From here on in, we can expect Libby to be charged. The only question is what evidence Fitzgerald may or may not have that leaking this information was part of a multiperson conspiracy to distribute it.Based on Rove's conversation with Time reporter Cooper, he may have a very, very strong case for that as well.
Rove? Very likely:
Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald appears to be seriously weighing a perjury charge for Rove's failure to tell grand jurors that he talked to TIME correspondent Matthew Cooper about Plame, according to a person close to Rove.
Cheney? Could happen:
A federal prosecutor questioned New York Times reporter Judith Miller about whether Vice President Dick Cheney himself was aware or authorized her discussions with his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, about a covert CIA operative, Miller said on Saturday.
Frank Rich says it's not about Libby and Rove any more, but Bush and Cheney (article behind paid registration):
This modus operandi was foolproof, shielding the president as well as Mr. Rove from culpability, as long as it was about winning an election. The attack on Mr. Wilson, by contrast, has left them and the Cheney-Libby tag team vulnerable because it's about something far bigger: protecting the lies that took the country into what the Reagan administration National Security Agency director, Lt. Gen. William Odom, recently called "the greatest strategic disaster in United States history."
And the worst could actually be yet to come. The GOP appears to be even more worried about what the outcome of the investigation into the affairs of Jack Abramoff might reveal:
And while the CIA leak investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, now in its second year, has yet to yield indictments, the investigations of Abramoff have resulted, so far, in bank fraud charges against him; obstruction charges against David Safavian, the Bush administration's former chief procurement official; and the withdrawal of President Bush's nomination of Timothy Flanigan, a onetime associate of Abramoff, to be the No. 2 official at the Justice Department.
Abramoff has had close connections with leading Republicans, including Bush; U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay of Sugar Land, the former House majority leader; Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania; party strategist Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform; and strategist Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition executive director and Bush campaign official who is now running for lieutenant governor of Georgia.
This is going to be the worst month for the GOP since 1974.
