Leakgate Investigation Tightens Around Libby

Scooter Libby is already indicted. Remember him? Dick Cheney's right-hand man? The White House would like to forget him. They would also like to forget that the role of Cheney and Karl Rove has never been fully understood by the public. Here's a story by Walter Pincus of The Washington Post (hat tip to Democratic Underground):

The classified status of the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame will be a key element in any trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, according to special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald has said that at trial he plans to show that Libby knew Plame's employment at the CIA was classified and that he lied to the grand jury when he said he had learned from NBC News's Tim Russert that Plame, the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked for the agency.

If there are no new developments in Leakgate this week, I want to go back to the press conference Fitzgerald gave when Libby was indicted last fall. Fitzgerald gave a number of reasons why the investigation was important and why the investigation has gone so slow. What Fitzgerald said is worth revisiting. There was never anything trivial about the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson.