So, I expect I’m the only one blogging about the indictment of Scooter Libby right now. A copy of the indictments are here (pdf).
The jist of the charges are that on June 11 and 12, 2003, Libby was told by an Under Secretary of State and Vice President Cheney, respectively, that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. That notwithstanding, he told the grand jury that he hadn’t been aware of that fact when Tim Russert asked him about it on July 11th, 2003. Instead, Libby told the grand jury that he learned it from Russert and that Russert said “all the reporters knew it.” Similar charges with respect to Libby’s false testimony about conversations he had with Judith Miller and Matt Cooper on July 12th, 2003.
Contrary to Libby’s false testimony, he actually told Judith Miller about Plame on June 23, 2003. Wilson’s New York Times column came out on July 6, 2003. On July 8, 2003, Libby met with Miller again and asked her to attribute any information he gave her about Wilson and Plame to “a former Hill staffer” rather than to “a senior administration official.” During Libby’s conversation with Russert, the subject of Valerie Plame does not appear to have come up at all, making false Libby’s assertion that Russert said “all the reporters knew” about Plame’s CIA employment.
There are some interesting mysteries left. The indictment refers to a “senior official in the White House (“Official A”)” who advised Libby on July 10 or 11, 2003, of a conversation Official A had with Robert Novak in which Plame was discussed as a CIA employee. Also, sometime between June 1, 2003 and July 8, 2003, Cheney’s assistant for public affairs told Libby that the assistant had learned from “another government official” that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. One wonders whether Official A and/or the “other government official” happen to be Karl Rove.
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