Libby to be charged later today

The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case will later today announce a federal grand jury indictment against I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff, and national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, according to attorneys involved in the case.

The indictment will focus on charges that Libby mislead federal investigators and the grand jury hearing evidence in the case for the past 22 months, according to the same sources.

Contrary to many news reports that with today's indictment, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has wrapped up his investigation, his inquiry will continue as an ongoing matter.

The prosecutor will still want to hear Libby's later testimony regarding the role of others in the Bush administration in the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, if at some point Libby were to plead guilty, or be found guilty by a jury, and then further co-operate with his inquiry.

Federal prosecutors have long believed that Libby not only mislead the grand jury to protect himself, but perhaps others in the White House who might have played a role in the outing of Plame, the legal sources said further.

Lost in the more significant news of the moment, the vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, last night renewed demands on
the White House to turn over materials regarding Libby's role in allegedly distorting intelligence information to make the administration case to go to war with Iraq.

Rockefeller was reacting to a report that was posted online yesterday in the National Journal, and which I wrote, disclosing that Vice President Cheney and Libby personally overruled the advice of some political staff and administration attorneys that they cooperate with the committee probe. (see post below for more details.)

Here below is Rockefeller's statement:

"In February 2003 the White House provided input to the CIA during the preparation of Secretary Powell's United Nations speech. During the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq, I believed it was important for the committee to obtain and review the White House drafts.

"On October 31, 2003, I wrote to CIA Director George Tenet requesting this and other White House documents. I repeated that request in writing on two subsequent occasions.

"Despite these and other efforts, the Committee never received the White House documents.

"The fact is that throughout the Iraq investigation any line of questioning that brought us too close to the White House was thwarted.

"For several years, I've called on the Committee and the Congress to get to the bottom of whether this administration misused intelligence in making the case for going to war.

"That question is no less relevant today than it was then."

Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee have supported the requests for the Libby papers, and say that their investigation ha been hampered by the non-cooperation.

I have a brand new National Journal piece out tonight as we await the final denouement of Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury. Here is the lede and a few key paragraphs:

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.

Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq...

The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war...

In addition to withholding drafts of Powell's speech -- which included passages written by Libby -- the administration also refused to turn over to the committee contents of the president's morning intelligence briefings on Iraq, sources say. These documents, known as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, are a written summary of intelligence information and analysis provided by the CIA to the president.

In my National Journal article, I mention an aide to Cheney whose name hasn't come up before in either the Iraq pre-war intelligence fiasco and the Fitzgerald investigation, yet has been ubiquitous in both. That is David Addington, the general counsel to the Vice President. Addington has been fairly good at exercsing his authority behind the scenes. But here are some excerpts from a Washington Post profile that might be of interest to some of you:

Since he took office, Vice President Cheney has led the Bush administration's effort to increase the power of the presidency. "I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job," he said after a year in office, calling it "wrong" for past presidents to yield to congressional demands. "We are weaker today as an institution because of the unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 to 35 years."

Cheney has tried to increase executive power with a series of bold actions -- some so audacious that even conservatives on the Supreme Court sympathetic to Cheney's view have rejected them as overreaching. The vice president's point man in this is longtime aide David Addington, who serves as Cheney's top lawyer.

Where there has been controversy over the past four years, there has often been Addington. He was a principal author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects. He was a prime advocate of arguments supporting the holding of terrorism suspects without access to courts.

Addington also led the fight with Congress and environmentalists over access to information about corporations that advised the White House on energy policy. He was instrumental in the series of fights with the Sept. 11 commission and its requests for information...

Colleagues say Addington stands out for his devotion to secrecy in an administration noted for its confidentiality. He declined to be interviewed or photographed for this article, and he did not respond to a list of specific points made in the article.

Addington, 47, was a lawyer and GOP staffer on congressional committees on intelligence and the Iran-contra matter, before Cheney chose him to serve as general counsel at the Pentagon when Cheney was defense secretary.

Even in a White House known for its dedication to conservative philosophy, Addington is known as an ideologue, an adherent of an obscure philosophy called the unitary executive theory that favors an extraordinarily powerful president.

The unitary executive notion can be found in the torture memo. "In light of the president's complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president's ultimate authority in these areas," the memo said. Prohibitions on torture "must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority. . . . Congress may no more regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield." The same would go for "federal officials acting pursuant to the president's constitutional authority."...

