Minneapolis / St. Paul Blog

Today's New York Times offers a very subtle hint about which senior White House official might have tipped off Bob Woodward in the Valerie Flame affair. Read the following passage and see if you can guess:

"Because Mr. Woodward said that source had still not authorized him to disclose his or her name, he set off a frantic new round of guessing about who that source might be and a wave of public denials by spokesmen for possible suspects.

A senior administration official said that neither President Bush himself, nor his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., nor his counselor, Dan Bartlett, was Mr. Woodward's source. So did spokesmen for former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; the former director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet; and his deputy, John E. McLaughlin.

A lawyer for Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff who has acknowledged conversations with reporters about the case and remains under investigation, said Mr. Rove was not Mr. Woodward's source.

Mr. Cheney did not join the parade of denials. A spokeswoman said he would have no comment on a continuing investigation. Several other officials could not be reached for comment."

Still no guesses? OK, let me give you a hint: The first initial is "D"...

Since the first leg of the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation marathon concluded Friday before last with the indictment of Scooter Libby, there's been little new in the way of leaks about the case. That likely won't change any time soon. Meanwhile, though, there's more fallout from the animosity the Bush/Cheney White House has sewn at the CIA and within the ranks of its own party and staff (more about that here):

Mike Allen writes in this week's Time that Karl Rove's resignation is starting to look inevitable, whether he's indicted or not. The buzz for some time has been that chief of staff Andrew Card heads a faction that wants Rove out (check out Howard Fineman's words in this Hardball transcript; via Billmon).

Elsewhere, an early gambit in the White House's counter-offensive to the leak investigation has been blown out of the water by a prominent Republican, Trent Lott--the man shoved aside as Senate majority leader in favor of the administration's choice, Bill Frist. Last week, officials of the Porter Goss-led CIA had asked the Justice Department for an investigation of who leaked the information about secret CIA jails contained in Dana Priest's November 2 WashPost article. The Republican leaders of the Senate and House, Frist and Denny Hastert, raised the prospect of hearings. But then Lott spoke up yesterday and said it was most likely a Republican senator who had released the information to the Post. Is there anyone who seriously supposes it wasn't John McCain?

Okay, just short strokes this morning:

Raw Story reports that Patrick Fitzgerald will hold a press conference today at 1 pm central time. It's a foregone conclusion that Scooter Libby will be indicted.

Not Rove, however. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the investigation will be extended--and that Rove's lawyers have been advised he won't be indicted today, but "remains in legal jeopardy."

The NYT and WashPost, meanwhile, are diametrically opposed as to whether the Fitzgerald investigation will be extended. Times says yes; WashPost says no.

I'm betting the confusion stems from the matter of whether this grand jury will be extended (maybe not, since it has already been extended before) or a new one impaneled.

(Fitzmas card graphic from azstarnet.)

Patrick Fitzgerald and Co. arrived at the courthouse in Washington today shortly before 9 a.m. The Financial Times reports that "Indictments in the CIA leak investigation case are expected to be handed down by a grand jury on Wednesday" [read story], but that conflicts with the word from ABC's The Note this morning, and possibly with a story in Roll Call that hints Fitzgerald may extend the investigation past the expiration of this grand jury's term on Friday. Here's what The Note has to say about both:

ABC News' Jason Ryan has this guidance from a Justice Department official: NO ANNOUNCEMENT FROM FITZGERALD IS EXPECTED TODAY. (Though, it should be Noted, that it is possible that the grand jury could return an indictment today placed under seal--or a myriad of non-announcement developments.)...

This might or might not be a tea leave as big as all Rancho Cucamonga: Roll Call's Mary Ann Akers, in the only scoop of the cycle, hears that Fitzgerald paid a visit to Patton Boggs yesterday to see Karl Rove's attorney Robert Luskin. Akers says the hallways of the firm were abuzz with rumors that Fitzgerald will have to ask for an extension on the investigation.

Go to The Note.

It's no wonder the press is at such loose ends over what Fitzgerald will do, and when--just consider the discrepant possibilities the Roll Call story suggests. First, we do not know whether Fitzgerald really met with Robert Luskin, and if so, whether Fitzgerald told him the investigation might be extended. If he did, we do not know whether he meant that a) the investigation is not finished, or b) Rove should come to the table on a plea bargain now, lest Fitzgerald keep the whole Bush crew on the hot seat even longer.

