Cheney directly implicated by notes?

[bobobrazil1984 0]

Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report

By DAVID JOHNSTON, RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL

 

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 - I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

 

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

 

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.

 

Lawyers involved in the case, who described the notes to The New York Times, said they showed that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.

 

Mr. Libby's notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson's undercover status or that her identity was classified. Disclosing a covert agent's identity can be a crime, but only if the person who discloses it knows the agent's undercover status.

 

It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry.

 

continued here

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/politics...agewanted=print

 

It goes on a little more, the whole thing's worth a read,

 

but I think its almost time for the ole "the special prosecutor has a political vendetta~!!!!!!!!" strategy, as they're getting into dangerous territory here.

 

Of particular interest is that if the notes are true (and why would LIbby make fake notes?) that could lead to a pretty clear "perjury" case against Libby even if the cia thing wasn't a crime!

 

Maybe people should jsut stop taking notes. Tapes are what did Nixon in, and notes could be the downfall of Libby/Rove (probably not Cheney he is too big fish)

[Justice 0]

I understand that Libby is probably fucked (Or will somehow wrangle his way out of this, though Lord only knows how) and rightly so, but how is Cheney exactly implicated in anything? It seems like the Times sort of worded this as Cheney doing more than he really did, which was ask and learn who Wilson was married to.

 

*Shrugs*

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Yeah it doesn't seem like Cheney is involved here other than to make the case against Libby stronger than it already was.

[NoCalMike 0]

I think it has something to do with Cheney saying for 2 years that he heard it from a reporter, when in fact he was lying and he really heard it from someone else...

[TheBostonStrangler 0]

I'd agree with NoCalMike, as that seems to be the angle the Times was playing up. On its own, I don't think it's a particularly big deal, but if the prosecutor finds other evidence to go after Cheney with, that small lie could end up being a big chink in his armor. And Libby's up shit creek at this point.