Note: for six years I was one of the original
writers of the CIA Identities Law working for
its orignal sponsor, Senator Lloyd Bentsen.
For the judge and jury, it is the Libby trial.
For America and American politics, it is the
Dick Cheney trial and the stakes are far higher
than reported in the media.
What has emerged in evidence so far, is not
surprising, but it is astonishing. Vice-President
Cheney was so deeply involved and obsessed
with discrediting Joe Wilson that the impact and
implications are enormous and underestimated.
The Vice President was choreographer of the
attack on Wilson. He acted as though he was
the Deputy White House political director and
the Deputy White House press secretary. He
was organizing meetings, drafting talking points
and assigning which staff would talk to which reporter.
This is not what Vice Presidents do. This is
more than an attack on his enemy Wilson.
Most of us who have had high government
positions have faced these situations, and
launching a counter-attack could have been
done far more discreetly and professionally.
Plus: the naming of the Plame name, at the
very least, created harm to national security
and was an unpatriotic act. The minute the
Vice President, Libby, Rove, knew Valerie
worked at the Agency in a Bureau that
insiders would know immediately was highly
sensitive, without any doubt triggered red
lights, immediately.
When we were writing the original law, not one of us, could have ever
imagined that identity disclosers would be high officials in the U.S.
government. The law was aimed at people very hostile to the U.S., who
were acting in a manner that helped the KGB.
It was unthinkable to all of us, that anyone involved in these
disclosures, felonious or
not, would be high in the U.S. government.
Anyone who goes on television and says
otherwise is a liar.
Why?
My theory, with substantial evidence to back
it up, is that the danger of Joe Wilson was not
the damage that Wilson's view did to the
Administration policy. It was the danger
that Wilson's work would unravel a long
term, well planned, highly deceptive campaign
that preceded Joe's involvement to deceive
the country to drive us to war.
Prediction: major plea bargaining either has
begun, or will begin, before the verdict and
watch out if Libby sings in a plea deal.
Prediction: the original defense argument that
Libby was a fall guy for others, would only
anger and inflame the judge and jury. It
is no defense to say that others might have
committed similar or related crimes and that
is the impression this argument created.
Watch this: the sequence of events that could
be explosive includes a) the original Cheney
deposition to Fitzgerald, then b) testimony on
the record of extensive and absurd involvement
by the Vice President to the micro-level on the
attack against Wilson, leading to c) Cheney's
testimony in the trial if it happens.
The prosecutor and jury will compare what
Cheney said in the deposition, what facts
emerged in the trial, and Cheney's testimony
at trial. Do not be surprised if the word pardon
appears in the press, though the reaction would
be as strong as the Saturday Night Massacre
in the Nixon years.
The Surprise: what will shock people will be
when the Senate Intelligence Committee
releases its report on pre-war intelligence, which was covered up by the
Republican Committee before the elections.
The Senate report will, I predict, show major
deceptions that well preceded the events
in the Wilson case. This will put the whole
case in context. It will turn the spotlight on
the misrepresentations prior to Wilson, that
will explain the obsessive attack of Cheney
and Libby against Wilson.
Fasten your seat belts.
Nobody is out of the woods yet, and these
woods are dark and deep.