Some Questions Congress Might Ask

Well, folks, we’re down to congressional remedies and public opinion if we’re going to hold Cheney responsible for outing a CIA spy. To that end, here are some questions I suggest HJC pursue:

Did Bush ask Libby to take the lead in responding to Wilson’s allegations on June 9, 2003? How did Libby learn of Bush’s concerns about the allegations? What did Bush say to Libby? Is this conversation why Vice President Cheney, in October of the same year, effectively said that the President had asked Libby to stick his neck in a meat grinder?

What classified documents did Cheney see when he was at the CIA researching Wilson’s trip? Were any of those documents written by Valerie Plame? If so, did those documents identify Plame by pseudonym or cryptonym, making it clear that Plame was covert?

Did Bush unilaterally declassify Valerie Plame’s covert identity and the CIA report on Wilson’s trip? Did Cheney ask him to specifically?

What did Cheney and Libby mean when they told Craig Schmall, on July 14, 2003, that Bob Novak’s column outing Valerie Plame "wasn’t his problem"? Did they know, already at that point, that it was somebody’s problem?

When and where did Libby tell Cheney that he was going to testify to the FBI that he had forgotten Plame’s identity until he learned it anew from Tim Russert? Did Cheney help Libby concoct that atrociously bad story?

Have Cheney and Libby ever discussed ensuring that Libby would avoid jail time? Cheney issue his statement on Libby’s sentencing from his personal lawyer’s office. Did he do so to ensure that he could issue a statement making a clear call for pardon or commutation, while hiding the discussions he had behind Attorney-Client privilege?

That’s just off the top of my head. Now let me give it more thought…