Roll over, little doggy

NEW DISCLAIMER: The following post is not completely accurate. I claimed below that the grand jury testimony Libby gave was that he was ordered by Cheney to leak Plame's name to journalists. In fact, Cheney authorized Libby to leak classified intel in order to discredit Joseph Wilson, but not specifically Plame's name. My bad. But I haven't edited the orginal post, which starts below.

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This is where you'll find the latest development in the Scooter Libby Plamegate case, and I must say, it's fantastic.

Libby has given up Cheney. That's right. According to documents filed by Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who's been investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's name to reporters for over two years now, Libby testified before a grand jury that he was instructed to leak Plame's name in order to undermine the credibility of her husband, Joseph Wilson, one of the most dangerous critics the administration has ever faced.

An excerpt:

"Both Libby and Cheney have repeatedly insisted that the vice president never encouraged, directed, or authorized Libby to disclose Plame's identity. In a court filing on April 12, Libby's attorneys reiterated: 'Consistent with his grand jury testimony, Mr. Libby does not contend that he was instructed to make any disclosures concerning Ms. Wilson [Plame] by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, or anyone else.'

But the disclosure that Cheney instructed Libby to leak portions of a classified CIA report on Joseph Wilson adds to a growing body of information showing that at the time Plame was outed as a covert CIA officer the vice president was deeply involved in the White House effort to undermine her husband."

As of this moment, the online versions of CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, and the BBC are not carrying this story. It's only found in the National Journal, and there are links to the story from several liberal blogs, like Huffington Post and Raw Story. The guy who came up with the story first, an intrepid journalist by the name of Murray Waas, was also the first one to break the news last week that shrub authorized the leak of classified intelligence in order to support the rationale for the Iraq war.

I think this is big, guys. This is the first time that there's been direct evidence, in the form of Libby's testimony, that Cheney himself was involved in the leaking of an undercover CIA agent's name. I'm not sure what Fitzgerald thinks he can do with this, but the way I see it, Libby's testimony could be enough to at least indict Cheney for treason.

Hope, hope.

But what will actually happen is, of course, another question. If nothing else, this will be damn interesting.