It's seemed clear for more than a week now that Scooter Libby will probably fare worst when Patrick Fitzgerald concludes his CIA leak investigation; the main question in the minds of a lot of people I've talked to about the case in recent days is whether Karl Rove will face similarly grave charges. I doubt it, myself. But if what Jason Leopold and Larisa Alexandrovna have posted today at Raw Story proves to be an accurate summation of the case Fitzgerald has built, then it appears to be a blockbuster with or without a slew of charges against Rove. They write:

Those familiar with information provided to Fitzgerald say that shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, [Cheney staffer Donald] Wurmser was handpicked by Harold Rhode, a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Office of Net Assessment, a Pentagon "think tank," and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith to head a top secret Pentagon "cell" whose job was to comb through CIA intelligence documents and find evidence that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States and its neighbors in the Middle East so a case could be made to launch a preemptive military strike. Wurmser largely invented evidence that Iraq had close ties to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, sources knowledgeable about his work told RAW STORY.

Although the CIA documents that Wurmser and his staff pored over never showed Iraq as being an immediate threat, Wurmser was dead set on finding and presenting evidence to Vice President Dick Cheney that suggested as much even if the veracity of such intelligence was questionable, sources close the probe said. Wurmser had met with now discredited Iraqi exiles who were part of the Iraqi National Congress, headed by Ahmed Chalabi, the infamous single source of Judith Miller's explosive columns published in the New York Times that said Iraq was acquiring nuclear bomb components, who is now the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, they added.

Read the Raw Story post.

Incidentally, I'm on vacation this week, so the updates here may be fewer and further between than usual. I'll certainly pop in if indictments are announced this week, as expected, and meantime keep an eye on Raw Story and firedoglake.

Nothing personal; all in a day's work.

It's pretty clear now that Scooter will go down--but who's still sure that Rove will too? If a perjury charge for initially failing to disclose some of his Plame-related conversations to the grand jury is all Fitzgerald's got on KR, it may not be the stake through the heart for Rove's political career that everyone supposes.

The National Journal's blog, The Hotline, has compiled a list of the people who have spoken to Patrick Fitzgerald and/or testified before his grand jury. (Spotted via the indispensable firedoglake.)

In addition to John Hannah, it names David Wurmser as a second Cheney aide believed to have testified. This stands out owing to a teaser that's been posted for a couple of hours at Raw Story claiming that a second Cheney aide is now cooperating with Fitzgerald's inquiry.

So says a "key Bush official" in today's New York Daily News. Elsewhere, the New York Times ends its daily dispatch on Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation with this cryptic wink: "Officials who testified or were questioned by investigators also included John Hannah, Mr. Cheney's principal deputy national security adviser."

Yesterday the Daily News had teased that "Cheney's name has come up amid indications Fitzgerald may be edging closer to a blockbuster conspiracy charge--with help from a secret snitch." And as we noted here yesterday, Jason Leopold and Larisa Alexandrovna posted a Raw Story item later in the day claiming it was Hannah. Now, it would seem, the Times has lent its between-the-lines imprimatur to that claim.

But of course no one really knows what Hannah is in a position to give Fitzgerald. There is an unmistakable sky-is-falling tenor to the rumors and murmurs emanating from Washington in the past week, including a growing chorus of blind quotes from "administration officials." But this doesn't prove much in itself: The White House at this point has nothing to lose by ringing loud alarm bells. If their worst fears come true, they will appear to have been candid, no more or less; if Fitzgerald's case is not as expansive or dramatic as hinted, it takes some of the piss out of any criminal indictments that do follow.

Regarding the three principals now routinely named in press and blog accounts of the investigation, here's what I can see from here:

Scooter Libby: It's hard to imagine how Libby can fail to get indicted on the basis of what's already in the public record--Judith Miller's grand jury testimony, his bizarre letter to Miller, and the overall implication that he tried to suggest what she should tell Fitzgerald.

Karl Rove: The big caveat here is that we do not know what Hannah or others may have supplied regarding Rove's place in all this. That said, however, what has been reported to date does not seem to add up to a very strong case. Here is the summary Time featured on Monday:

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald appears to be seriously weighing a perjury charge for Rove's failure to tell grand jurors that he talked to TIME correspondent Matthew Cooper about Plame, according to a person close to Rove. Rove corrected himself in a later grand jury session. If charged with perjury, he will maintain he simply didn't recall the conversation with Cooper and told Fitzgerald as soon as he did. [Read the story.]

Now maybe that's just Luskin spin. Or maybe it's not.

