Plame gossip - Has Hannah turned? (Update 2 - Cheney rumor)

Plame gossip. NY Daily News says there's a cooperating witness in the whitehouse.

Cheney's name has come up amid indications Fitzgerald may be edging closer to a blockbuster conspiracy charge - with help from a secret snitch.

"They have got a senior cooperating witness - someone who is giving them all of that," a source who has been questioned in the leak probe told the Daily News yesterday.

Rawstory rumors it might be Hannah, a former Bolton aide at State. And further down in the Rawstory piece, we get some idea of the leverage that may be applied to turn Mr. Hannah.

Hannah is currently under investigation by U.S. authorities for his alleged activities in an intelligence program run by the controversial Iraqi National Congress (INC) and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi.

According to a Newsweek article, a memo written for the Iraq National Congress (INC) raised questions regarding Cheney’s role in the build up to the war in Iraq. During the lead up to the war, Newsweek asserts, the INC was providing intelligence on the now discredited Iraqi WMD program through Hannah and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff.

Conspiracy charges, as have been rumored, seem to be quite hard to make stick unless there's a cooperating witness. But with that witness, all the connections get fleshed out, so if Cheney was involved, this isn't good for him

Well, we'll all know really soon.

Update: Oh, and by the way, if you're really concerned about all this..... LOOK AT THE DAM BURSTING IN MASS.!!!!! AND LOOK AT THE TERROR THREAT IN BALTIMORE!!!!! AND THEN THERE'S THAT BIRD FLU IN EUROPE(which isn't communicable from human to human.) FEAR! FEAR! DO YOU HEAR ME? FEAR!!!!

Update 2: And I would guess that there's really something to this looking at Cheney speculation. We have the Washington Post, WSJ, and Bloomberg all reporting it, but more tellingly, I've caught segments on both MSNBC and CNN today speculating about it. Not that CNN or MSNBC have proven themselves beyond baseless speculation, but the idea of Cheney being involved seems to be reaching conventional wisdom. Look here at US News and World Report for some backing for the conventional wisdom. Baseless rumors of Cheney resigning are making the rounds in Washington and being accepted as real. By the way, the rumor says Condi Rice in as VP.

Update 3: Not quite so sure about indictments tomorrow. I'm already getting kind of weird about it all, checking constantly to see if there's anything new. Read a few pretty persuasive arguments that indictments might be put off if a couple of the smaller fish change their minds and decide to cooperate with Fitzgerald in order to avoid trial and take lighter sentences. If this happens, and Fitzgerald holds true to form, there will be no announcement from him, and he will diligently go through all their "new" testimony and potentially call people in front of the Grand Jury again which could stretch this thing out for awhile longer. There was rumor awhile back that he sought a meeting with the judges, possibly to get an extension past the looming deadline.

Maybe tomorrow. But if someone has a change of heart, maybe not tomorrow.

Update 4: This is second hand from the Nelson Report (you have to pay) through Laura Rozen on John Hannah.

Before we start, today’s hot gossip is that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald may have sent a “target letter”...an official warning of a likely indictment...to Vice President Cheney’s deputy chief of staff, John Hannah. According to sources which have been right from time to time, Hannah has told associates he has been forced to cut a deal, and that they think this includes testifying against his immediate boss, Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Hannah’s name resonates to the insiders, since he is a samurai for UN Amb. John Bolton, detailed to the White House while Bolton was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs...in other words, an office with folks quite likely to have known the CIA connection which may form the basis of any criminal indictments in this case...