Case not closed on Cheney's role

There has been much speculation about what Fitzgerald's continuing investigation means. The initial mainstream media response was that while Rove was still not out of the woods, it was unlikely the indictments would go further. Yet the evidence of conspiracy, though circumstantial, is compelling.
The Seattle Times

Vice President Dick Cheney appears as no more than a background character in the indictment of his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Yet even that secondary role raises questions about whether Cheney played any part in the alleged effort to discredit an administration critic.


Indeed, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald said emphatically Friday that, "We make no allegation that the vice president committed any criminal act."


But as the Libby case moves forward, it is likely to focus more attention on the vice president's position as one of the most-powerful behind-the-scenes figures in government.


The five-count federal indictment says Cheney talked to Libby about the fact that Valerie Plame — the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador and administration critic — was a CIA operative. And it suggests that Cheney was close by his chief of staff as Libby took some of the actions that led to the charges of lying and obstruction of justice. MORE

I can't believe Libby acted without Cheney. Juan Cole calls for his resignation.
Informed Comment

Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney told Irving Lewis Libby about Plame working for the CIA. Although both Cheney and Libby had security clearances, it is not the case that any two persons with such clearances may properly share any information at will. Classified information is disseminated on a need to know basis and for specific security-related purposes. For Cheney to bandy about classified information merely as a form of office gossip or for partisan political purposes, even with other government officials, is unethical and poor tradecraft at the very least, and would get any junior CIA case officer fired. So surely the same should apply to the vice president of the United States at a time of war.

Emptywheel makes a compelling circumstantial case for conspiracy.
The Next Hurrah

The Barton Gellman article I mentioned this morning has been edited to remove the following italicized bit:

On July 12, the day Cheney and Libby flew together from Norfolk, the vice president instructed his aide to alert reporters of an attack launched that morning on Wilson's credibility by Fleischer, according to a well-placed source.


Libby talked to Miller and Cooper. That same day, another administration official who has not been identified publicly returned a call from Walter Pincus of The Post. He "veered off the precise matter we were discussing" and told him that Wilson's trip was a "boondoggle" set up by Plame, Pincus has written in Nieman Reports.

Apparently, someone doesn't want us to know that Dick Cheney was actively involved in pushing journalists toward that morning's press gaggle.


[...]the competing stories suggest we may have a cast of characters involved in drafting Tenet's speech to include information that may not have been declassified. If Tenet and Hadley and Rove and Libby and Dick and Ari and Condi were all involved in this statement and the subsequent peddling of the story in it, who is responsible for the unauthorized leak, if one occurred?


Perhaps it doesn't matter. Because when you've got such a cast of characters as you have here, that's when you begin to talk about criminal conspiracy.

Cheney's office operated by committee to put together a letter from Tenet taking responsibility for the false report on Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium in Niger. It seems unlikely Libby operated alone to out Plame. Now if it can be shown that WHIG already had sufficient doubt about the Niger info, and that bit of false information was placed in Powell's speach deliberately, then I think we have a conspiracy case for defrauding the United States.