Plame Game end game

October 26, 2005

So, what have we heard over the last 12 hours? Plenty.

* The LA Times reported that federal prosecutors “returned their attention to White House advisor Karl Rove on Tuesday, questioning a former West Wing colleague about contacts Rove had with reporters in the days leading to the naming of the covert operative.”

* The LAT also noted that Patrick Fitzgerald sent FBI agents this week to Plame’s neighborhood, asking neighbors whether they had been aware — before her name appeared in a syndicated column — that she worked for the CIA. Neighbors contacted by reporters said they told the FBI agents that they had no idea of her agency life, and that they knew her as a mother of twins who worked as an energy consultant.

* The fact that Fitzgerald is still exploring the fact that Plame’s undercover identity was still very much a secret, Mark Kleiman says, suggests that the investigation is not limited to perjury/false statements/obstruction charges and may still focus on “some substantive offense about revealing secret information.”

* Roll Call reported that Fitzgerald visited Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, at his DC office yesterday.

* Like several outlets, the Financial Times confirms that “indictments in the CIA leak investigation case are expected to be handed down by a grand jury on Wednesday.”

* Josh Marshall is all over reports out of Italy that the head of Italy’s military secret service knowingly gave forged documents about uranium in Niger to Bush administration officials, including then-deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley.

* The American public already seems to believe that the White House’s conduct was problematic, at a minimum. According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, about 40% believe some administration officials acted illegally in the matter, a similar percentage believe administration officials acted unethically, while only one in 10 Americans said they believe Bush administration officials did nothing illegal or unethical. For a scandal that’s just now breaking in a big way, that’s not a good starting point for the Bush White House.

Look for Mr.John Bolton to be indicted! Also Mr. Bolton will have had contact or have been a go-between has concerns the forward to documents out of Italy.

  • The indictments are supposed to be issued “sealed”. Maybe they’ll be leaked anyway? I don’t think I can wait until tomorrow.

  • If anyone has any curiosity about those 1 in 10 Americans that believe that the Republicans have committed no wrongdoing hop on over to FreeRepublic The disconnect from reality is frightening and I can’t wait to hear their collective heads exploding this week.

  • Do we actually know that it was Fitzgerald that sent the agents? If we don’t, then there is the possiblity that the White House was using the FBI to try to buttress their defense.
    I’m just looking at all of the angles.


  • The agents “made it clear they were part of the Fitzgerald investigation, and they were basically tying up loose ends,” said David Tillotson, a lawyer and neighbor who was among those interviewed Monday
    I didn’t have time to look at the LaTimes artilce earlier. The claim that it was Fitzgerald who sent the agents comes from one of the neighbor’s who was interviewed for the article. This is not difinitive. However, taken together with this from this morning’s NYTimes,

    . Mr. Fitzgerald, who is the United States attorney in Chicago, spent Tuesday in Washington and summoned his team, including his chief F.B.I. investigator, Jack Eckenrode, for what appeared to be a final round of discussions about how to proceed,

    I would say it is likely that it was Fitzgerald that sent the FBI agents.

  • This is simply incredible! How is it possible that her neighbors didn’t know she was a CIA agent? Didn’t they scout out her route to work each day, which would have told them that she worked there? Too many conservative pundits stated as fact that this was a dead giveaway, and that, even if she was supposedly undercover, this gave it all away. And therefore, there was nothing wrong with stating it as fact in the newspaper, because there were other ways of finding out.

    Naturally, I always thought the “scouting out her route to work” thing was a bit odd, as you’d have to know that someone was an agent in order for you to know that you’d want to scout out their route to work. And if you already knew, you wouldn’t need to scout out their route. But that’s just me, and I’m a traitor lib, so what do I know.

  • It seems to me that everyone has missed the mark on this a little. Why is it that everyone assumes that Cheney et al were out to punish Wilson? They weren’t out to punish Wilson by outing his wife Plame, they were out to punish Plame for challenging them. In their eyes Plame was not an agent of Wilson, Wilson was an agent of Plame.

    To be perfectly clear, by outing Plame, Cheney et al were sending a shot across the bow of the CIA counter proliferation unit were Plame worked. The CIA were starting to develop a backbone and finally (way too late) challenge the Bush administration, so that they were not painted the fall guys. Plame was sign that the Bush team was losing control, and they needed to intimidate the CIA back into line. So they ended the career of an operative, and sent a clear message to the rest to step back into line, or else.

    I pray to all that is holy that Fitzgerald has stumbled onto this, and can get the momentum needed to expose the treason at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

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