Occasionally, others in the administration have sought to keep Addington out of the loop to avoid his inevitable objections. When the White House agreed, under pressure from Congress, to appoint a commission to investigate the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Cheney's office did not know about it until a reporter from The Washington Post called to inquire.

There has been something of a backlash against Addington's philosophy within the administration, where some believe his aggressive legal arguments have caused the courts to become more suspicious of executive authority...

"Addington adds to the problems the president has with the courts," said Bruce Fein, who was an official in the Reagan Justice Department and worked with Addington during the Iran-contra probe. Fein said Addington is the "intellectual brainchild" of overreaching legal assertions that "have resulted in actually weakening the presidency because of intransigence."

Fein said Cheney and Addington, while arguing that they are reclaiming executive authority, are actually seeking to push it to new levels. Many of the restraints on executive authority -- the War Powers act, anti-impoundment legislation, the legislative veto and the independent counsel statute -- have already disappeared or become insignificant.

"They're in a time warp," Fein said. "If you look at the facts, presidential powers have never been higher."

Harriet Miers has moments ago withdrawn her nomination. Now that's a way to divert attention from the Fitzgerald investigation.

Within minutes of her withdraw, the White House also announced that President Bush had "reluctantly accepted" her withdraw. That was quick.

And this just in from CNN, regarding the CIA leak case: CNN reports that although Karl Rove has told people at the White House that he is not "distracted" by but the CIA leak probe, others in the administration say that he has, in fact, been "distracted." At this blog, we will carefully follow this story, and attempt to indebtedness confirm it.

For those citizen-journalists and blogger-citizens who read this blog, and want to engage in their own enterprise and reporting of the issue as to whether Rove has been distracted or not, they might want to turn on C-Span, and watch tapes of recent presidential speeches and other White House events, where they can spy Rove standing behind of, or to the side of, President Bush. Does Rove actually look distracted? At this blog, we speculate, but you decide. Watch C-Span and decide for yourself.

(Audacious) Spins of the day:

Trent Lott was just on CNN saying that the Miers nomination will be "forgotten by tomorrow."

Miers did what she did as a martyr for the high idea of executive propelled, sacrificing herself for a higher principle. (This is all over the cable shows.)

Candy Crowley on CNN says that the Miers withdraw has created a wonderful "opportunity" for the White House, in that the administration can now sharply "pivot" off any negative news coming from the Fitzgerald grand jury, in making a dramatic, new announcement regarding a new nominee for the high court.

As we await word from the federal grand jury hearing the CIA leak case (and despite all your phone calls and emails, I really don't know... or pretend to know much more than anyone else), I am reminded of these words written in his diary by Leonard Garment, an former law partner, and later a White House counsel for Richard Nixon, on Christmas Day, 1972, when James McCord was indicted for his role in the Watergate break-in.

Garment was in turn quoting Jose Ortega y Gasset: "We do not know what is happening, and that is what happening."

That seems relevant for this moment.

But even if we learn tomorrow whether the federal grand jury brings charges or not, and if so, who is charged, Gasset's line will be even more relevant then as it is today.

Even though everyone in Washington breathlessly awaits the grand jury, their decisions as to whether to charge won't be an end... as so much a beginning of something much more important and vast.

We will soon hear back from the grand jury, but that will only raise additional questions, taking the President and the nation into murky, uncharted waters.

And once again, we will be left saying: "We do not know what is happening, and that is what is happening."

Josh Gerstein scored this exclusive earlier today, unfortunately not getting credit for his scoop. Well this blog gives him the credit due.

What does it mean that Fitzgerald met with the chief judge? Hard to say. However, he would have to do so to extend the life of the current grand jury, which expires on Friday, or to ask to empanel an entirely new one.

One thing to keep in mind: Just because Fitzgerald would want to extend the life of his grand jury does not mean that he is not about to soon bring charges. Even if the sitting grand jury were to bring charges, Fitzgerald would still want a grand jury to continue to hear evidence.

Why? He might want to bring charges against a potential defendant now, as he considers additional charges. Or there is always a possibility that a potential defendant... once convicted, might "flip" and later implicate someone else. I'm not saying that is the case here, but that is routine in federal criminal white collar investigations.

