If Cheney ordered the leak then he is the head of the conspiracy:

[Perky]

And he will be indicted.

Even if he is not indicted, he willbe compelled to testify as a witness for the defense.

The fun part is going go be seeing him trying to wiggle out of testifying on the basis on executive privilege or National security grounds. That alone goes to SCOTUS and drags this out for the rest of the term. Think that is why &* wanted Meiers on the court?

Talk about death by 1,000 cuts.

Many many republicans will ask him to step down if indcicted becasue he will start draggint the party down with him.

Hes is the fascinating thing White House Counsel has to buile a mile-wide and mile deep firewall between Cheney and Libby. It actually should have been done months ago, If they have not done that and the two have been chatting about a game plan they ahve to stop as soon as the indictments call down.. because then it becomes obstruction,

Cheney's personal Lawyer better advise him of such or this whole cabal is open for criminal investigation starting with Yellow Cake and the energy taskforce

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. At the least, he lied to the Grand Jury

and was a major part of the cover up and continued sliming of the Wilsons.

[Verve]

11. I don't think he ever went before the grand jury. He did have a

private conversation with Fitzgerald. He did not take an oath, which would have been redundant because lying to a federal prosecutor is a crime.

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. Even if the prosecutor did the interview privately

he was still giving testimony to the Grand Jury because they called him to answer questions for their investigation.

[Verve]

17. Good point! I just wanted to clarify to people he did not actually go

before the grand jury.

He and Bush made such a big stink about not testifying to the Grand Jury and not taking an oath when they finally did meet with Fitzgerald, I just wanted to keep the facts straight.

[maine_raptor]

2. How are you going to prove he ordered it?

At least with Nixon, there were tapes. I doubt that Cheney was bugging himself.

Only way it can be proved that it happened (Cheney conspired to smear Wilson) is documents(records, tapes, etc.) or someone squealing.

Unless Fitzy has that, then Cheney will be a sidebar at best.

Suspicious, yes. Logical, yes, but provable in court, no.

[Perky]

3. Smearing Wlson is not an indictable offense

[maine_raptor]

5. Yup, just good ol'fashioned Politics

:puke:

[HereSince1628]

7. Yep, you've got that rw talking point nailed.

But who thinks this is just about Wilson?

It seems Fitzgerald's search for motive has taken him into the realm of the forged yellowcake documents.

And that IMO turned the investigation in a different direction. That could easily have resulted in 8 redacted pages.

[maine_raptor]

10. Which brings up the question of

who did the deed (fake the docs).

If it was Chalabi (sp?), well we know he was working with Big Dick on the Iraqi Project and then does push us into the realm of how the war drums were beaten, but....

There is one BIG difference between THIS scandal and Watergate (what everybody seems to have on the back of their mind) and that is in Watergate, there was both a Special Prosecutor and a Senate Hearing.

It was the Senate Hearing that really pulled the American People into the scandal. As long as the ReThugs hold Congress there can be no real forum for outing the problem as we see it (lying to go to war and the criminals that did it).

[HereSince1628]

13. Don't give up on the drive for political survival...

A majority of the American people want Bush impeached if he lied about the evidence for going to war.

And believe it or not there are still some Law and Order republicans in Congress.

If Fitzgerald presents arguments that clearly imply Bush did mislead the government and the American people, there could be a nexus of those republicans and the democrats.

[Perky]

15. I agee

[Perky]

16. I am not saying its right

I am just saying that smearing wilson by itself is not a crime. It is not libel it is not slander, Outing Plame is a crime. Claming up about how that came to hapeen is obstruction. Lying to a grand Jury is perjry.


But semaring WIlson is not a crime.

[Justice]

8. Law of Unintended Consequences - they wanted to smear him,

and tried to say his wife sent him - that was the smear: not credible b/c wife sent him.

But here is my problem: So what the guy's wife sent him? - Why is that a bad thing? She worked for the CIA - wouldn't that suggest he would be in sync with the government? Clearly WH thought there was a negative implication there - that the guy was biased because married to a CIA person - why would a spouse of a CIA person be biased? And biased against whom - the WH?

This was all part of the battle between the WH's plan to go to war in absence of proof and the CIA who was fighting to make sure the truth came out.

I think Cheney wanted to smear Wilson and was prepared to do anything at all to accomplish that - he thought he could get away with it.

[Justice]

4. I think he ordered that Wilson's credibility be smeared, and as

we know - this administration takes the scorched earth approach to smearing. There is no question in my mind that once Cheney heard that a former US ambassador went to Niger at the CIA's request and came back saying there was no evidence that Iraq tried to buy the stuff - Cheney want to take down that US ambassador. He wanted to find him, and take him down.

Does anyone disagree with me?

[Zynx]

6. I think a conspiracy is obvious and here's why:

While it is not technically illegal for him to be discussing a specific CIA agent, why the hell is he discussing the identity of THAT particular agent at THAT particular time? It is obvious when you look at it that he is disclosing this information to Libby, who disclosed it either directly, or through his toadies, in an organized campaign to leak. There was no reason for him to bring that up otherwise.

[MiniMe]

9. Cheney will never go on trial

Bush will pardon him because of national security, you know, terra. He should have to step down from the vice presidency, but that has been speculated on for a while.

[C_U_L8R]

12. They want you to believe....

that Cheney was the mastermind of the conspiracy.
In essence, they are throwing him overboard in
order to protect the president. Dubya will
just shrug, smirk and play dumb.. and it will
all be as fake as his Texas accent.
Maybe one of the conspirators will get
a flash of patriotic duty and provide
evidence to impeach. I hope they don't
let the chimp get away with it.