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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, May 22, 2006

Plame Gossip - Valerie Plame was Covert - Fitzgerald

I wanted to make a point of emphasizing this because a number of people I've spoken with lately who are only casually following the Plame investigation have tried to make the point that it's not that big of a deal because Plame wasn't covert. I'm looking at you, Dad, Bob, Stan. Don't believe the spin coming from the administration side. Fitzgerald believes that Plame was under cover and that's what matters.

Throughout the Libby pretrial motions, Fitzgerald has repeatedly implied that Valerie Plame's role at the CIA was classified and thus, in the conspiracy to destroy Joe Wilson, she was outed(the underlying crime.) This WaPo story collects some of the references and states it more clearly than anywhere else I've seen.

This falls into my current overarching working theory on the Plame case, that all of this that we've seen so far is just a clearing of the evidentiary deck, as it were, before Fitzgerald goes after the underlying crime, the outing of Plame.

Before Fitzgerald could proceed on the outing of Plame, he has to/had to go through all the evidence available surrounding the Plame case and establish its truth or falsity. All of the charges thus far, Lying to Investigators, Perjury, and potentially in Rove's case, Obstruction of Justice, are merely outgrowths of this process of gaining a clear view of the evidence before proceeding towards the outing of Valerie Plame.

That's one of the reasons that I view the Leopold story the way that I do, because seeking a plea deal with Rove would be a very logical step in this interpretation. That doesn't mean that the Leopold story is true by any means, but it fits with my overall understanding of where we are in the case.

If I were forced to make a prediction, I would guess that the next investigative stage would surround the 250 "missing" emails. We don't actually know the details on these emails, all we have is the characterization by Fitzgerald that the emails were not "preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system," and that Plame was mentioned in some of them.

As we don't really have any further detail on the "missing" emails, there might be nothing there, but that does look a bit like somebody trying to destroy evidence.

So, after establishing in criminal detail the lies of Libby and Rove, I would guess that's the next evidentiary deck Fitzgerald must clear. And from there he could then gain the clearest possible view as to the circumstance of Plame's outing. My hunch would be that he is aiming for charges in this direction because this is an awful lot of investigative effort if Fitzgerald doesn't feel that the underlying crime probably will be charged.

A couple of notes. There's been circumstantial reporting that Fitzgerald is looking at potential conspiracy charges, whether that's regarding outing Plame or the coverup is not entirely clear.

Fitzgerald's final targets are also a little in question in my mind. It's clear that Cheney, for instance, had a very significant role coordinating the pushback against Wilson, although from the publicly available evidence, there's no proof as yet that he authorized the outing of Plame. (And we just have no idea on the emails.)

If the reports of a possible Rove deal, even an offered one, are true, it would certainly indicate to me that Fitzgerald is either after someone much more significant, like Cheney, or someone guilty of far more serious crimes.

Also, there's one more major complication in my theory. If the allegations of Armitage as the primary leaker of Plame's identity are true, that would make a Cheney led outing far less probable. Armitage was well outside the White House circle, and I would think that if he outed Plame, it is highly unlikely that he did so as a part of White House conspiracy. I can't at this point resolve this adequately unless he received the Grossman memo then accidentally let Plame's identity slip. (Armitage was Grossman's superior.) Sort of an accidental release from outside that then led to the discovery of a conspiracy. But, what's the conspiracy if Armitage was the outer?

And if Armitage was the outer, just what were Libby and Rove perjuring themselves to coverup? I don't see them risking jailtime to save an Armitage mistake. And then there's the report of Armitage being a key witness....

See, it just doesn't really work, unless either Armitage wasn't the first leaker or there's something far bigger out there that they are/were covering up. (Maybe an Nixonian "enemies' list" operation?)

I don't know, but if Armitage is the primary leaker, I think this investigation may be about something more than just Plame. But that's if Armitage was the primary leaker.

(Sorry for the lengthy post, but I thought it had been awhile since I had done one of these overarching looks at the Fitzgerald investigation. All of this represents my opinion of where we are, and could certainly be sorely misguided, but as there's been so much back and forth around Plame lately, I thought it might be useful to repost my interpretation so that you kind of know where I'm coming from in my analysis.)

