Plame Gossip - What's going on with Rove?
There's a whole lot of Fitzgerald/Rove chatter, but nothing ostensibly new. Talkleft had a post up early today noting that Rove seems to be going on with business as usual, but, I guess, what else would we expect him to do? Travel to extradition free Belize to "negotiate a trade deal?"
David Schuster seems to have ruffled some feathers in asking other prosecutors about the procedures in a case like this. He puts together a collection of quotes and looks at the work circumstances of the Fitzgerald team to support the "not if, but when" framing of the indictment.
Firedoglake takes a longer view of the Schuster piece, but the bottom line is that there was nothing new today. Nothing.
The only real news of interest is that Fitzgerald, in a filing, stated that Cheney could be called to testify in the Libby trial in January 2007. That could lead to some very interesting questions from both sides, not to mention putting more pressure on Libby to deal.
One question though, if Fitzgerald is angling after Cheney, he wouldn't really want him to testify in the Libby case. So, is this signalling Cheney is not an eventual target, or is this a bit of a bluff? (Notice the careful language, "Cheney would be a logical government witness.")
This was in a court filing and I don't have the context so it might be an intentionally open response to the question, "Will the VP be a witness?" It's possible that Fitzgerald has no intention of calling Cheney because of the "ongoing investigation," but didn't really want to release that bombshell at this point.
So, no Rove news, but a fair amount of Plame chatter. Keep your eyes peeled on Friday, though as that's the next logical day. If it's not Friday, we'll revisit the possibility of a plea deal.
UPDATE: The NYTimes has a bit more context. Fitzgerald, "To the best of government's counsel's recollection, the government has not commented on whether it intends to call the vice president as a witness."
So, the blaring AP headline was overstated. If he doesn't call Cheney, though, we can assume that's because he's, at least, a focus of the investigation.
David Schuster seems to have ruffled some feathers in asking other prosecutors about the procedures in a case like this. He puts together a collection of quotes and looks at the work circumstances of the Fitzgerald team to support the "not if, but when" framing of the indictment.
Firedoglake takes a longer view of the Schuster piece, but the bottom line is that there was nothing new today. Nothing.
The only real news of interest is that Fitzgerald, in a filing, stated that Cheney could be called to testify in the Libby trial in January 2007. That could lead to some very interesting questions from both sides, not to mention putting more pressure on Libby to deal.
One question though, if Fitzgerald is angling after Cheney, he wouldn't really want him to testify in the Libby case. So, is this signalling Cheney is not an eventual target, or is this a bit of a bluff? (Notice the careful language, "Cheney would be a logical government witness.")
This was in a court filing and I don't have the context so it might be an intentionally open response to the question, "Will the VP be a witness?" It's possible that Fitzgerald has no intention of calling Cheney because of the "ongoing investigation," but didn't really want to release that bombshell at this point.
So, no Rove news, but a fair amount of Plame chatter. Keep your eyes peeled on Friday, though as that's the next logical day. If it's not Friday, we'll revisit the possibility of a plea deal.
UPDATE: The NYTimes has a bit more context. Fitzgerald, "To the best of government's counsel's recollection, the government has not commented on whether it intends to call the vice president as a witness."
So, the blaring AP headline was overstated. If he doesn't call Cheney, though, we can assume that's because he's, at least, a focus of the investigation.
posted by mikevotes at
9:36 PM
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