The Fall Of The House of Libby

Cohen: What Came To Pass, What's To Come In The CIA Leak Case

(CBS)  That assumes, of course, that Libby knows more than he already has told investigators — an assumption that may or may not prove true. But Libby wouldn't be in the trouble he is in today if prosecutors believed that he were completely candid when he spoke to the grand jury. Would Fitzgerald try to turn Libby against Rove? Is there anything Libby knows that could do the trick? And would Libby go for it? Can you imagine the political and legal showdown we'd see if Libby were willing and able to point a finger at Rove or anyone else inside the White House?

I can't, because I think it is unlikely that the loyal Libby would turn on his friends and political colleagues. But stranger things have happened at the intersection of law and politics; at the confluence of personal liberty and professional courtesy.

For Vice President Cheney, it was a day that portends at least one future day in court before a judge and/or jury. In order for Fitzgerald to prove that Libby misled the grand jury the prosecutor may very well need to call Cheney to the witness stand to refute Libby's defense that he learned of the identity of the CIA agent from a reporter. On the perjury charge, for example, federal law specifically requires the government to establish its case using more than a single witness. The other side of the "story" is that Cheney himself told his chief deputy about the woman. If Cheney is telling the truth then Libby might not be and that's one stream of evidence that would go to the heart of the case against Libby. So close your eyes (I'm assuming you aren't reading this on your blackberry while you are driving) and imagine the Vice President of the United States, bad ticker and all, raising his right hand and swearing under oath in front of a jury in a criminal case involving the White House that he is going to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's quite an image, no?

For the prosecutor himself, it was a day that demonstrated again his control over the process and his obvious conviction that there is still more evidence to uncover as the investigation proceeds. It would have been easy for Fitzgerald to simply say today that he was closing up the investigatory phase of the case and declare his intention to focus now upon the prosecutorial phase. He deliberately chose to do the opposite — to empanel a new grand jury that now will continue to help investigate this mess. It ought to tell us all something that Rove's attorney made a point of publicly declaring that his client will continue to cooperate with Fitzgerald. It tells me that Rove just barely escaped being indicted himself and that he still may very well be so, with or without any new information from Libby.

For the rest of us, the day confirmed that the law is not always as tidy as we would like it to be. We have some answers but no resolution; some direction but very little clarity. It is no small thing when a member of the President's inner circle is forced to resign following an indictment. It happens perhaps once a decade or even once in a generation. But the thunderclap that today could have brought — the sort of group take down that some predicted — did not occur. It was day of big steps but not giant leaps.

And so the story of the fall of the House of Libby, and the continuing anxiety in the House of Rove, and the looming imbalance for the House of Cheney, and the upgraded chaos in the House of Bush, the people's house, will be with us for quite some time to come.