A Tale of Two Felonies

Here's the statement Bush issued on Feb. 9, after Allen's resignation was publicly announced: "Claude Allen has been a trusted advisor since 2001. . . . Claude is a good and compassionate man, and he has my deep respect and my gratitude. "

As For Libby

Libby's lawyers have been arguing that they needed access to massive amounts of the government's most secret documents to mount their best defense. Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has called that graymail -- an attempt to force the judge to dismiss the case rather than reveal national security secrets.

The two views are hardly compatible. And yet the judge on Friday tried to split the difference.

Jim VandeHei writes in The Washington Post: "A federal judge ordered the government yesterday to provide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby redacted versions of documents he reviewed or information he requested during highly classified morning intelligence briefings when he was chief of staff to Vice President Cheney.

"U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said in yesterday's decision that the government must provide edited versions of intelligence material also viewed by Cheney in morning briefings and a list, by topic only, of information requests Libby made during the top-secret meetings. Walton said that if the government cannot produce redacted copies of the documents in question, a list of general topic areas discussed each day would suffice. He said the material is relevant to Libby's 'preoccupation defense.' "

But there may be no such thing as agreeing to a little graymail. In an affidavit filed last week, the CIA insisted that summarizing all the material could actually be more laborious than simply collecting it -- and that even "a list of topics" would disclose top secret information and would be subject to a potential claim of executive privilege.

Blogger Jeralyn Merit very kindly Web-publishes the judge's memorandum and order .

In Other Plame News

John Crewdson writes in the Chicago Tribune that "Plame's secret life could be easily penetrated with the right computer sleuthing and an understanding of how the CIA's covert employees work."

Greg Mitchell writes in Editor and Publisher: "A massive Vanity Affair review of the Plame/CIA case coming to newsstands on Tuesday is notable for the absence of major revelations. . . .

"Actually, the only jolt for some readers will come nearly halfway through when they read that the writer of the piece, Marie Brenner, is a good friend of former New York Times reporter Judith Miller -- and even helped organize a farewell dinner for her just before she went to jail last year."

Censure Resolution

John Files writes in the New York Times: "Senator Russell D. Feingold said Sunday that he would introduce a measure in the Senate to censure President Bush over the domestic eavesdropping program.

" 'What the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered,' Mr. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said on the ABC News program 'This Week.' 'Proper accountability is a censuring of the president, saying: "Mr. President, acknowledge that you broke the law, return to the law, return to our system of government." . . .