What Next for Sheehan Saga?

"So it may not be surprising that he is considering perjury charges in his current assignment -- as a special prosecutor investigating whether anyone in the Bush administration illegally leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to journalists. . . .

"Fitzgerald's tendency to invoke the laws against lying comes from two things, colleagues say: the particular way he uses grand jury testimony when he conducts an investigation, and his deep-seated aversion to being lied to.

"Many prosecutors go before a grand jury only after they have a case pretty well wrapped up. But Fitzgerald's approach is to use the grand jury as a tool for compelling witnesses to disclose information. And if he thinks a witness has fiddled with the truth, associates say, he becomes indignant."

Waas also wrote in the American Prospect last week: 'I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby's account. . . .

"In her affidavit, Miller also asserted: 'I have never written an article about Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson. I did however contemplate writing one or more articles in July 2003, about issues related to Ambassador Wilson's op-ed piece. In preparation for those articles, I spoke and/or met with several potential sources. One or more of those potential sources insisted as a precondition to providing information to me, that I agree to maintain the confidentiality of their identity.'"

Blogger Atrios writes: "I can't think of any reason that Judith Miller shouldn't answer the following question: 'Did you inform Karl Rove or Scooter Libby that Joe Wilson's wife was a CIA operative?'"

Walter Pincus wrote in The Washington Post last week that evidence suggests that Plame did not in fact recommend Wilson for the Niger trip.

The CIA maintains "that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife -- largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999. On that trip, Plame, who worked in that division, had suggested him because he was planning to go there, according to Wilson and the Senate committee report. . . .

"Senior Bush administration officials told a different story about the trip's origin in the days between July 8 and July 12, 2003. They said that Wilson's wife was working at the CIA dealing with weapons of mass destruction and that she suggested him for the Niger trip, according to three reporters."

So where might they have gotten that idea? Pincus traces it to a June 2003 memo by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research -- the same secret memo that Fitzgerald has apparently asked a lot of questions about.

And Elisabeth Bumiller wrote in the New York Times last weekend all about the incident in Texas in 1992 when "Mr. Rove was fired from the state campaign to re-elect the first President Bush on suspicions that Mr. Rove had leaked damaging information to Mr. Novak about Robert Mosbacher Jr., the campaign manager and the son of a former commerce secretary."

No Veto?

Josh Burek writes in the Christian Science Monitor: "Like pardons and executive orders, vetoes are among the cherished privileges of the Oval Office. Ike liked them. So did presidents Truman and Cleveland - and both Roosevelts.