But don't take my word for anything! This morning, when I spoke to Josh, I told him that I thought it would be a massive waste of time to stake out the grand jury room near the federal courthouse. There would be so many reporters there, there was no way he would score an exclusive of some kind... Obviously, if I know so little about journalism, how could I know much about the law?

Below are excerpts from Josh's story:

Prosecutor Meets With Chief Judge
Could Signal That Fitzgerald Is Seeking Extension

BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 26, 2005

WASHINGTON—The federal prosecutor investigating the alleged involvement of White House officials in the leak of a CIA operative’s identity spent most of the lunch hour today meeting with the chief judge of the federal district court in the nation’s capital, Judge Thomas Hogan.

As reporters massed outside an elevator lobby leading to the grand jury rooms, the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, apparently slipped out a back exit to conduct the noontime meeting with Judge Hogan.

Mr. Fitzgerald declined to comment as he and a colleague emerged from the judge’s chambers just before 1 p.m.

The prosecutor’s visit to the chief judge could signal that Mr. Fitzgerald wants to continue his investigation, either by extending the term of the current grand jury or begin presenting evidence to a new jury. The grand jury that has heard witnesses in the leak case was set to shut down on Friday.

Under federal law, most grand juries are limited to two years. The present one appears to be reaching its legal time limit, but because of the secrecy surrounding the process it is difficult to know for certain.

Prosecutors involved in the politically-sensitive probe met with grand jurors for about three hours this morning, before wrapping up business at the courthouse for the day.

There were also other reasons to expect that the investigation, once believed to be concluding this week, may continue.

It was not clear why Mr. Fitzgerald chose to use a back stairway or elevator to reach his session with the chief judge, but if he took the usual route he would likely have been followed by a parade of journalists who gathered at the courthouse to await predicted indictments in the case.

Reporters expressed bewilderment as Mr. Fitzgerald returned to the grand jury area without ever having appeared to have left.

In addition to the grand juries, Judge Hogan also oversees most of the practical aspects of running the courthouse. It is possible that Mr. Fitzgerald’s visit was to discuss how court personnel would cope with the indictment and arraignment of high-profile White House officials.

A former prosecutor who worked with Mr. Fitzgerald in New York said it was impossible to say for certain what the meeting was about.

“If he wanted to extend the grand jury, he’d have to ask the chief judge,” the ex-prosecutor, Joshua Berman, said. “It’s obviously a process that Pat is familiar with.”

The headline on Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing blog this afternoon is "Rove's Last Campaign."

Dan asks: "Will Karl Rove, architect of President Bush's political career, snatch one last victory from the jaws of defeat? (Or at least avoid getting indicted?)"

He raises a very interesting issue: If Rove is indicted by the federal grand jury, he will hardly be your ordinary defendant. It is not just that he is the chief political advisor to the President of the United States. Rather, I am referring to the fact that he would be a defendant who is skilled and versed as few others in public relations, polling, and damage control. He is, also, a political genius-- albeit an evil genius to those of you of the opposite political persuasion.

Unlike most of us, he also can hire the best and most expensive of legal talent: in this case, Robert Luskin, and Patton, Bogg, et al. (If I or many of my friends were in legal jeopardy, we might be lucky to retain Hyatt Legal Services.) But aside from such legal resources at his disposal, Rove is a political strategist. And he will mount a defense that is likely to be every much a political campaign as legal campaign. To not do so would be in variance with his innate nature.

Obviously, Rove must have long ago given this some thought. There are attorneys who believe that you litigate and defend clients in the courtroom. David Kendall, the Clintons' attorney for Whitewater case and impeachment saga, was of that variety. Bob Bennett, who defended Clinton in the Paula Jones, was the exact opposite: an attorney who enjoys the limelight, the company of reporters, and considers the court of public opinion to be essential to making the case in a court of law.

(To learn more about this, I recommend you read my forthcomming book about the Clinton impeachment saga... I know that that was shameless self promotion, but what else is the purpose of blogging except for self promotion? BTW, I am going to have a regular feature on this blog mocking the top ten Washington/New York/politics/media world bloggs devoted to self promotion.... all right... apologies once again for my discursive nature. Now where was I?....)

