Comments on The Anonymous Liberal: Plamegate Odds and Ends: Bob Novak's Admission and...

Two comments:1) Dickerson's comments about Fleisch...

2005-11-01T11:15:00.000-05:00

Two comments:
1) Dickerson's comments about Fleischer leading reporters to look into who sent Wilson without actually revealing it himself are interesting. That tracks with what a number of administration officials appear to have been doing until July 12 when Libby goes, relatively speaking, bananas, sharing her role with at least two reporters, after having had a strategy session with Cheney on the plane. What changed? Libby had found out the day before (or the day before that) from Rove that Novak was writing a column about Wilson's wife. So my guess is: Libby, perhaps in consultation with Cheney, knew the cat was coming out of the bag, so they wanted to spread the info about Wilson's wife as widely as possible, thinking they were now able to claim that they hadn't done anything other than repeat information that Novak already had and was publishing.
2)Isn't it interesting that, according to Novak's October 2003 account, the SAO who was presumably his first source (and who was not Libby, right?) knows and shares Wilson's wife's employment at CPD, and that, according to Libby's indictment, Libby got that precise piece of information from none other than Dick Cheney. Nah, couldn't be, since then it's hard to see how Fitzgerald wouldn't have a more or less open and shut case already.

Jeff

EW, I realize the INR memo doesn't say that Plame ...

2005-10-31T22:30:00.000-05:00

EW, I realize the INR memo doesn't say that Plame was covert. But I believe the paragraph that discusses her employment with the CIA is marked "S" for Secret. My point was that if Fleischer read the memo, he might have realized (if he didn't know already) that Plame's role in the story was classified. If Libby and Rove are both claiming that they didn't know her affiliation with the CIA was classified, they may be pointing to the INR memo as an explanation for why Fleischer knew something that they didn't. Does that make sense?

The INR memo doesn't say Plame is covert. It says ...

2005-10-31T19:46:00.000-05:00

The INR memo doesn't say Plame is covert. It says simply she's works at CIA. That's part of the reason I've always said the INR memo is a red herring--it doesn't have all the information that Novak's source would need to have known (specifically, Plame's maiden name and her covert status).

I was actually arguing that Rove and Libby wanted to claim Ari had seen the memo on AF1 either (if you believe Ari is a Pincus/Novak source) because they could argue Ari acted alone, they could pretend he had learned of Plame's identity and leaked that information to Novak by himself, without any collaboration.

Or, if you believe Ari didn't leak, but you know he was talking (as he clearly is), then you spread the story Ari was looking at the INR memo because it seeds with the public, at least, and the prosecutor if he is very dumb, the notion that Ari is a candidate to be the leaker. FWIW I think a great number of the leaks from this summer were trying to incriminate certain witnesses Ari and Powell.

In either case, I'm arguing that Luskin and Tatewere beginning their defense alread, by arguing that one of the prosecutor's most important witnesses is only accusing Libby and Rove because he's trying to hide his own guilt.

emptywheel