Tuesday, May 23, 2006

NY Daily News: CIA Duo Will Testisfy Against Libby

Boy, this perjury/false statements/obstruction case against Scooter Libby just looks more and more solid all the time:

WASHINGTON - Two top CIA officials will bolster prosecutors' charge that Vice President Cheney's chief aide lied to them, court papers show. Prosecutors
say disgraced Cheney chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby learned CIA spy Valerie Plame's identity from, among others, agency officials who will be called to testify at his trial for perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice.

The U.S. alleges he learned about Plame from one of the CIA officials when he went after dirt on her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson shattered a pillar of President Bush's rationale for war - that Iraq was seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

Both CIA officials - including a top architect of the 2003 Iraq invasion - discussed Plame with Libby a month before columnist Robert Novak blew her cover in July 2003, prosecutors charge.

Libby has said journalists told him about Plame - not Cheney or the six witnesses named so far by prosecutors.

Until recently, the CIA officials' identities were kept secret by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who did not name them in Libby's October indictment.

But subsequent documents allege Libby asked top CIA official Robert Grenier on June 11 why the agency sent Wilson to Niger to see if Iraq tried to buy uranium. Grenier replied that Plame was an agent and "believed responsible" for arranging her husband's trip.

The other official was Craig Schmall, a CIA briefer whom Libby complained to about the Wilson trip on June 14, court files allege.

You'd have to say that from what we know from the court documents so far, Fitzgerald's case against Libby is excellent and Scooter's best chance for getting off is a pardon.

Fitzgerald doesn't screw around, does he?

BTW, I can't wait to see the Snow gaggle on the day they announce the Libby pardon. That'll be one fun gaggle.

Comments:
Last minute pardon.

I guess Fitzgerald doesn't indict unless it's right.
 
Fitzes hesitiation to wait until the case is airtight is understandable though.

And I agree, he gets pardoned at 11:59 am, Jan 20, 2009.

Ohh isn't that depressing, Bush stays in he Oval Office till then. Ew!
 
What political price will the GOP pay when Bush pardons Libby (and Rove/Cheney, if we get that far)?
 
Bush probably won't pardon Plame. I don't think it's possible.
 
This presidential gift of pardon has always, to me, seemed open to abuse.
Essentially it suggests that laws can bebroken freely, cases held up with legal wrangling, then BINGO, it's a done deal. 'get out of jail free' card and a 'land on go and collect two brazillian dollars' all in one handy bundle.
The best part is that there is no incentive to incriminating evidence on anyone else.
Must be the best political invention since... lobbyists!
 
I agree with you, cartledge. I never liked presidential pardons. But I bet we will see pardons like we'vew never seen before when Bush gets to the end of his term (Libby, Rove...)
 
Assuming they really have him by the balls, a pardon is one possibility. Another is that they squeeze him so hard he starts to sing a sweet soprano aria about Cheney, Rove, ...
 
The hardest part about all of this is staying patient. I jumped out of my seat when I heard Leopold's report about Rove a couple of weeks ago, but I have been trying to be a little more patient about the Plame Rumors (as mikevotes at Crest calls them.)

Still, it's interesting to note that this NY Daily News report is basically a report of a Jason Leopold report from some months back (at least according to Talk Left.)
 
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