.

I recently consulted with a number of senior State Department officials about the level of interaction between Vice President Cheney's office and John Bolton's office -- and was informed that there was "intense" exchange between them, constant. One said that "Bolton and his team were operatives of Vice President Cheney inside the State Department establishment -- there to subvert Armitage and Powell wherever they could, and if not subvert, then there to spy on the them and report back.

Meanwhile, Bush has hit another milestone in Iraq. The U.S. death toll in that debacle has now reached 2000.

UPDATE: I agree with this:

"If Cheney goes down with Scooter and Karl, I'm not sure how Dubya survives -- it would be tantamount to admitting he's just an empty suit they send out to read the teleprompter while other folks run the country. Granted, they'd need the jaws of life to pry him out of the Oval Office, but Republicans in Congress might realize that he's going to drag them down with him."