Dick Cheney: The new conventional wisdom says that Cheney, not Rove, is the great white whale that Fitzgerald's chasing. One has to presume that Cheney would be very hard to catch, for one simple reason: Practically everyone who stands to get in trouble for the Plame leak is in hot water over things they did in the trenches, and their later efforts to cover their tracks. Merely giving the go-ahead to attack Joe Wilson would not constitute a crime, unless it could be shown that Cheney knew he was approving specific measures that were illegal. The wild card, again, involves what John Hannah has told Fitzgerald. If Cheney had a hands-on, day-to-day role in the Wilson campaign, that's a different matter. But if Fitzgerald had the goods to go there, why wouldn't Cheney have been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury by now?

The longer Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation drags on, and the more frenzied the theorizing about the case becomes, the less sure I feel of where it all ends. The big buzz today concerns the development noted here last Thursday--Patrick Fitzgerald's apparent pursuit of Dick Cheney's role in the Plame/CIA leak. The WashPost's Jim Vandenhei and Walter Pincus--the denizens of this White House will rue forever the day they got on the wrong side of Pincus's friends at the CIA--started the ball rolling this morning:

As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office, according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney's long-standing tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame. [Read the story.]

By mid-morning, per US News and World Report, the Beltway was awash in rumors that Cheney would resign. Jason Leopold, who has turned into one of the most valuable reporters on this beat, writes at Raw Story (with Larisa Alexandrovna) that senior Cheney aide John Hannah has rolled over on the White House and is cooperating with Fitzgerald.

But the must-read of the week so far is the Bloomberg wire story that Richard Keil filed yesterday. It notes, in part:

One lawyer intimately involved in the case, who like the others demanded anonymity, said one reason Fitzgerald was willing to send [Judith] Miller to jail to compel testimony was because he was pursuing evidence the vice president may have been aware of the specifics of the anti-Wilson strategy.

So now we are told that Fitzgerald not only is pursuing Cheney, but has been for months. This only underscores the folly of pretending to know where or on whom Fitzgerald's investigation will land in the end: As recently as two weeks ago, 95 percent-plus of blog and media speculation on the case concerned an endgame that was all about Scooter Libby and Karl Rove.

I think it will be exceedingly hard to fit Cheney with a noose. I'm also a little dubious as to what Fitzgerald's got, ultimately, on Karl Rove. But it sure looks like Scooter Libby is as good as indicted. I'll elaborate on all three in a morning post tomorrow.

Yesterday the New York Times finally published its 5800-word libretto to Judy! The Opera. And if it fails to answer convincingly either of the two main questions at hand--why Judith Miller went to jail in lieu of testifying and later changed her mind, and why the Times "ultimately left the major decisions in the case to Ms. Miller" when it had already been forced to apologize publicly for her WMD reporting--it's still a delicious read for all it's got to say in and between the lines about how widely despised she is by bosses and colleagues, with the notable exception of publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger.

Half a dozen present and former Times people damn Miller with faint praise or open criticism, including editor Bill Keller ("I wish it had been a reporter who came with less baggage") and managing editor Jill Abramson (as to the Times's handling of the Miller matter, she regrets "the entire thing"). Douglas Frantz, who edited Miller for a time, remembers that Judy once called herself "Miss Run Amok." When Frantz asked what that meant, she replied, "I can do whatever I want."

As to Miller's decision to keep quiet and go to jail, the Times writes that "Ms. Miller said she decided not to testify in part because she thought that Mr. Libby's lawyer might be signaling to keep her quiet unless she would exonerate his client." Well, there you go. Not every reporter who had already been granted a waiver to testify would be so meticulous, but then there still remains some question as to whether Miller's main interest lay in protecting Libby or herself.

At one point, the story catches Miller in two apparent whoppers within the space of 100 words:

Ms. Miller said in an interview that she "made a strong recommendation to my editor" that an article [about Joseph Wilson and his criticisms] be pursued. "I was told no," she said. She would not identify the editor.

Ms. Abramson, the Washington bureau chief at the time, said Ms. Miller never made any such recommendation.

In the fall of 2003, after The Washington Post reported that "two top White House officials disclosed Plame's identity to at least six Washington journalists," Philip Taubman, Ms. Abramson's successor as Washington bureau chief, asked Ms. Miller and other Times reporters whether they were among the six. Ms. Miller denied it.

"The answer was generally no," Mr. Taubman said. Ms. Miller said the subject of Mr. Wilson and his wife had come up in casual conversation with government officials, Mr. Taubman said, but Ms. Miller said "she had not been at the receiving end of a concerted effort, a deliberate organized effort to put out information."

In all, the story paints Miller as imperious, dishonest, and more committed to the welfare of the personal friends she covered than to her paper or her readers.

Read it here if you haven't already.