Plame Game end game

October 24, 2005

In addition to the embarrassing showing Kay Bailey Hutchison put on yesterday, there have been several interesting Plame-related developments since we last checked in.

* Bob Novak apparently didn’t fight too hard to keep his secret sources confidential.

A critical early success for Fitzgerald was winning the cooperation of Robert D. Novak, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist who named Plame in a July 2003 story and attributed key information to “two senior administration officials.” Legal sources said Novak avoided a fight and quietly helped the special counsel’s inquiry, although neither the columnist nor his attorney have said so publicly.

* Conservative arguments that Patrick Fitzgerald is exceeding his authority by considering perjury and obstruction of justice charges are wrong. A letter posted to Fitzgerald’s new website shows that he received authority from the Justice Department to expand his inquiry to include any criminal attempts to interfere with his probe. In fact, Fitzgerald requested and received the authority just weeks after he took over the investigation. “The fact that he [Fitzgerald] asked for authority that he probably already had, but wanted spelled out, makes it arguable that he had run into something rather quickly,” Washington lawyer Plato Cacheris said yesterday.

* Slate’s John Dickerson did a nice job profiling I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for those who want a better sense of just who this guy is.

* Presumably because of the pending charges, Bush “is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about.”

* Reuters reported that lawyers “involved in the case” believe Fitzgerald is laying the groundwork for indictments this week, including possible charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Officials are expected to learn as early as today whether they will face charges and the grand jury may be convened as early as Tuesday to lay out a final summary of the case and ask for approval of possible indictments. (As Reuters noted, the grand jury normally meets on Wednesdays and is scheduled to expire on Friday unless Fitzgerald extends it.)

Stay tuned.

How will Bush operate without the protective bubble? Tune in this time next week.

  • One more week -why that’s Halloween. Who will get the “Trick” and who will get the “Treat”?

  • This is from the Daily News artilce you link to above:

    Bush is so dismayed that “the only person escaping blame is the President himself,” said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration “illogical.”

    A second senior Bush loyalist disagreed, saying Bush knows “some of these things are self-inflicted,” like the Miers nomination, where Bush jettisoned contrary advice from his advisers and appointed his longtime personal lawyer.

    “He must know that the way he did that, relying on his own judgment and instinct, was not good,” another key adviser said

    Soon we will be reading report of Bush walking the hall of the White House late at night talking to the portraits of former presidents.

    That’s what you get when you base your adminstration on principle established by Richard Nixon.

  • I wasn’t going to comment but the quote listed above is a golden classic and I just want to see it agian in print.

    “”He must know (Bush) that the way he did that, relying in his own judgment and instinct, was not good,” another key adviser said.”

    The mind boggles.

  • I also like the fact reported that Fitzgerald has run a 15 month long investigation, costing LESS THAN $1 million dollars (use Dr. Evil voice and hand gesture). Pretty amazing. And very unlike all those other investigators during ( and even post) Clinton’s years. Competence is good.

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