Whither Whig?

by emptywheel

So as I lay down to sleep last night, I realized there was one thing pretty consistently missing from Libby's indictment, something the MSM had led us to expect.

Where is the discussion of WHIG's activities?

As a reminder, the members of WHIG are generally thought to include: Rove, Matalin, Hughes, Card, Jim Wilkinson, Nicholas Calio, Hadley, Condi, Libby.

And here are the Bush Administration people (in addition to Libby) named in the indictment:

• Bush (Paras 2)
• Marc Grossman (Paras 4 and 6)
• "another person in the OVP" (Para 5)
• Cheney (Para 9)
• Libby's Principal Deputy (Para 13--I'm still trying to figure out who this is, but I'm fairly certain it's not Matalin, the only other OVP person in WHIG)
• Ari Fleischer (Para 16)
• Addington (Para 18)
• Cathie Martin (Para 19)
• Rove (Para 21)

There are also a few group discussions named:

Libby participated in discussions in the Office of the Vice President concerning how to respond to Pincus. (Para 8)

Libby discussed with other officials aboard the plane what Libby should say in response to certain pending media inquiries, including questions from Time reporter Matthew Cooper. (Para 22)

These two group discussions are probably not WHIG (the first one, however, may be one of the "Get Wilson" meetings we've heard about), since they seem to be OVP discussions and not WHIG ones (further, we know several WHIG members were in Africa for the second discussion).

Rove's the only WHIGer to show up in the indictment at all. Now this may be no big deal. It is quite likely that the MSM were just working off leaks that misdirected them as to the guts of this case. And that WHIG was never that important to this case after all.

But there is another possibility.

Most of the people who appear in the indictment fall into two categories: people who appear to be cooperating and have left the Administration (Ari--who is one of the key witnesses to refute Libby's "I forgot" Tale, so I gotta believe he's cooperating, on whatever terms; and Grossman), and people who are mentioned in Libby's notes unrelated to WHIG. But no one (except for Karl) who is a member of WHIG.

One more observation: there are other persons of interest that don't clearly appear either--Hannah, Wurmser, and Bolton.

Now, if I've learned the lessons ReddHedd has taught reasonably well, it's that the problem with convicting conspiracy cases is you've got to keep your evidence secret until you're ready to get everyone. You normally do that through sealed indictments--getting the indictments without letting the big guys know you've got those indictments. Because if you let them know what you've got, the avenue you're pursuing, that avenue will quickly close down.

But in this case, Fitzgerald indicted someone who would have been a key witness in the whole conspiracy.

Now I think there are a number of reasons he did that. Because he needed to throw something to the raging crowds. Because he needed to prove he wasn't on a witch hunt. Because he needed to get some leverage on Libby.

But Fitzgerald has kept every piece of evidence he's got on a conspiracy charge hidden. You can't tell, reading this indictment, whether anyone on WHIG is cooperating (what did Karl offer to Fitzgerald to forestall his own indictment?), whether Wurmser and Hannah have flipped, whether he's got anything on Bolton. And what happened to Hadley, anyway, since the time he supposedly told friends that he expected to be indicted? Nothing that would reveal any possible further outlines of this investigation. Which makes me believe Fitzgerald still believes there are going to be a couple of rounds of betting, and he doesn't want to give anything away about what he holds in his hand.

We're still playing poker here, folks. And Fitzgerald hasn't yet shown what cards he's got. He's only just upped the ante.

Comments

[emptywheel]

Now that I look at that list, I'm really struck by the "another person in the OVP." Fitz has made everyone else in this indictment identifiable, even Turd Blossom. But not this person. Presumably this piece of evidence either comes from seeing the distribution address, speaking to the other person who received this information, or speaking to someone in CIA about who they sent what. In other words, it's not that they don't know who this person is. It's that they're not telling us.

Why not?

Is it Dick, who received those documents? Is it Matalin, and she has been told she won't be named here to stave off suspicion? Why not identify this person, but identify everyone else.

Incidentally, this batch of information is interesting. The information described is almost certainly the CIA report on Wilson's trip, which we know doesn't identify him by name.

And what of multiple people writing "Joe Wilson" on these documents?

[DemFromCT]

Why not identify this person, but identify everyone else?

they know who they are better than we do. But maybe it's to make them sweat over who flipped. Then again... well, we'll have to wait whatever we think.

[Mimikatz]

Interesting theory. I think it possible that there are at least a couple other indictments out there that are sealed, although Fitz really did seem to say yesterday that talking about Valerie Wilson within the named government circles isn't illegal. The crime is in the unauthorized disclosure, and that is a tricky offense. That is what and who he wants to punish. So unless Cheney called Novak, I doubt Fitz is going for him.

If there are remaining indictments, they will be against whoever told Novak. Maybe it was Libby and Karl is arguing he just confirmed, as para 21 suggests. It depends on what Novak testified to. Maybe it was Fleitz/Bolton/Wurmser/Hannah and he has gotten him to plead to an information, which means he doesn't need a grand jury indictment, and is just waiting to wrap up the Rove thing. Anyway, I don't think there will be a conspiracy indictment, or an indictment of Cheney. But I've been wrong before.

[Pachacutec]

Excellent, EW.

This has been my analysis and central thesis as well, as I've commented at FDL, but you add depth and detail to the analysis.

Bravo.

[emptywheel]

Mimikatz

I agree this doesn't show he's working on a conspiracy charge. What it means is that he's hiding whether he's working on it or not. Keeping that possibility completely protected. So he can return to it if he finds it useful to (or if he finalizes the evidence on it). He certainly can't indict just one person with a conspiracy, though--so there's no way he could indict on that yesterday. We need to wait to see whether Rove gets indicted, if he is, then conspiracy starts to become possible.

[Kilgore Trout]

So unless Cheney called Novak, I doubt Fitz is going for him.

I completely disagree. Whoever was in on *any* discussions about leaking the information is exposed to a conspiracy charge related to the underlying crime, which may be the IIPA or under the espionage statutes. So if Fitz gets comfortable that he can place Cheney in such a discussion, I think he'll indict him.

And I agree with the overall premise of this post, Fitz kept his cards very close to the vest here.

[kim]

I just saw that TPM has linked to a NYTimes article saying Fitzgerald was spotted outside the office of Jim Sharp, Bush's Plame leak personal lawyer:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/29/politics/29leak.html?pagewanted=all

Business as usual?

[emptywheel]

Oooh. The plot thickens.