To consider how Rove and Libby might defend against potential criminal charges, one can contrast their retainers' contrasting legal styles. Joseph A. Tate is a guy who likes to work behind the scenes, only talks to reporters of the credulous and compliant type (think of the equivalent of Susan Schmidts for defense attorneys), and likes to mostly engage within the four corners of a courtroom.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, is also considered by most of his peers as an able and capable white collar defense attorney. As a former federal prosecutor, he is known for counseling clients under investigation,and negotiating with the government, before their client is ever charged. (I know less about his court room skills, either good or bad, so for now I say nothing on that subject.) The secretive, furtive Libby probably hired the right guy when he hired the publicly reticent Tate. But Luskin, unlike Tate, is one not afraid of the public arena. And "client" Karl Rove is not one likely to leave all his fighting to the court room.

I am going to have a lot more to say about this in later postings.

I sooo apologize to all of my six readers of this blog.

But I have been off doing stories about the Fitzgerald investigation for the National Journal. This blog would obviously be the bestest of best blogs about anything regarding Plame, if I were continously reporting and blogging....

But, alas, in my most unfortunate absence (or pehaps fortunate absence, in that I get paid much more for writing for the National Journal), I recommend that the go-to-people/bloggers regarding all things Fitzgerald/Plame/Rove right now are Dan and Laura.

Here is a link to one of my online pieces for the National Journal, for those of my blog readers who were unaware of my stories for them. If you scroll down to the bottom, you can link to, and read, some of my other stories.

As a public service to, those like me, who cannot afford TimesSelect, as I can't, I am reprinting Maureen Dowd's column regarding Jilly Miller, in its entirety at this blog. I feel like a teenage girl downloading Napster for the first time! Anyone who reads this, please don't tell anyone at the New York Times that I have, well, done this.

---

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company The New York Times October 22, 2005 Saturday Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Column 6; Editorial Desk; Pg. 17 LENGTH: 754 words HEADLINE: Woman Of Mass Destruction BYLINE: By MAUREEN DOWD BODY:

I've always liked Judy Miller. I have often wondered what Waugh or Thackeray would have made of the Fourth Estate's Becky Sharp.

The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy -- her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur -- have never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types.

Once when I was covering the first Bush White House, I was in The Times's seat in the crowded White House press room, listening to an administration official's background briefing. Judy had moved on from her tempestuous tenure as a Washington editor to be a reporter based in New York, but she showed up at this national security affairs briefing. At first she leaned against the wall near where I was sitting, but I noticed that she seemed agitated about something. Midway through the briefing, she came over and whispered to me, ''I think I should be sitting in the Times seat.'' It was such an outrageous move, I could only laugh. I got up and stood in the back of the room, while Judy claimed what she felt was her rightful power perch.

She never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers.

She more than earned her sobriquet ''Miss Run Amok.'' Judy's stories about W.M.D. fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber that Senator Bob Graham, now retired, dubbed ''incestuous amplification.''

Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr. Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists. Even last April, when I wrote a column critical of Mr. Chalabi, she fired off e-mail to me defending him.

When Bill Keller became executive editor in the summer of 2003, he barred Judy from covering Iraq and W.M.D. issues. But he acknowledged in The Times's Sunday story about Judy's role in the Plame leak case that she had kept ''drifting'' back. Why did nobody stop this drift? Judy admitted in the story that she ''got it totally wrong'' about W.M.D. ''If your sources are wrong,'' she said, ''you are wrong.'' But investigative reporting is not stenography.

The Times's story and Judy's own first-person account had the unfortunate effect of raising more questions. As Bill said yesterday in an e-mail note to the staff, Judy seemed to have ''misled'' the Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, about the extent of her involvement in the Valerie Plame leak case.

She casually revealed that she had agreed to identify her source, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, as a ''former Hill staffer'' because he had once worked on Capitol Hill. The implication was that this bit of deception was a common practice for reporters. It isn't.

She said that she had wanted to write about the Wilson-Plame matter, but that her editor would not allow it. But Managing Editor Jill Abramson, then the Washington bureau chief, denied this, saying that Judy had never broached the subject with her.

It also doesn't seem credible that Judy wouldn't remember a Marvel comics name like ''Valerie Flame.'' Nor does it seem credible that she doesn't know how the name got into her notebook and that, as she wrote, she ''did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby.''

