In a new filing, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald coyly introduces the notion of calling vice president Dick Cheney to testify.
“Contrary to defendant’s assertion, the government has not represented that it does not intend to call the vice president as a witness at trial,” the New York Times quotes Fitz as having written. “To the best of government’s counsel’s recollection, the government has not commented on whether it intends to call the vice president as a witness.”
Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, told Fitzgerald’s grand jury that Cheney was upset by an op-ed published by outed CIA operative Valerie Plame’s husband, Joe Wilson, and the veep urged him to “get the facts out.” It sounds like Fitzgerald would like to hear Cheney’s side of that story.
The filing also revealed that Cheney carries with him “a little penknife,” according to Libby, although the former aide would say of the weapon only that Cheney used it to clip newspaper articles.
Libby, who’s been charged with lying about his activities during the time of the leak, has tried to argue that he was so busy during the summer of 2003 with pressing national security issues he couldn’t be expected to accurately recall such a petty thing as how the White House reacted to Wilson’s newspaper article. Fitzgerald, meanwhile, appears to be building a case that Libby was preoccupied with rebutting Wilson — and that his boss was, also.
