Today's Plame Gossip

***See update 4 (below): Wurmser turned, too?
*** Update 5 - AP story - Rove fingers Libby.


Today's Plame gossip. The NYTimes says I need to put the champagne back in the fridge today, but also indicates that there will be indictments.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - The special counsel in the C.I.A. leak case has told associates he has no plans to issue a final report about the results of the investigation, heightening the expectation that he intends to bring indictments, lawyers in the case and law enforcement officials said yesterday.

The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is not expected to take any action in the case this week, government officials said. A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, Randall Samborn, declined to comment.

And here's a pretty complete list of everyone who has spoken with Fitzgerald.

And the NY Daily News quotes a "presidential counselor" whatever that is.

Asked if he believed indictments were forthcoming, a key Bush official said he did not know, then added: "I'm very concerned it could go very, very badly."

"Karl is fighting for his life," the official added, "but anything he did was done to help George W. Bush. The President knows that and appreciates that."

More updates later, I'm sure.

Update: Big news supporting the theory that Fitzgerald has gotten hip deep in the prewar WMD lies. From Raimondo at the libertarian Antiwar.com whom I occasionally quote here. Strong opinions, but usually some interesting news inclusions and very good meta analysis.

A parliamentary committee was charged with investigating, and they issued a heavily redacted report: now, I am told by a former CIA operations officer, the report has aroused some interest on this side of the Atlantic. According to a source in the Italian embassy, Patrick J. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald asked for and "has finally been given a full copy of the Italian parliamentary oversight report on the forged Niger uranium document," the former CIA officer tells me:

"Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."

This piece is pretty big and wide ranging but it does show some tie ins between the Fitzgerald investigation and the Franklin/AIPAC investigation. The other gem in this article is,

No wonder my source tells me that "Fitzgerald asked the Italians if he could share the report with Paul McNulty," the prosecutor in the AIPAC case.

Update 2: By the way here are two links to pages of audio files of church bells ringing that I intend to play quite loudly if this thing ends up being pretty big. You know, end of the occupation and all, return to freedom. Link 1 Link 2 (just a quick start, I'm sure there are more and better sites, if you know of one, put the link in comments, thanks.)

Update 3: Josh Marshall says Bush must have known that Rove was lying in his first testimony to Fitzgerald. Bush's agreement with Fitzgerald included, once again, not testifying under oath. So could he lie without the fear of perjury? Read Josh Marshall's post and let me know what you think.

This is based on this NY Daily News story which says that Bush knew early on that Rove leaked the Plame name. If true, that means that Bush lied (again) in statements. Americablog says it stretches to the point of Obstruction of Justice, although I don't see that yet.

Update 4: Wurmser turned, too? This report from Raw Story gets full creedence as the were first and apparently right on Hannah.

A second aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is cooperating with the special prosecutor's probe into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, those close to the investigation say. ....

Now, those close to the investigation say that a second Cheney aide, David Wurmser, has agreed to provide the prosecution with evidence that the leak was a coordinated effort by Cheney’s office to discredit the agent's husband.

Wurmser, Cheney’s Middle East advisor and an assistant to then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, likely cooperated because he faced criminal charges for his role in leaking Wilson's name on the orders of higher-ups, the sources said.

According to those familiar with the case, Wurmser was in attendance at several meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a little-known cabal of administration hawks that formed in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Those who say they have reviewed documents obtained in the probe assert that the Vice President was also present at some of the group’s meetings......

Wurmser’s cooperation with Fitzgerald would certainly come as no surprise to those who have been following his career. Last year, he was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his possible role in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel.

According to a 2004 story in the Washington Post, the FBI interviewed officials in Cheney’s office and the Pentagon, including Hannah and Wurmser, former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, to determine if they were involved in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel, the former head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Sorry for such a long clip, but the circle is closing. And needless to say, as a prosecutor, you don't give Hannah and Wurmser consideration unless you are looking up the chain. So either, there's so little evidence that both are necessary to nail Libby and corroborate each other's stories, which I would doubt since there's reasonable public evidence for perjury or maybe witness tampering, or Fitzgerald is looking for a bigger fish than Libby.

Get your churchbells ready.

Update 5: AP story tonight: Rove fingers Libby. (there must be a better way to say that.)

Top White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby discussed their contacts with reporters about an undercover CIA officer in the days before her identity was published, the first known intersection between two central figures in the criminal leak investigation.

Rove told grand jurors it was possible he first heard in the White House that Valerie Plame, wife of Bush administration Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA from Libby's recounting of a conversation with a journalist, according to people familiar with his testimony.

They said Rove testified that his discussions with Libby before Plame's CIA cover was blown were limited to information reporters had passed to them. Some evidence prosecutors have gathered conflicts with Libby's account. ......

Those familiar with the testimony and evidence said that:

During one of his grand jury appearances, Rove was shown testimony from Libby suggesting the two had discussed with each other information they had gotten about Wilson's wife from reporters in early July 2003.

Rove responded that Libby's testimony was consistent with his general recollection that he had first learned Wilson's wife worked for the CIA from reporters or government officials who had talked with reporters.

Rove testified that he never intended any of his comments to reporters about Wilson's wife to serve as confirmation of Plame's identity. Rove "has always clearly left open that he first heard this information from Libby," said one person directly familiar with Rove's grand jury testimony. .....

In testimony shown to Rove, Libby stated that numerous journalists appeared to have learned about Plame's identity in the period before her name was published and that he and Rove talked to each other about their contacts with reporters.

Libby's testimony stated that Rove had told him about his contact with Novak and that Libby had told Rove about information he had gotten about Wilson's wife from NBC's Tim Russert, according to a person familiar with the information shown to Rove.

Prosecutors, however, have a different account from Russert. The network has said Russert told authorities did not know about Wilson's wife's identity until it was published and therefore could not have told Libby about it.

Prosecutors also have evidence that Libby initiated the call with Russert and had initiated similar contact with another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, several weeks earlier. Miller was jailed for 85 days before agreeing to testify before the grand jury. ....

Rove was pressed by prosecutors on several matters, including why he failed to mention during the first of his four grand jury appearances that he also had discussed the Plame matter with a second reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.

Rove testified during the first appearance about his contacts with Novak in the days before Novak wrote a column outing Plame's identity. When asked generally if he had conversations with other reporters in that session, he answered "no."

Rove and his lawyer subsequently discovered an e-mail Rove had sent top national security aide Steve Hadley referring to a brief phone interview he had with Cooper.

The e-mail jogged Rove's memory and during a subsequent grand jury appearance, he volunteered his recollections about his conversation with Cooper, and his lawyer provided the e-mail to prosecutors. Cooper also wrote a story about Plame.

There's alot here. Just from a quick read, it sounds to me like Rove's attorney's put this out. There's just alot in this that seems to be too good for Rove. I'm watching the Astros game, so I'll give it a better read tomorrow.