Plame Gossip - repositioning

There were a flurry of stories relating to the Plame case Friday. None of them really impact the big picture as far as I can tell, but there are a few interesting wrinkles. So, if you're not watching the Plame investigation that closely, you could probably better spend the three minutes playing with your dog or something.

I'm gonna start with the Rawstory piece which states that Fitzgerald has met with the Grand Jury at least once since the new year, and also makes the point that Plame is not the only thing on Fitzgerald's plate. So, the Rawstory statement is that Fitzgerald is still moving forward, and that a lack of visible action may not mean a cessation of the investigation.

But that's not what the Whitehouse wants to present. Rove made a very public speech to a "safe crowd" at the RNC on the topic of strategy for the 2006 elections, his first speech since Libby was indicted. Obviously this was intended to show public confidence in Rove in a friendly setting, but I wouldn't be too sure of that.

The last update/leak we got referenced Fitzgerald meeting with Rove's attorney twice in December trying to work out a plea deal. (I run through all the permutations here.) But as far as is publicly known, there has been no new evidence introduced into the case which would have changed Rove's "under investigation" status.

So, I think this public appearance by Rove is intended more as a distractionary tactic to get the press and public attention away from the other Bush failures, Iraq, NSA spying, etc. After all, Iran's nuclear program at least five years from being able to produce a bomb, and yet that was the topic changer coming out of the Alito hearings. The Bush administration is desperately trying to buy a little time by putting anything in the public space to stop the dead cat bounce in the poll numbers.

Carrol Leonnig of the WaPo buried this at the bottom of her piece on Libby's defense strategy(next) confirms Rawstory's point that Fitzgerald is busy with other cases, including Libby's, and then offers this two sided pair of leaks.

But a person close to Rove said Fitzgerald so far this year has not indicated any change in Rove's status. Rove expects to hear a final decision from Fitzgerald soon and has told friends he is optimistic that he will be cleared.

Still, another person close to Rove said it was not a good sign that Fitzgerald has not already cleared President Bush's chief political adviser. Rove, this person said, has worked under the assumption that Fitzgerald is largely finished with his investigation and, because the prosecutor is sensitive to the political liability of a possible indictment hanging over the head of Rove, would publicly clear him quickly if he did not have enough evidence to charge him.

After reading Vandehei's stories for the last five months, (he contributed to this article) it's clear to me that one of his main sources is from Rove's defense team(I would guess the first one here) and another is from Libby's defense team(probably the second.) He also has occasionally quoted a third stream of leaks which I believe to be the legal team of someone not directly implicated but involved in the case.

So, what I'm reading here is that the Rove defense team wants to put out the rosy message, and that the second source, maybe from Libby's defense team is saying not so fast. Just reflexively, because of the sourcing, I would doubt the exculpatory leaks in the Vandehei stories because they all appear to be coming from Rove's defense team.

Lastly, there were a couple of articles on Libby's defense strategy. Basically, it appears that the Libby defense team is going into stall mode by questioning the production of documents in discovery. Short version, they want all the information regarding what reporters knew about Plame's covert status.

I'll be curious to see if Judge Walton allows this at the Feb 3 hearing because it is not germane to the charges of obstruction and perjury with which Libby is charged, and could reveal vital information regarding the outing of Plame in the middle of the still ongoing investigation.

Firedoglake and Talkleft have a more technical discussion of the Libby defense, if you want to get into the specifics of the motion.

Bottom line is that Rove is trying to position himself to appear guilt free no matter what's hanging over him, probably so that the republican base won't believe the charges and Libby's defense team is trying to stall the prosecution and scare off Fitzgerald by bringing in journalists and threatening to broaden the trial to the uncharged underlying crime of outing Plame.

One thing though, as interesting as it might be to have administration officials testifying in the Libby trial, it might be just as interesting to hear Judy Miller or Bob Woodward tell their story under oath.

(Side note to the other Plame followers: Jason Leopold is on "temporary leave" from Rawstory, and as he has been the main story source, I wouldn't expect too much from them til he comes back.)