Why Would Rove Testify Again?
/in emptywheel /by emptywheelJust a quick update to suggest why Rove might be going before the jury again. As Lawrence O’Donnell says, this is a sure sign of desperation.
What this means is Rove’s lawyer, Bob Luskin, believes his client is defintely going to be indicted.
Before I explain why Fitzgerald may be willing to waste his time listening to the great fabricator again, let’s review some details.
Anatomy of a White House Smear, Redux
/in emptywheel /by emptywheelA couple of months ago, I summarized the Plame Affair best as I could speculate. A lot of new information has come to light, so I decided to update that narrative.
The Background–Niger Claims and Power Struggles
I’ll start with some background. There are two reasons why members of the Bush Administration were reckless enough to out a NOC out of petty revenge. First, Wilson’s criticisms risked exposing their elaborate plot to plant Niger forgeries. There is now a lot of circumstantial evidence that Iran-Contra operative Michael Ledeen and Harold Rhode planted the Niger forgeries with SISMI, Italian intelligence. I think the original plan was just to plant the forgeries so friendly members of SISMI could funnel the intelligence–but never the documents–to the US. But as people within the US Intelligence Community continued to question the Niger claims, the plotters finally had to produce actual documents. Which is why, in October of 2002, Elisabetta Burba, an employee of the Berlusconi-owned Panorama, received the documents.
Let's Make a Deal: A Word on Judy's Timing
/in emptywheel /by emptywheelThere’s been a lot of discussion on the timing involved in Judy’s deal with Fitzgerald. Was it Franklin’s plea bargain? Was it DeLay’s indictment? Of course, none of these make sense, since she has been working on a deal for almost a month and a half.
Actually, Murray Waas tells us what the catalyst to Judy talking was. In large part, his own article.
A short time after that story appeared (indeed a very, very short time– about a week later), Miller’s attorneys and Libby’s attorney, Joseph A. Tate, began prolonged negotiations that would lead to Libby finally providing her a personal waiver that would lead to her release and testimony. There is quite a backstory there, and my then unnoticed Prospect story paved the way, in large part, I am told for those negotiations.
My guess, from this, is that Judy used the news that Scooter had already talked about the meeting himself as an entre to start negotiations. Moreover, I imagine she felt a little exposed here. Imagine going to jail to protect a source, but in so doing, allowing him to tell his side of the story but not you to tell your side of the story. I think that’d make me a whole lot less willing to take the fall, particularly if I felt Libby had misrepresented the story. Particularly if I were as interested in self-preservation as Judy.