Wow. This just from MSNBC news alert:
WASHINGTON — Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald used his opening statement in the CIA leak trial Tuesday to allege that Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff lied about Cheney’s early involvement in the disclosure of a spy’s identity.
Fitzgerald said Cheney told his chief of staff, “Scooter” Libby, in 2003 that the wife of Iraq critic and former ambassador Joseph Wilson worked for the CIA, and that Libby spread that information to reporters. When that information got out, it triggered a federal investigation.
“But when the FBI and grand jury asked about what the defendant did,” Fitzgerald said, “he made up a story.”
Fitzgerald also alleged that Libby in September 2003 “wiped out” a Cheney note just before Libby’s first FBI interview when he said he learned about Wilson and his wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, from reporters, not the vice president.
It was not clear if Fitzgerald meant that an attempt was made to destroy the note or that Libby had forgotten about it. In any case, the note was recovered and is part of the evidence.
During last year’s State of the Union address, President Bush had newly confirmed Supreme Court Associate Justice Sam Alito smiling in the front row. Alito’s presence was an ornament showing that Bush was back and had shaken off Democratic party resistance.
Tonight, Cheney won’t be an ornament of success — but rather a ball and chain dragging him down and reminding Americans about Iraq, the Valerie Plame affair, cherry-picking of intelligence, and official duplicity and corruption.
Wow. Patrick Fitzgerald is back.
— Steve Clemons
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