corrente

Bush officials? Lie? Huh?

Prosecutors investigating whether someone in the Bush administration improperly disclosed the identity of a C.I.A. officer have expanded their inquiry to examine whether White House officials lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case, lawyers involved in the case and government officials say.

The broadened scope is a potentially significant development that represents exactly what allies of the Bush White House feared when Attorney General John Ashcroft removed himself from the case last December and turned it over to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago.

Republican lawyers worried that the leak case, in the hands of an aggressive prosecutor, might grow into an unwieldy, time-consuming and politically charged inquiry, like the sprawling independent counsel inquiries of the 1990's, which distracted and damaged the Clinton administration.
(via The Times)

"Like"?

Ha.

With one exception, of course. In the Plame Affair, laws could actually have been broken, and the whole thing isn't ginned up by The Goon Squad attack machine. Other than that....

The suspicion that someone may have lied to investigators is based on contradictions between statements by various witnesses in F.B.I. interviews, the lawyers and officials said. The conflicts are said to be buttressed by documents, including memos, e-mail messages and phone records turned over by the White House.

That's because the FBI wouldn't let them be interviewed together, so they could keep their stories straight! Bush and Cheney aren't going to make that mistake again...

At the same time, Mr. Fitzgerald is said to be investigating whether the disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity came after someone discovered her name among classified documents circulating at the upper echelons of the White House. It could be a crime to disclose information from such a document, although such violations are rarely prosecuted.

Funny how the WhiteWash House threatens to prosecute Clarke and O'Neill, but when they release classified information, there's never a peep. Why is that?

UPDATE Josh Marshall has a very interesting posting and memo that suggests why Acting President Rove may want to get himself lawyered up.