John Byrne
Published: Thursday May 25, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The latest filing by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the CIA leak investigation indicates the prosecutor possesses "evidence" about communication between Vice President Dick Cheney and his former chief of staff who was indicted in connection with the ongoing investigation into the outing of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.
RAW STORY has found an all-but-unnoticed sentence in the filing released by Fitzgerald late Wednesday. In his filing, Fitzgerald says testimony by "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's erstwhile chief of staff, "corroborate the government's other evidence indicating that these issues were communicated to defendant by his immediate superior, who also directed defendant during the critical week after July 6 to get into the public "all" the facts in response to the Wilson Op Ed."
It's possible that Fitzgerald's "other evidence" is a reference to Libby's grand jury testimony, which he included as part of his filing Wednesday. But the reference comes at the end of a paragraph also referencing Libby's testimony, and the prosecutor's careful language states "other evidence" rather than "defendant's testimony," as he asserts earlier in the paragraph.
"Defendant's testimony discussed above makes clear that defendant talked to the Vice President multiple times about the Wilson Op Ed and that, during one or more of these conversations, the Vice President discussed with defendant issues noted in the Vice President's handwritten annotations -- including the issue of Mr. Wilson's wife's employment at the CIA," Fitzgerald writes. "Therefore, the annotations corroborate the government's other evidence indicating that these issues were communicated to defendant by his immediate superior, who also directed defendant during the critical week after July 6 to get into the public "all" the facts in response to the Wilson Op Ed."
The investigation was mounted to determine whether or not Administration officials may have illegally outed a covert CIA operative, but has of late turned to the "cover-up" instead of the actual outing. Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald indicted Libby not on leaking the agent's name but for lying to federal investigators and obstruction of justice. Senior presidential adviser Karl Rove is also under scrutiny for allegedly misleading the FBI in his interviews about the outing.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/CIA_leak_filing_indicates_government_has_0525.html
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