An Associated Press story yesterday reported that Judy had coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23, 2003.

This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project. Judy refused to answer a lot of questions put to her by Times reporters, or show the notes that she shared with the grand jury.

I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.

Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover ''the same thing I've always covered -- threats to our country.'' If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.

New National Journal Story on Plame investigation: What Karl Rove told the President

The National Journal just posted this story of mine online about presidential advisor Karl Rove's private conversations with President Bush regarding Valerie Plame. Since not many bloggers have yet noticed the story, or worse– found it worthy– I am going to exercise my blogger's perogative to blog myself. I am going to blog more about this over this weekend. And below is an excerpt:

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove personally assured President Bush in the early fall of 2003 that he had not disclosed to anyone in the press that Valerie Plame, the wife of an administration critic, was a CIA employee, according to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the accounts that both Rove and Bush independently provided to federal prosecutors.

During the same conversation in the White House two years ago-occurring just days after the Justice Department launched a criminal probe into the unmasking of Plame as a covert agency operative-Rove also assured the president that he had not leaked any information to the media in an effort to discredit Plame's husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson. Rove also did not tell the president about his July 2003 a phone call with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, a conversation that touched on the issue of Wilson and Plame.

But some 22 months later, Cooper's testimony to the federal grand jury investigating the Plame leak has directly contradicted Rove's assertions to the president. Cooper has testified that Rove was the person who first told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, although Rove did not name her. Cooper has also testified that Rove told him that Plame helped arrange for Wilson to make a fact-finding trip for the CIA to the African nation of Niger to investigate allegations that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium with which to build a nuclear bomb.In his first interview with FBI agents working on the leak probe, Rove similarly did not disclose that he had spoken to Cooper, according to sources close to the investigation.

But in subsequent interviews with federal investigators and in his testimony to the grand jury, Rove changed his account, asserting that when the FBI first questioned him, he had simply forgotten about his phone conversation with Cooper. Rove also told prosecutors that he had forgotten about the Cooper conversation when he talked to the president about the matter in the fall of 2003...

Sources close to the leak investigation being run by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald say it was the discovery of one of Rove's White House e-mails-in which the senior Bush adviser referred to his July 2003 conversation with Cooper- that prompted Rove to contact prosecutors and to revise his account to include the Cooper conversation.

The rest of the story can be read here.

Rove before grand jury in the morning

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove will testify tomorrow morning for a fourth time before the federal grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame matter, according to sources close to the investigation.

Rove will appear voluntarily, but during tomorrow's session, Rove will be pressed about issues as to why his accounts to the FBI and grand jury have changed, or evolved, over time. He will also be questioned regarding contacts with other senior administration officials, such as then-deputy National Security advisor Stephen J. Hadley and I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney in the critical week before the publication of columnist Robert Novak's column on July 14, 2003, which outed Plame as a covert CIA operative.

Rove is also likely to be asked more detailed questions about his conversation with Time magazine Matthew Cooper on July 11, 2003, in which Cooper himself has testified to the grand jury that Rove had told him that Valerie Plame was employed by the CIA, and had played a role in having her husband, ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, selected to go on his controversial fact-finding mission on behalf of the CIA. Rove's previous grand jury appearances had occurred prior to Cooper's own testimony to the grand jury.

Miller released from jail; to testify regarding Libby very soon... Fitz to make his decision soon on whether to bring charges

After having spent more than 12 weeks in jail, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was freed today. The news of her release aside, she will soon be debriefed by federal investigators, and then testify before a federal grand jury, perhaps as early as tomorrow morning.

What is perhaps left out of news accounts tonight is that Miller's testimony is central to whether special counsel Fitzgerald brings criminal charges against I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. Libby was unwavering in telling prosecutors and the FBI that he knew nothing of Plame's covert work for the CIA, even though he spoke to Miller about at length about her and her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Whether that account is truthful is something only both Miller and Libby know. Miller's testimony on that issue will be central to any final disposition of the criminal probe, sources close to the investigation have told me for some time now.

As to Miller's release earlier today, her own newspaper reports tonight:

Her decision to testify came after she obtained what she described as a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality she had made to him. She said the source had made clear that he genuinely wanted her to testify.

