Rove/Libby, et al. (#2) Rove/Libby, et al. (#2)

Last Friday, the special prosecutor came down with a five count indictment against Scooter Libby, VP Cheney's Chief of Staff. Libby immediately resigned, and was just as quickly replaced.

Interestingly, the five counts all involved Libby's actions during the investigation. There were no indictments concerning the original purpose of the investigation - the supposed leak of Valerie Plume's covert status at the CIA.

What appears to have happened is that some in the Administration started figuring things out with Wilson and Plame starting in May, 2003, before Wilson ever published his NYT article. It looks like a lot of people in the Administration knew that Wilson's wife was in the CIA and that she had recommended him for the Niger job even before his article. And Libby was among these people.

But at least some (3?) of the counts in the indictment come down to Tim Russert said this, and Libby said that, and the special prosecutor believing Russert and not Libby. He says, She says, often doesn't make for an easy prosecution for perjury, etc. Worse here, the claim is that the topic wasn't discussed between the two, based on what Russert said. That could as likely mean that Russert has forgotten. I am sure that prosecutor has more - but we haven't seen it yet.

Also, importantly, neither Karl Rove nor VP Cheney were indicted. Remember, Wilson was predicting that Rove would be frog marched out of the EOB in handcuffs. At present, this looks highly unlikely.

Nevertheless, Wilson was all over the liberal MSM TV channels last weekend, and even ended up on C-Span last night. Another 15 minutes of fame for the guy.