Fitzgerald deposed Matthew Cooper about his conversations with Libby ages ago. That Cooper confirmed Libby was a source of Valerie Plame's identity is not news to Fitzgerald. But...now follow the dots. Libby was probably Judith Miller's source. The question is what did he tell her, and did he tell her more than he told Cooper - enough to implicate others in Cheney's office and possibly Cheney himself.

Another question is where and when did Rove and Libby get their information about Valerie Plame Wilson - was it from a classified document, which one, who gave it to them and when did they first see it? And was their leak of it to Cooper and other reporters an intentional attempt to smear Wilson by outing his wife?

I'm keeping my eye on Fitzgerald's bigger picture.

Another read: Richard Sale of UPI in February, 2004: Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe.

More Here:

• Rove-Plame Speculation Update

• Lewis Libby and the Valerie Plame Investigation

• Where Did Karl Rove Get His Information?

Crooks and Liars has the video and transcript of Ken Mehlman on this morning's "Meet the Press" - he would not promise to support Fitzgerald's decision to indict members of the Administration if that were to happen.

At the end he says, "I intend to support" Fitzgerald's decision.

Russert: But if you have tremendous confidence in him, then you will accept and respect his decision?

Mehlman: I look forward to hearing what he has to say and I intend to respect what he has to say, but again I'm not going to speculate on what he might do.

Shorter version: "So long as he doesn't indict someone I don't think should be indicted, I'll respect his decision."

Update: Today's Meet the Press transcript of Matt Cooper is here.

by TChris

Providing a happy distraction for the Bush administration (which always needs one, this time because of Karl Rove), the Iraqi Special Tribunal announced that Saddam Hussein will be prosecuted for "the killings of about 150 Shiites in the Iraqi town of Dujail in 1982." No trial date has been announced, but the trial may occur before the end of the year.

No word yet on whether Iraq will seek the death penalty. At one point, the UK indicated that it will boycott the trial if death is sought. In April, Jalal Talabani said he opposed the possibility of a death sentence, but as TalkLeft recently reported, Iraq decided to resume its use of death as punishment, perhaps with a view to executing Hussein.

Update: Today's Meet the Press transcript of Cooper is here. Video up shortly on Crooks and Liars here.

Matthew Cooper's Time Magazine article is out on his recollection of his call with Karl Rove. [The free press release with many details is here. The full article is subscription only so I will outline first what's in the press release, and then, other items in the full article.

First, from the press release:

Cooper writes in this week’s issue that he testified that, although it’s not reflected in his notes or subsequent emails, he had a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, “I’ve already said too much.” Cooper writes this could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet or just late for a meeting or something else. “I don’t know, but that sign-off has been in my memory for two years,” Cooper writes.

Cooper writes that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald “asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that (Valerie) Plame worked at the CIA.” Cooper says he testified that Rove did not.

by TChris

Edward Leak Jr., a Chicago police officer, has been charged with contracting for the murder of Fred Hamilton, who told Internal Affairs that Leak was stealing money from Leak's family's funeral home, where Hamilton worked as a driver. The police responded to the report by obtaining a warrant for Hamilton's arrest on a charge of extortion. Before Hamilton could be arrested, Leak took out a $500,000 insurance policy on Hamilton's life, and Hamilton was killed. One of the people arrested for the shooting says he was hired by Leak.

by TChris

Of all the names floated as a possible nominee to the Supreme Court, John Cornyn's may be the most bizarre. Sen. Cornyn, after all, is the man who claimed to understand why judges have been targeted with violence:

"I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence."

As a NY Times editorial suggested, "when a second important Republican stands up and excuses murderous violence against judges as an understandable reaction to their decisions, then it is time to get really scared."

Even scarier is the thought that Cornyn might be considered a serious candidate for the nation's highest court. Cornyn's close ties to Karl Rove (who helped him win a position on the Texas Supreme Court) and his disregard for the separation of powers would set the stage for an interesting confirmation hearing, but his intemperate remarks about "unaccountable" judges and the violence they invite should be enough to keep him off the president's short list.

This Time Magazine article, not by Matthew Cooper, today says it was Valerie Plame Wilson's boss, the deputy chief of the CIA's counterproliferation division, not Valerie Plame who sent Wilson to Africa on the uranium mission:

What was the point of Rove or anyone else bringing up Plame in the first place? Was he saying Wilson was tainted by his close association with the CIA, whose analysts had generally been too skeptical of the Iraqi threat for the Administration's taste?

The tensions between the White House and the CIA had been rising steadily in the months before the Iraq invasion, as CIA analysts complained about evidence being distorted or ignored and the White House pushed back with complaints about the quality of the intel they were getting.

"I know the analyst who was subjected to withering questioning on the Iraq- al-Qaeda links by Libby with the Vice President sitting there," says a CIA analyst. "So I think there was an anger at the CIA for not getting it and not being on board. The political side of the Administration was pissed at the CIA. So I can see how they responded to that--and Wilson--by implying he couldn't be trusted because, 'well, just look where his wife works.'"

• Former CIA Agent Larry Johnson has a blog and a new article today on the Valerie Plame Outing, Mr. Bush, Have You No Shame?

• Heretik has great new very topical graphics today.

• Randy at Beautiful Horizens, the liberal blog concentrating on Latin American Affairs, provides some personal experience with the death penalty, through a brother-in-law who was murdered whom he never had a chance to meet. Please, read his posts. He and his wife, notwithstanding the murder of her brother, continue to oppose the death penalty.

• Mahablog is profiled in the Washington Post Magazine. "Take two bloggers from opposite ends of the overheated political debate, put them on a Washington tour bus together, then ponder the fate of an increasingly uncivil society."

Back to Judith Miller and who she is protecting. The Washington Post today says her source is Lewis Libby.

...two sources say Miller spoke with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, during the key period in July 2003 that is the focus of Fitzgerald's investigation.

The two sources, one who is familiar with Libby's version of events and the other with Miller's, said the previously undisclosed conversation occurred a few days before Plame's name appeared in Robert D. Novak's syndicated column on July 14, 2003. Miller and Libby discussed former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, Plame's husband, who had recently alleged that the Bush administration twisted intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, according to the source familiar with Libby's version.

It's not that Libby didn't give Miller a waiver, he gave all the reporters he spoke to a waiver. Miller isn't sure the waiver isn't coerced.

"Judy's view is that any purported waiver she got from anyone was not on the face of it sufficiently broad, clear and uncoerced," [laywer Floyd] Abrams said.

Frank Rich has a column in Sunday's New York Times in which he writes that Iraq, not the Wilsons, is the real issue in RoveGate. And,

Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there's only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it's essential to protect the king.

While I tend to follow the subpoenas in analyzing the story, Rich advises you to follow the uranium.

Update: This article in Sunday's New York Times asks:

Is there a tipping point where the presence of Karl Rove would simply not be worth the unwanted attention that goes with it?

The San Francisco Chronicle has this editorial saying White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan should resign. What do you think?

Also on the topic of McClellan, the media and RoveGate, see NYU Journalism Prof Jay Rosen's post on the White House and the press roll-back.

Also on Huff Post, Paul Feig turns RoveGate into a game of Clue and solves it the same way I would (at least today, I tend to go back and forth still): Colonel Dick Cheney, in the Vice President's Office, with a telephone.

And, Buzzflash engages in a little conspiracy-theorizing.

You won't want to miss this one. Tim Russert's guests will be: Matt Cooper, John Podesta, Ken Mehlman, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Arianna has some questions she'd like Russert to ask. Her readers have many more in the comments.

Crooks and Liars, I'm sure, will have the video if you get up to late to watch.