That source was I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, according to people who have been officially briefed on the case. Ms. Miller met with Mr. Libby on July 8, 2003, and talked with him by telephone later that week. Discussions between government officials and journalists that week have been a central focus of the investigation.

Actually, for those very few readers who read this blog and my reporting on this subject, that is sort of old news... I first reported in the American Prospect last August 8 that Miller had met with Libby on July 8, 2003; further, that Libby was one of her sources; and the main reason that she was in jail was because Libby had not provided her a personalized waiver to testify.

Here is what I reported at the time:

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.

The meeting between Libby and Miller has been a central focus of the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as to whether any Bush administration official broke the law by unmasking Plame's identity or relied on classified information to discredit former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, according to sources close to the case as well as documents filed in federal court by Fitzgerald.

The meeting took place in Washington, D.C., six days before columnist Robert Novak wrote his now-infamous column unmasking Plame as a "CIA operative." Although little noticed at the time, Novak's column would cause the appointment of a special prosecutor, ultimately place in potential legal jeopardy senior advisers to the president of the United States, and lead to the jailing of a New York Times reporter.

A short time after that story appeared (indeed a very, very short time-- about a week later), Miller's attorneys and Libby's attorney, Joseph A. Tate, began prolonged negotiations that would lead to Libby finally providing her a personal waiver that would lead to her release and testimony. There is quite a backstory there, and my then unnoticed Prospect story paved the way, in large part, I am told for those negotiations. I am going to write a lot about this, on my blog, and long reporting pieces elsewhere.

A footnote: Although the Times is now confirming my story that Miller did meet Libby on July 8, and Libby was Miller's source, here is what the Times had to publicly say back when I first broke the news:

In response to questions for this article, Catherine J. Mathis, a spokesperson for the Times, said, "We don't have any comment regarding Ms. Miller's whereabouts on July 8, 2003." She also added, "Ms. Miller has not received a waiver that she believes to be freely given."

Gray confirmation hearing, another Plame vote, and misc. other news

Stop the presses! State Department Appointee to use his "position" to "advance freedom"!... At least that was the headline of sorts in yesterday's Winston-Salem Journal. The news that C. Boyden Gray, former legal counsel to the first President Bush, lobbyist, and conservative political activist had his confirmation hearing to advance as ambassador to the European Union was hardly front page news for most newspapers. The fact that his nomination currently faces no opposition hardly was either. But it was important news, perhaps, for the Winston-Salem Journal, because Gray is a native of the area.

But what was a little out of the ordinary was the headline and tone of the story. The headline read: "Gray gives first goal: "Freedom agenda is No. 1, he says".

And here was the lede to the story:

C. Boyden Gray, a native of Winston-Salem, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday during his nomination hearing that he would use the post of European Union ambassador to advance freedom.

As a result of the $3.7 trillion worth of trade the United States does with the region, he would be in a good position to do that should he be confirmed, he said.

"This provides an enormously good platform for spreading the global-freedom agenda," Gray said.

The tone of much of the rest of the story is not all that different:

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., introduced Gray to the committee and said he should be confirmed immediately.

"Those of us who have watched Boyden over the years know that he is someone who works well with people on opposite ends of an issue, and finds areas of commonality that all sides can embrace," she said.

If one wonders this particular news story reads less like a newspaper story than a press release from a public relations agency, one only finally learns why at the very end of the story:

Gray is on the board of directors of Media General, the parent company of the Winston-Salem Journal. His father, Gordon Gray, was a lawyer, the publisher of the Journal, and the national security adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In the meantime, freedom-loving peoples of the world can rejoice!

In other news:

The House Armed Services Committee became the fourth House committee yesterday to adversely report a resolution of inquiry for an independent congressional inquiry of the Bush administration's role in the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

In recent days, the House Judiciary, International Relations, and Intelligence committees have rejected similar resolutions of inquiry regarding the Plame affair.

The earlier committee votes were along straight party lines. Armed Services, however, rejected the resolution simply on a voice vote. The debate within the committee was over in a few short minutes. And no Democrat objected to the voice vote-- instead of demanding that members vote for the record-- apparently because the outcome was all but preordained.

For more about the congressional action (or inaction), one can read this article which I wrote on the earlier votes for the Village Voice, or scroll down below and read this post and others on this very blog over the last several days.