For months people have asked me this question: Why is everyone else in trouble over the Plame story but Robert Novak?
Earlier in the progress of the case, I thought I had two good answers. One, prosecutors usually work from the outside of a case in. Thus, it make sense that they’d get to secondary players like Cooper and Miller first. Second, precisely because of his immediate involvement in what happened, I suspected that Novak might be able to invoke the 5th amendment and not testify. Ironically, under this theory, that would put Cooper et al. in more jeopardy precisely because they’re not accused of playing a role in the commission of a crime. And thus they’ve got no plausible 5th amendment claim to hide behind.
Now, clearly, if it ever was, we’re way too far into this for my first answer to be correct. And I’m no longer sure my second one is either.
So why is it exactly that Novak is sitting pretty?
We’re discussing it over at the TPMCafe politics discussion table.
