What Would Cheney Say?

And then, to bolster his argument that notes from Cheney are more relevant to the case than notes from peripheral figures, Fitzgerald released several pages of Libby's hitherto secret grand jury testimony.

According to Libby's own testimony, Cheney was upset for several days about Wilson's op-ed in the New York Times -- and spoke of it frequently during that period.

"I recall that he was very keen to get the truth out," Libby told the grand jury on March 5, 2004. "He wanted to get all the facts out about what he had or hadn't done, what the facts were or were not. He was very keen about that and said it repeatedly. Let's get everything out."

Libby also testified that it is not uncommon for Cheney to get quite hung up about newspaper articles and columns.

Among the many still unanswered questions: What did Cheney say about all this when he was interviewed -- not under oath -- by prosecutors? What would he say under oath? Would he take the Fifth? Does Fitzgerald have any third-party evidence of what Cheney and Libby discussed during that period?

Here's what Fitzgerald wrote in his brief: "As the defendant admitted in his grand jury testimony, he communicated extensively with the Vice President regarding the Wilson Op Ed during the relevant period, and received direction from the Vice President regarding his response to the Wilson Op Ed. The Vice President's handwritten notes on a clipping of the Wilson Op Ed, which reflect his views concerning Mr. Wilson and his wife, are evidence of the views the Vice President communicated during the conversations that the Vice President and his chief of staff had during the period immediately following the publication of the Wilson Op Ed, and corroborate other evidence regarding these communications, which are central to the government's proof that defendant knowingly made false statements to federal agents and the grand jury."

Libby acknowledged in his grand jury testimony that Cheney had told him in early June 2003 that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Flash forward to Libby's testimony about a month after Wilson's op-ed:

"A. I believe by, by this week I no longer remembered that. I had forgotten it. And I believe that because when it was told to me on July 10, a few days after this article, it seemed to me as if I was learning it for the first time."

The Coverage

R. Jeffrey Smith writes in The Washington Post: "Vice President Cheney was personally angered by a former U.S. ambassador's newspaper column attacking a key rationale for the war in Iraq and repeatedly directed I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, then his chief of staff, to 'get all the facts out' related to the critique, according to excerpts from Libby's 2004 grand jury testimony released late yesterday by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. . . .

"In the court filing that included the formerly secret testimony, Fitzgerald did not assert that Cheney instructed Libby to tell reporters the name and role of Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife. But he said Cheney's interactions with Libby on that topic were a key part of the reason Libby allegedly made false statements to the FBI about his conversations with reporters around the time her name was disclosed in news accounts."

Tim Grieve writes in Salon that "in the course of his brief, Fitzgerald makes it clear -- without saying so explicitly -- that he'd like to put Cheney on the stand ... [t]o question him about the conversations he had with Libby about Wilson's column, and in the process to undercut Libby's claim that those conversations didn't involve the identity of Wilson's wife. . . .

"Libby has admitted that he talked with Cheney after Wilson's article appeared, and that Cheney said then that he wanted to 'get the truth out' about it. Libby has also admitted that his conversations with Cheney immediately after Wilson's article was published touched on all of the topics covered in the handwritten notes -- all except one: While Libby acknowledges that he and Cheney discussed Wilson's wife long before and long after Wilson's op-ed appeared, he says it's the one issue that they didn't discuss in the immediate aftermath of the op-ed. . . .