Cheney is an unknown. Why should he put him on if he does not need him to prove the charges? If Wells calls him, fine, Fitz can tie him in knots, and he will not be able to do a Blitzer on him and call Fitz out of line in Court. For Fitz it is much better to potentially deal with Cheney on Cross Examination than direct. Why should Fitz fiddle with Libby telling the Grand Jury about the moment he told Cheney who told him who Joe Wilson’s wife was?

but not a passle of witnesses all pointing toward the same, calculated, intense scrutiny and pushback from Vice President Cheney and his right-hand man, Libby, over a discreet period of time

passle passel discreet discrete

RawStory has a scoop on tomorrow’s NYT:

NYT MONDAY: CHENEY EXPECTED TO MAKE HISTORIC APPEARANCE ON WITNESS STAND… DEVELOPING…

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0211.html

Interesting!

yea, but when you click on the link at the bottom of RawStory to go to that page, it takes you to the Int’l Herald Tribune. Also, the AP just released a story this afternoon (2 hours ago). Is something coming down the pike tomorrow? Lots of Sunday afternoon activity in my opinion.

Ya know, today has been a weird day.

Boehner and Hoyer agreeing that The American public doesnt’t want to waste their tax dolars on public campign financing.

Steny Hoyer is joined at the hip to Corporate America. No surprise there.

Howard Kurtz saying the ramifications of the Libby case could have a chilling effect on reporter/source relationships.

Poor Howie’s worried his REPUBLICAN WIFE will divorce him now that she can’t feed him RNC talking points “on background”.

Feith spinning his story and winking to Walllace after the script was finished.

Russert complaining that it sure is tough when you can only answer yes and no.

Calling my congresscritters and getting the polite blow off concerning the war.

When is this going to get better?

http://www.CleanElections.org is a start.

It took decades for things to get this messed up. It’ll take awhile for them to get un-messed. But we’re already making more progress than I thought we would.

everhopeful @ 44

OT – and apologize if this has been covered before – but this morning on Tweety’s Sunday show, the “Scoops and Predictions” segment, JokeLine said that Senate Democrats are furious with Lieberman and that Joe is none to happy with dems – Klein predicts an EXPLOSION (his word) and a possible party switch. (No big surprise, but he made it sound acute and almost imminent.)

Of course, we must consider the source here, but what if this happens? I hope the rules for the 110th Congress are set in stone and it can’t upset the committee chairmanships, etc. Anyone know if that’s true?

Also, is there ANYTHING Connecticut voters can do if Lieberman adds to his betrayal of them by formally becoming a republican?

Even if Joe jumps…remember, he is an independant and is “being allowed” to caucus with the Democrats by their “good graces”…the Democrats would still have the majority in the Senate. Joe would have more to lose by jumping…he’d lose his seat on Committees (again a position that the Democrats allowed him to retain)…unless the Republicans pulled someone off.

… And keep in mind that the Senate is set up by rules that are voted on at the start of the session.
In 2001, Al Gore was still VP when the Senate began its 50-50 session, so Democratic committee chairs remained in office for the weeks until the inaugural, at which point Cheney became VP and the committees all shifted to Republicans… so the rules were set up to allow for the shift, which meant that when Jim Jeffords jumped shift and left the Republicans, they could shift back to Dems.
Normally, the shift isn’t built in to the system, and this sessions rules don’t include anything of the kind. If Lieberman bails on us, the committees stay the same – except for Homeland Security, which reverts to having a DEMOCRATIC chairman.

NYT MONDAY: CHENEY EXPECTED TO MAKE HISTORIC APPEARANCE ON WITNESS STAND… DEVELOPING…

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0211.html

Interesting!

ONE QUESTION –
Please someone tell me WHY DIDN’T FITZ put Cheney on the witness list? Now we’re at the “mercy” of Wells to call him. WHY DIDN’t FITZ want to ? (and if Wells doesn’t — Fitz willnever getthe chance now) PLEASE CLARIFY for me. thx

Mainly because Fitz is the prosecution. And he already has what he needs to prove his case against Libby, which is all he is required/allowed to do at this point.

It’s the rest of us who are hoping Wells will call Cheney. ;)

And he did a lot of cooperative testifying so as to get eight months knocked off what I remember was a one year sentence: Ervin, the Grand Jury, testified in some of the minor cases such as against Kleindienst and Kalmbach, in the failed NY case regarding the milk Co-op money, and then in the big case at the end against Mitchell, Halderman, Erlichman and all. Sirica let him go free after he had spent a week or so on the stand in that case, and stood up to every defense ploy. Immunity was a great tool in this instance in getting all the higher-ups.

Now, as I understand Use Immunity as used in Congress — It can be granted on very narrow lines, applicable only to questions on limited subjects. What happened in the Ollie North case was that Walsh had not completed his investigative work, North knew that, and he answered questions very broadly so as to take an “Immunity Bath” — meaning that the prosecutor cannot use in making charges any information acquired as a result of forced testimony. The chairs of the joint committee (on which Cheney sat) did not control the lines of questioning as they should have done so as to avoid allowing North to use the occassion to confess all his sins under the wraps of immunity. Thus, the appeals court eventually found that some items North attested to before congress related to Walsh’s eventual charges.

Senator Levin is a very smart man — in fact my former Congressman who was voted the Smartest Man in Congress by Staff once told me that as much as he liked the “award” Levin was ten times smarter than he was. I suspect he could conduct a hearing with Libby under oath where all of the questions have been previously addressed in executive session, and only those clearly within the limits of the immunity deal are permitted.

The Ollie North example only holds if the Prosecutor is at the early stage of investigative work. I don’t think that is the case here. I think Fitzgerald is nearly or long done with his investigative work, and if he has another case, I would imagine he has long since put his charges and evidence under seal with the court. This would make it impossible for Libby to do the North trick with the immunity bath, assuming Levin knows what he is doing — and I suspect he very well does.

And nothing Libby might say before Congress could impact appeals. Those are based on the trial record only, and any new evidence Libby might offer would not be relevant to the appeals court. If he appeared before Congress, he would be (we surmise) a convicted felon, convicted of lying to Federal Officers and Grand Juries — he is not a Marine, he would not be able to pull the “national hero” thing in a Marine Corps Uniform. He slouches, he doesn’t march quick step up to any hearing table. Very very different situation.

Immunity, properly used is a substitute for 5th Amendment Rights. Remember, if you assert 5th rights, you have to do it for all questions, not just the ones you cherry-pick. A Proper Use Immunity agreement that substitutes its specific areas for “you can’t use this against me 5th rights” is a way to force a minor figure to provide necessary information without fear that information will be used against them, and done right, it very much narrows the questions that can be asked and the answers that can be given.

Fitz did, in my opinion, a good job using this with Ari. He sure limited the scope of what Libby’s defense attorneys could bring up.