If indicted, Karl Rove plans to resign or go on administrative leave. Time reports that a resignation is "much more likely" and that the same applies to Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis (Scooter) Libby.
The magazine also reports that special prosecutor Fitzgerald appears to be considering slapping Rove with a perjury charge. If charged with perjury, Bush's Brain's defense will be: "I forgot."
But of course, no one really knows what Fitzgerald has in mind.
"If he played his cards any closer to the vest, they'd be in his underwear," says a lawyer who is a friend of the White House. But Fitzgerald's intentions aren't the only mystery. Another character in the drama remains unnamed: the original source for columnist Robert Novak, who wrote the first piece naming Plame. Fitzgerald, says a lawyer who's involved in the case, "knows who it is—and it's not someone at the White House."
Time notes that according to today's long-awaited published accounts by both Judith Miller and the New York Times, Miller also suffers from a convenient memory lapse.
The nearly 6,000-word Times account says that notes Miller turned over to the prosecutor contain Plame's name, misspelled as "Valerie Flame," in the same notebook she used to interview Libby, but as Miller wrote in an accompanying first-person piece in the Times, she told the grand jury she believed that information came from "another source, whom I could not recall."
Yet Libby does not necessarily get a get-out-of-jail-free card from Miller:
One key point that Fitzgerald is sure to pursue: in his letter to Miller allowing her to testify, Libby asserted that "the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me." In her account, Miller made clear that while she could not recall if Libby had ever identified Wilson's wife by name, he did in fact tell her in a two-hour breakfast meeting on July 8, 2003—six days before columnist Novak disclosed to the world Plame's name and her role as an operative at the agency—that Wilson's wife worked at WINPAC, which stands for Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, a CIA unit that tracks unconventional weapons. Miller testified that she assumed that meant Wilson's wife worked as an analyst, not as an undercover operative.
And, according to U.S. News and World Report, White House insiders are discussing a replacement for Bush's brain, should said brain be indicted.
Topping the list: lobbyist, former Republican Party chairman, and judicial shepherd Ed Gillespie. . They said that Gillespie is the only Bush ally with the political seasoning and gravitas to take the job.
Hat tip to Political Wire
Photo found at All Hat No Cattle
Karl Rove Judith Miller Lewis Libby CIA leak Plamegate Rove Fitzgerald Valerie Plame Bush Iraq War Impeach Bush Politics