4 Comments:

  • Last Friday, Judge Reggie Walton, the presiding judge in the Libby trial, deliberated over a case titled "SEALED v. SEALED." There is growing speculation that sealed v. sealed is Fitzgerald v. Gonzales' Deputy, Paul McNulty (Fitzgerald's direct superior).
    . . .

    The Wayne Madsen Report and the Chris Matthews Show have both floated the theory that Fitzgerald had secured indictments against Rove, but Gonzales --via McNulty-- came in at the last second and used his power as Fitzgerald's superior to kill the indictments.

    IF, this theory is true, Fitzgerald would have likely challenged McNulty's decision in court, pointing to an earlier administrative directive from then acting Attorney General James Comey that gave Fitzerald the "authority of the Attorney General." Comey is long gone, however, and was replaced by McNulty. The question then becomes what, if any, value does Comey's administrative directive have today.

    One unfortunate realty of this scenario is that if the judge sides with McNulty, we will never know what really happened, because it will remained sealed. Which, is one explanation about why Rove is acting so smug these days and why the White House has not pulled back his public schedule. (as commented by EarlBo at the bolue republic)

    By Blogger Yukkione, at 9:45 AM  

  • Wow. I hadn't seen any of that.

    What's the sourcing? Is it credible? Walton is the judge in the Libby Case, I didn't think he is the judge over the Rove grand jury, right?

    So, they tried this move over Libby's indictments?

    Even if the sealed parties are Gonzales/McNulty and Fitzgerald, do we have any evidence that this is what the motion was about? Could it be about the inclusion of Cheney on the witness list? Or some other motion regarding evidence or witnesses to be made available?

    I mean, the Libby case is in discovery right now. It seems possible that the White House might be challenging Fitzgerald's access somehow, but challenging his overall mandate?

    That seems a bit speculative based upon what you've got in the comments.

    I'm very curious and need more info.

    Links Please.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:58 AM  

  • I would (speculating of course) think the above scenario is not possible.

    If such a thing happened, it would NEVER remain secret. And the implications of it leaking would be dynamite.

    Mike, Fitzgerald is so incredibly meticulous and methodical, that your theory fits nicely.

    It's quite a contrast watching Fitzgerald work vs. Ken Starr.

    By Blogger Greyhair, at 11:38 AM  

  • I tend to agree on the sealed vs sealed, but I just won't judge it without at least reading the source it comes from. The more likely scenario to me is that there was a discussion over discovery that might involve testimony or evidence at trial from someone for whom there would be outside issues testifying, like Bush or Cheney, for instance or a dispute over classfied evidence where the names would at least indicate the likely subject matter Libby vs. an individual at the CIA for instance.

    The Whitehouse desperately wants to keep Bush Cheney off the stand, think how hard they've avoided previous perjury venues like the non sworn in 9/11 comission and the previous meetings with Fitzgerald in this case. I don't blame them, but that could be one possible scenario. Assuming that the first sealed is Gonzales and the second sealed is Fitzgerald, of course. It could be anything. It could be Bush lawyers challenging Libby's discovery for all I know.

    And, yeah, the Armitage as first leaker thing does throw a bit of a wrench in my interpretation of the crime. So, if it's true, I haven't quite settled on how it all folds in.

    I just thought that I ought to offer the lens through which I'm seeing all of this so that things like my take on the Leopold deal might make a little more sense. After the first section on Fitzgerald focusing on the underlying crime which is for a friend and a relative who lurk here, the rest of this post was mainly written with you in mind as audience so you'd sorta know where I was coming from. You're not the only one posing questions, and I was trying to address alot of them, but as an outgrowth of our conversations I thought this would be useful to you and others who are reading my Plame Gossip sections.

    This is the framework through which I'm interpreting the case at this point. It may well change, but this is where I am right now.

    Sometime I'm going to sit down and write a similar piece on my theory of the crime, but frankly, that's not nearly as clear to me. We know the big players, but did Susan Ralston really testify that Rove had her remove the Cooper call from the call logs? What was Hannah's role? Is he cooperating? Hadley? Andy Card?

    Despite the dearth of information, the investigation is a bit easier to construct around because it is Fitzgerald's sole interest to establish the truth, while a theory of the crime is much harder because the participants want more than anything else to keep a clear truth from being brought out.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:33 PM  

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