Cheney holds the key to Plamegate

I love Jason Leopold. The man has been tireless in exposing the malfeasance of the White House and this piece is no exception. It appears "250 pages of lost emails" of Cheney's, related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, that were somehow "improperly archived," (read that as hastily deleted), were "discovered" and are now in the possession of the quiet but deadly Patrick Fitzgerald.

The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said.

Sources close to the probe said the White House “discovered” the emails two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week. The sources added that the emails could prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004. Cheney said that he was unaware of any effort to discredit Wilson or unmask his wife’s undercover status to reporters.

As is customary in the interviews of the corrupt crony crowd, Cheney was not under oath when he lied to FBI investigators, but the emails "will show that the vice president spearheaded an effort in March 2003 to attack Wilson’s credibility and used the CIA to dig up information on the former ambassador that could be used against him, sources said." This shores up Jeralyn's long held contention.

And this is interesting. Anyone who thought Plamegate was over with the indictment of Scooter Libby can think again.

In another development in the leak case Friday, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said another administration official, who does not work at the White House, also spoke to reporters about Plame Wilson. This individual, according to sources close to the case, works at the National Security Council.

Walton said that Libby’s defense team was not entitled to be told of the individual’s identity because the person is not charged with a crime in the leak. However, the person is said to be one of several people in the administration who is cooperating with the probe.

Who knows if they can convict Cheney for this obvious misuse of his office within the judicial system but one expects he will be found guilty in the court of public opinion. Of course you can also expect the miscreants to continue to dodge and obfuscate in an attempt to prevent the investigation from reaching its conclusion for as long as possible.

The real lesson in this story however, is, nothing is ever really deleted from a computer.