[First posted on October 20, I've bumped it up since reporters are beginning to focus on the March, 2003 rather than June, 2003 date.]

Joseph Wilson wrote in his book and told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that the White House campaign to discredit him began in early March, 2003, after he had appeared on CNN and criticized the Niger documents as forgeries. In an earlier post, I quoted both:

Wilson's Book:

...According to my sources, between March 2003 and the appearance of my article in July, the workup on me that turned up the information on Valerie was shared with Karl Rove, who then circulated it in administration and neoconservative circles.

....Apparently, according to two journalist sources of mine, when Rove learned that he might have violated the law, he turned on Cheney and Libby and made it clear that he held them responsible for the problem they had created for the administration.

Crooks and Liars got a copy of the regret-laced memo Bill Keller of the New York Times sent out to his staff about Judy Miller.

I wish that when I learned Judy Miller had been subpoenaed as a witness in the leak investigation, I had sat her down for a thorough debriefing, and followed up with some reporting of my own. It is a natural and proper instinct to defend reporters when the government seeks to interfere in our work. And under other circumstances it might have been fine to entrust the details -- the substance of the confidential interviews, the notes -- to lawyers who would be handling the case.

But in this case I missed what should have been significant alarm bells. Until Fitzgerald came after her, I didn't know that Judy had been one of the reporters on the receiving end of the anti-Wilson whisper campaign. I should have wondered why I was learning this from the special counsel, a year after the fact. (In November of 2003 Phil Taubman tried to ascertain whether any of our correspondents had been offered similar leaks. As we reported last Sunday, Judy seems to have misled Phil Taubman about the extent of her involvement.) This alone should have been enough to make me probe deeper.

by TChris

The Kansas Supreme Court today struck down a provision in state law that imposed a harsher sentence on sexual contact with minors of the same sex than it imposed on sexual contact with minors of the opposite sex. The state's "Romeo and Juliet" law would have allowed a maximum sentence of 15 months to be imposed on an 18 year old man who had a sexual encounter with a consenting 14 year old girl. That limitation did not apply to an 18 year old man who has a sexual encounter with a consenting 14 year old boy.

The Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling that a law that specified such harsher treatment and led to a 17-year prison sentence for an 18-year-old defendant "suggests animus toward teenagers who engage in homosexual sex."

"Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate state interest," said Justice Marla Luckert, writing for the high court.

Via AmericaBlog, the Providence Journal reports:

A Rhode Island Republican Party fundraiser scheduled for tonight featuring Andrew H. Card, White House chief of staff, has been canceled because Card is spending the weekend with President Bush at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Patricia Morgan, Republican state chairwoman, said yesterday.

I suspect they will be discussing replacements for those who about to be indicted, and/or those who have agreed to plead guilty.

I'm still leaning towards believing that Rove and Libby will fall on their swords and have plea agreements in place by next week, to spare their respective bosses, Bush and Cheney, the ugly fallout from a protracted criminal case and from being called as witnesses.

The question is, will Bush pardon them in return for their loyalty before or after they serve any jail time required by the deals?

Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post reports Patrick Fitzgerald and the Justice Department has created a website relating to the Plame Grand jury.

Here it is.

Former White House aides are now charging Libby orchestrated a campaign to discredit Joseph Wilson that continued into 2004. The LA Times reports it has received documents establishing this from the former aides.

Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was so angry about the public statements of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a Bush administration critic married to an undercover CIA officer, that he monitored all of Wilson's television appearances and urged the White House to mount an aggressive public campaign against him, former aides say.

Those efforts by the chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, began shortly after Wilson went public with his criticisms in 2003. But they continued into last year — well after the Justice Department began an investigation in September 2003, into whether administration officials had illegally disclosed the CIA operative's identity, say former White House aides.

Who's sticking up for Libby? Cheney Chief Cheerleader Mary Matalin. [hat tip Patriot Daily.]

Bump and Update: Bad news. Kidnapped lawyer Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi has been killed.

*****
Original Post (10/20)

The AP is reporting:

Ten masked gunmen kidnapped the lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants Thursday, police said. Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi, who was in the courtroom for Wednesday's opening session of the trial, is one of two lawyers for Awad Hamed al-Bandar, one of seven Baath Party officials being tried with Saddam.

by TChris

The police want to search a house but they don't have a warrant. They ask the occupants for consent to search. One says yes but the other says no. Can the police search?

In Connecticut, the state supreme court said "no" in a decision released yesterday.

The court ruled 3-2 that opposition to a search by one resident invalidates permission granted by another, which is contrary to most case law on the issue nationwide. Defense lawyers predict the ruling will be troublesome for police, and could apply not only to attempted searches of homes but also to searches of businesses and cars with several occupants.

by TChris

As TalkLeft discussed here, Sen. John McCain sponsored a bill to make clear that American soldiers are prohibited from torturing prisoners. McCain makes the point that soldiers deserve clear guidance as to what they can and cannot do when interacting with prisoners. Despite overwhelming support for that proposition in the Senate, the Bush administration opposes any effort to limit its options. The administration's effort to weaken or jettison the provision has been hampered, however, by new accusations that American soldiers mistreated the corpses of Taliban members in Afghanistan.

McCain said the fresh abuse allegations serve as "another argument to make sure that our men and women in the military know exactly what the parameters are [and] what they can and cannot do in regards to prisoners."

by TChris

Unsurprisingly, Tom DeLay would prefer to have his case heard by a judge who votes for Republicans rather than Democrats. The judge assigned to DeLay's case donated money to MoveOn prior to the last election, a fact that DeLay seized upon to ask the judge to remove himself from the case.

DeLay's lawyer argued that MoveOn has been "selling T-shirts with Mr. DeLay's mug shot on it," an assertion that MoveOn denies. Will that tenuous connection between the judge and anti-DeLay sentiment be enough to convince the judge to take himself off the case? It doesn't sound like it.

Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin explains Bush's pardon power in the context of Plamegate.

• A president's pardon power is unreviewable
• He can pardon people before they are charged with a crime or anytime after they are charged or convicted

Why Bush might pardon his cronies in Plamegate:

• To avoid being called as a witness in a criminal prosecution

Why Bush might not pardon his cronies, at least right now

• The political fallout. He is only in the first year of his second term.

The New York Times reports tonight:

• Fitzgerald has advised both Libby and Rove they are in serious legal jeopardy. He will decide whether to charge next week.

• Fitzgerald is considering charges of Perjury, Obstruction of Justice and Making a False Statement to Federal Officials. He seems less focused on charges over the leak. It's the cover-up, not the crime.

• Fitzgerald knows who Novak's source is, and it's not someone who works at the White House.

• Additional persons could be charged.

There may be others in the government who could be charged for violations of the disclosure law or of other statutes, like the espionage act, which makes it a crime to transmit classified information to people not authorized to receive it.

Reading between the lines from a legal standpoint, here's how I interpret this, and remember, it's just speculation: Fitzgerald is done. All that's left are the pre-indictment plea deals. He's previously made deals with John Hannah and David Wurmser. Now he's offered them to Rove and Libby. As I've said before, it's their "come to Jesus moment." I suspect both will accept the best deals their lawyers can negotiate. Rove will fall on his sword to protect Bush, and Libby will fall on his to protect Cheney.