Wednesday, July 06, 2005
TreasonGate: Fitz Springs The Trap
And now we enter the homestretch. Note that Matt Cooper's source has given Cooper permission to talk (and to thus stay out of jail), but Judy Miller's source apparently has not. That means that 1) they have different sources, or 2) they have the same source, but that source likes Cooper more than Miller. I personally feel that Option #1 is more likely, so let's go with that. If this is true, then it sure looks like Fitz is using one of the journos for a perjury conviction and the other for the underlying crime conviction -- and that the person targeted for both convictions is Rove. I'm guessing that Fitzgerald wants to overcome Rove's efforts at plausible deniability by documenting a established pattern and practice of deception on Rove's part. Think of all the people Fitz has already talked to. The more people involved, the greater trouble Rove or anyone else would have in keeping their stories straight. Fitz is keeping track of the inconsistencies and hammering the sources with them. I expect that Fitz' ultimate gambit is to bring charges of leaking AND perjury against Rove, with the expectation that Rove will try to plea bargain for the lesser charge (which in this case would be perjury) in order to get out from under the leaking charge. Except that Fitz will throw the fricking book at Rove. I'm not the only person thinking along these, or similar, lines. Over at Democratic Underground's message boards -- which often have a less-than-desirable signal-to-noise ratio, but can be useful if you keep your critical faculties engaged -- we find this:
This would explain why Rove seems so confident that he won't be convicted under the Intelligence Identies Protection Act (IIPA). He compartmentalized the leak so that Plame's full role as an undercover CIA operative was sourced through Judy Miller to the other reporters. Miller is not a gov't employee, so she can't be prosecuted under IIPA. Rove provided other information, but not that Plame was undercover. Very clever. But, he and the other government source have set themselves up for obstruction of justice, perjury, and possible conspiracy charges.
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