With the announcement that there would be no announcement Thursday in the CIA leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald is giving me an ulcer – so you can imagine what he’s doing to Scooter Libby. Oh, we know he and his little elves are working assiduously to make sure we have a very merry Fitzmas as early as Friday morning – and the joy of Fitzmas, it seems, is all in the surprises. Of which there may be more than even the most optimistic among us ever imagined.
At this point, however, we are suffering from a dearth of hard facts, and any discussion of the case, even in the broadest sense, runs a high risk of descending into pure speculation. I am therefore taking the nearly unprecedented step of delaying the posting of my Friday column, which invariably occurs at 10:00 p.m. (PST) on Thursday, until Fitzgerald makes his move sometime Friday. The key word in the previous sentence is “sometime.” All I can say is keep checking this space…
Oh, and by the way…
I also note that my Friday column isn’t the only item being put off on account of the legal denouement of Fitzgerald’s investigation. We normally schedule our quarterly fundraising drives like clockwork, but this coming week promises to be so important that we’ve decided to put it off for another week. As we’ve been saying since the beginning, this probe will prove to be the War Party’s Waterloo – and we need to devote all our energy and attention to it. Aside from that, devoting the top third of the front page to a fundraising spiel would be too intrusive at this time. But don’t worry – we’ll be getting back to you on that…
UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that Libby is being indicted for sure, and that Fitzgerald is moving to extend the grand jury’s term – leaving open the possibility that Rove could face charges in the near future. This is pretty much what I predicted here and here, and I’ll reiterate: this is not about Rove, it’s about Libby and the conspiracy to lie us into war.
If Stephen J. Hadley is indicted, as rumored, then the view that the prosecutor is expanding the investigation seems far more likely – backing up La Repubblica, an Italian daily, which is reporting Hadley’s 2002 meeting with the head of Italy’s military intelligence service, where the Niger uranium forgeries were passed along to the all-too-gullible neocons. While the White House indulged in a willing suspension of disbelief, the question arises: what did Libby know? What did Hadley know? And what did Cheney know?
Inquiring minds want to know. More later…
