Go F**k Yourself, Mr. Cheney

Well, the New York Times just proved it can get a scoop without the help of Judy Miller:

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.

Lawyers involved in the case, who described the notes to The New York Times, said they showed that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.

The leaks always come out from "lawyers involved in the case," which usually means defense lawyers (certainly NOT the prosecutor, who hasn't leaked a thing). So you have to wonder who this came from: Rove's lawyer, trying to innoculate himself? Perhaps the lawyers for John Hannah or David Wurmser, both reported to have "flipped" in this case and out to get Libby, and possibly his boss?

Here's what Steve Clemons thinks about this new scrap of information:

This is amazing information. You may ask why?

First of all, this means that Vice President Cheney has known all along that he was Scooter Libby's source -- and whether Libby had license from him or not to try and slaughter the reputation of Joe Wilson -- CHENEY KNEW.

The entire charade of President Bush stating that he wanted to get to the bottom of who leaked Plame's name -- and who was involved -- is no longer believable at any level. Cheney would not have failed to disclose this to Bush, and Bush played along as if none of his staff were involved. They confessed nothing -- accepted no responsibilty -- until forced by Fitzgerald.

According to Scooter Libby's notes, George Tenet was the source for the information about Valerie Wilson lining up the trip -- so to speak -- for her husband, but did not necessarily include the information that she was a covert operative.

This is where things get interesting. Although Fitzgerald may not need to establish this connection, it seems increasingly plausible to TWN that Tenet and Cheney had some kind of exchange regarding Joe and Valerie Wilson. Cheney then passed off the information to Libby along with a few expletives about Wilson, implying that the @#$%@%er should be done in.

We know from an article last Friday in the LA Times that Libby was literally obsessed with discrediting Joe Wilson, to the extent that somebody in the White House had to tell him to back off. Lewis Libby is a chief of staff. He doesn't go on fishing expeditions without his boss knowing it. And now we know there was at least a conversation where he could have gotten his marching orders. This doesn't necessarily implicate Cheney from a legal standpoint, as the contents of that meeting are unclear, and two high-level officials discussing classified information they're both cleared to receive is not a crime.

But certainly the Dick let it be known publicly that he never heard of this Wilson guy:

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I don’t know Joe Wilson. I’ve never met Joe Wilson. A question had arisen. I’d heard a report that the Iraqis had been trying to acquire uranium in Africa, Niger in particular. I get a daily brief on my own each day before I meet with the president to go through the intel. And I ask lots of question. One of the questions I asked at that particular time about this, I said, “What do we know about this?” They take the question. He came back within a day or two and said, “This is all we know. There’s a lot we don’t know,” end of statement. And Joe Wilson—I don’t who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back.

And Jane at firedoglake seems to think this portends perjury. I didn't know Cheney testified under oath, but apprently he did, if the NY Times story is correct. Jane makes the connection:

What indication do we have that Cheney lied? Well, if Cheney had told the truth when he was interviewed last year, i.e., that he was Scooter Libby's source, Fitzgerald would not have needed to threaten Judy Miller and Matt Cooper with jail in order to counter Scooter Libby's testimony that he first heard about Valerie Plame's identity from journalists.

...the testimonies of Cooper and Miller were necessary to bust Libby in a lie.
The decision of Judges Tatel, Henderson and Sentelle against Judy Miller was decided on February 15, 2005 and reissued April 4, 2005. Without getting into elaborate quotes, basically they agreed that there was no other way to get the information they needed other than from these journalists. They did not resort to jailing Miller or Cooper lightly without first having exhausted all other possibilities.

Which means Fitzgerald was not sitting on some big cathartic confession from Dick Cheney at the time.

Cheney lied. Under oath. Put any Republican (and a few DINOs) in the wayback machine, and they will tell you -- this is an impeachable offense.

Forget the perjury charge for one second, though it's not a technicality. What we have here is the Director of the CIA passing information to the Vice President, who gives it to his Chief of Staff, who starts talking to reporters. That information is classified for good reason. They're using it to get back at a guy who may be impacting public opinion on their war, which they misled the country into (and that Big Lie can never get out into the public).

This is bad, bad stuff, and you don't perjure yourself and obstruct justice unless you don't want to the truth to reveal itself. We are looking at a White House that has abused the public trust, abused the powers of the office, and compromised national security. All in the name of a tragic and cruel war that has inflicted pain and suffering in virtually every corner of this country. It's impossible to talk about this case without understanding the Big Lie that's being protected. Intelligence about Iraq was fabricated, fudged, unchecked, and uncorroborated. And they splashed it on the front pages of the NY Times thanks to their mole in the newsroom. When it turned out to be all a cruel hoax, they tried to change the subject. And it was so important to change the subject that they over-reached. They broke the law. And they broke the law some more to cover the changing of the subject.

This all goes back to Iraq, and every member of this Administration, save the President (although I can't see how he would possibly not be invlolved), is in it up to their eyeballs. These next weeks and months will not be pretty; they'll be a sad and discouraging time for the nation. I've passed the stage of schadenfruede, and am just plain angry that we as citizens have taken our collective eye off of those in power for so long that something like this could happen. It's a failure of government, media, and also us.