The New York Times has just broken the story that it was Dick Cheney who told
Scooter Libby about plame.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24  I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s
chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the
leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her
identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and
Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby’s testimony to
a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer,
Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time
place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn
about Ms. Wilson’s husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the
administration’s handling of intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program to
justify the war.Lawyers said the notes show that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked
at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her
undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on
July 14, 2003.Mr. Libby’s notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information
about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence,
in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they
contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time
of Ms. Wilson’s undercover status or that her identity was classified.
Disclosing a covert agent’s identity can be a crime, but only if the person
who discloses it knows the agent’s undercover status.It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom
are presumably cleared to know the government’s deepest secrets, to discuss
a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any
effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with
Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel
in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry.
Article continues
here.
This brings new light to the rumor of Cheney being involved and possibly
stepping down as Vice President. There is still a lot of questions to be
answered but the pieces are starting to come together in this very complicated
puzzle of mystery.