Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

UPDATE II: Jonathan Turley (of George Washington Univ. Law Center) said today on “Hardball” that, “Everything ends up at Dick Cheney's desk. His right hand man is indicted. He's intimately involved in the Niger allegation with weapons of mass destruction. He's the one who seems to have instructed Libby. The biggest question is not whether he'll be called as a witness, but why he wasn't a co-conspirator.”

UPDATE: John Byrne has a report up saying, “CIA leak filing indicates gov't has evidence regarding Cheney.”

Jane's Plame panel at YearlyKos
is going to be a must see, especially since Christy, along with Murray Waas, will be there and keep adding to the mix. Today's Waas installment is incredibly tantalizing.

On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men. In the early days of the CIA leak probe, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was briefed on a crucial conversation between Robert Novak and Karl Rove. Suspicious that Rove and Novak might have devised a cover story during that conversation to protect Rove, federal investigators briefed then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on the matter in the early stages of the investigation in fall 2003, according to officials with direct knowledge of those briefings. (snip) A second reason that federal investigators were suspicious, sources said, is that they believed that after the September 29 call, Novak shifted his account of his July 9, 2003, conversation with Rove to show that administration officials had a passive role in leaking Plame's identity. On July 22, 2003 — eight days after the publication of Novak's column on Plame — Newsday reporters Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce quoted Novak as telling them in an interview that it was White House officials who encouraged him to write about Plame. “I didn't dig it out, it was given to me,” Newsday quoted Novak as saying about Plame. “They thought it was significant. They gave me the name, and I used it.” If Novak's interview with Phelps and Royce was accurate, sources said, it suggests that Rove was actively involved in trying to expose Plame's CIA job. … … Rove-Novak Call Was Concern To Leak Investigators

Emptywheel is all over it, especially as to new questions about dates and other
Rove-Novak details.

… But there are two more possibilities. It is possible that Fitzgerald just renewed his inquiry regarding this Rove-Novak call again, since November, and therefore Rove has had to testify about it (and, presumably, someone in Rove's camp has revealed that he had to testify about it). Or, it's possible that Rove's relationship to the case has changed and it is now in his best interest to be more forthcoming about this call. Imagine, for example, if Rove had made a plea bargain, testimony on the cover-up for just perjury and false statements charges. Then Rove might feel the need to be forthcoming about issues he had not revealed in the past. … Did You Notice What Waas Didn't Say?

Many of us amateur Plame snoopers, as opposed to the experts over at FDL,
have speculated that Rove and Novak were involved in the whole affair from the
blast off. That outing Valerie Plame to punish Wilson was a coordinated affair
between Turdblossom and the Prince of Darkness. Because let's face it, the White
House was desperate to do him in. It didn't work, but after all this time the
story continues to unravel. However, no one can tell if the end is in sight.

Yesterday, watching David Shuster's report on “Hardball,” you couldn't help but catch his sarcasm when he started talking about Rove's paid mouthpiece, who recently took a swipe at Shuster. This was David's retort.

SHUSTER (on camera): A spokesman who is being paid by Karl Rove says the presidential adviser did nothing wrong and is confident he will be cleared, but according to lawyers for other witnesses in this case, the only thing certain right now is that the investigation and focus on Rove continues.

And now Karl's got company. Hello, Prince of Darkness. The saga continues.