The Cloud Over Cheney

"'Any sane person would think, based on what McClellan said in October 2003, that any person involved in this would be fired,' Mr. Fitzgerald said.

"The prosecutor's clear implication was that Mr. Bush failed to keep his word. Mr. Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, is still working at the White House despite having served as a source for two press accounts about Ms. Plame."

Gerstein concludes: "Mr. Fitzgerald's pregnant statements yesterday about Messrs. Bush and Cheney may have been intended to bolster the chance of convicting Mr. Libby by tying him to the unpopular political figures atop the executive branch. Another possibility is that the closing statements offered the prosecutor who has headed the investigation for more than three years his last clear opportunity to opine on the actions of the president and the vice president in the case. While prosecutors appointed under the independent counsel law were permitted to file reports on their findings, there is no such provision for Mr. Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney who was appointed by the Justice Department after senior officials there recused themselves because of the political sensitivity of the case."

On MSNBC's Hardball, Mike Isikoff of Newsweek and Tom DeFrank of the New York Daily News both reacted strongly to Fitzgerald's comments about Cheney.

Isikoff: "It's worth pointing out that what today's closing arguments really underscored is why the White House was so nervous about this trial, why they were so reluctant to talk anything about it.

"One thing Patrick Fitzgerald said in his closing arguments that kind of stunned me, he just laid it out there and because the defense had raised questions about vice president -- had suggested that -- that Scooter Libby might be unfairly portrayed as protecting Vice President Cheney. Fitzgerald said there is a cloud on the vice president, but the cloud is there because Scooter Libby put it there. We, the prosecution, didn't put it there. Scooter Libby put it there by obstructing justice.

"And then Fitzgerald ran through everything that Cheney did: writing the talking points, tearing out those articles from the newspaper and making those notes on them. Did his wife send him a junket? Putting the sort of junket claim argument in play.

"All of that was done was because the vice president -- Fitzgerald pretty much made it clear to the jury that Libby, in the prosecution's mind, was protecting the vice president of the United States."

DeFrank: "I would just say it's probably a very good week for the vice president to be in Asia right now because it hasn't been a good week for him.

"I mean, I think Fitzgerald and his fellow prosecutors put the vice president on trial, even though he was not charged with anything. But he was very much front and center in this trial from start to finish."

John Dickerson blogs for Slate: "Last week, Scooter Libby and his defense team decided not to call Vice President Dick Cheney to the witness stand. Today, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald brought him in anyway. 'Let's talk straight,' he said, sounding like John McCain. 'There is a cloud over the vice president.' One of the unanswered questions of the Libby trial is whether, as Cheney's aide, Scooter lied and obstructed justice to protect his boss from political embarrassment or legal jeopardy. In his closing argument, Fitzgerald said that it's Libby's fault those questions linger: 'That cloud remains because the defendant lied about evidence and obstructed justice.'"

Is Cheney Fitzgerald's Next Target?

Here's yet another example of how Fitzgerald pointed in Cheney's direction yesterday.