If you're Patrick Fitzgerald, trying to prove motive in the Valerie Plame leak investigation, years investigating organized crime must have come in handy. Fitz has probably had plenty of experience with the lies and deception of petty criminals trying to get off a conviction.
In his latest 5/24/06 filings:
http://www.usdoj.gov/...
in the perjury case against Lewis Libby for allegedly lying to the FBI about when he first learned that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, Fitz focuses on Cheney's hand-written notes on a copy of Joe Wilson's 7/6/03 NYT Op-Ed piece: see Exhibit A here:
http://www.usdoj.gov/...
The questions scribbled on Cheney's copy of Joe Wilson's Op-Ed titled "What I didn't find in Africa"
are :
"Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an ambassador to answer a question? Or did his wife send him on a junket? Do we ordinarily send people out to work pro bono to work for us?"
Did Cheney want to get answers to these questions or, more likely, were these the talking points for his staff that would help guide their retaliation against Wilson by attacking his credibility to the press?
From Cheney's scribblings it seems that he was grasping at straws - suggesting that the CIA was a soft touch that could be manipulated into paying for a free trip to Africa for Joe Wilson - as opposed to having sent Wilson to Africa in an effort to respond to Cheney's own inquiry about yellow cake.
It seems though that someone must have figured out that it was against the law to blab about a CIA officer's identity and perhaps that explains why they were trying to create an echo chamber that suggested they learned about Plame's identity from the press. And that might explain why Libby would lie to the FBI about when he learned about Plame's identity.
Here's the link to Libby's indictment that lists the chronology of who Libby talked to about Valerie Plame and when.
http://www.usdoj.gov/...
The 5/24/06 filing was Fitzgerald's brief to the court that Libby's hunting expedition for irrelevant documents should be denied. But it's worth reading because it also shows Fitz's focus on Cheney's obsession over the Wilson Op-Ed. In Libby's May 2006 testimony before the grand jury:
http://www.usdoj.gov/... Fitz focuses on how Libby's superior - Cheney - was upset about Joe Wilson's Op-Ed piece and felt it was an attack on his credibility.
http://www.usdoj.gov/...
And in another reference to Cheney's concern over Wilson: "...in light of the Vice President's annotation of the Wilson Op Ed with the words, "Did Wilson's wife send him on a junket?," it is unlikely that, as defendant testified, the issue was not discussed in defendant's repeated conversations with the Vice President during the week following the Wilson Op Ed's publication." see footnote on bottom of page 6:
http://www.usdoj.gov/...