Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper was facing jail time for refusing to answer questions about the Plame Game scandal, but reached an agreement and spoke to federal investigators yesterday. As has been the case with other journalists, questions continued to focus on just one White House staffer.
Time magazine said in a statement today that Cooper agreed to give a deposition “because the one source the special counsel asked about,” Lewis I. “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, had waived a confidentially agreement he had with Cooper. The statement from Time spokesperson Diana Pearson said that Libby also had agreed to allow the magazine to disclose its agreement with him.
“The deposition, which took place yesterday in the Washington, D.C. office of Mr. Cooper’s attorney, Floyd Abrams, focused entirely on conversations Mr. Cooper had with Mr. Libby, one of Mr. Cooper’s sources for the articles he helped author about the leak in July 2003,” the Time statement said. “Following the deposition, the contempt orders against both Time, Inc. and Mr. Cooper were vacated.”
While I’m glad to hear Cooper won’t have to spend time behind bars, I can only wonder whether Libby might be taking his place.
At this point, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff is obviously the center of prosecutors’ attention. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Patrick Fitzgerald asked Libby earlier this year to sign a waiver saying he agrees to release reporters he’s talked to from keeping confidential any disclosures about Plame. Moreover, When Dick Cheney secretly sat down to speak with investigators about this crime, the VP was reportedly asked about conversations he’s had with Libby about the matter.
Joseph Wilson, Plame’s husband, meanwhile, specifically describes Libby in his book as “quite possibly the person who exposed my wife’s identity.” Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and counter-terrorism official at the State Department, explained that he knew the identity of at least one of the Novak Two. When pressed in an MSNBC interview, Johnson said, “I think if I’m the FBI, I start by having a discussion with Mr. Libby.”
Stay tuned; this scandal hasn’t gone away. In fact, it might just be getting interesting.