PlameGate: Rumours, Speculation, Leaks, Musings

Fleischer, Hannah, and now... a second Cheney aide, David Wurmser, has flipped. Via Raw Story:

Wurmser, Cheney's Middle East advisor and an assistant to then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, likely cooperated because he faced criminal charges for his role in leaking Wilson's name on the orders of higher-ups, the sources said.

According to those familiar with the case, Wurmser was in attendance at several meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a little-known cabal of administration hawks that formed in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Those who say they have reviewed documents obtained in the probe assert that the Vice President was also present at some of the group's meetings...

Wurmser's cooperation with Fitzgerald would certainly come as no surprise to those who have been following his career. Last year, he was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his possible role in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel.

According to a 2004 story in the Washington Post, the FBI interviewed officials in Cheney's office and the Pentagon, including Hannah and Wurmser, former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, to determine if they were involved in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel, the former head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)...

Wurmser was the lead author of a 1996 policy paper for then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu titled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." It called for removing Saddam from power in Iraq as part of a broad strategy to transform the region and remove radical regimes. Eight months before 9/11, Wurmser called for joint U.S.-Israeli air strikes on Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya.

Hannah and Wurmser were first named as possible suspects in the Plame leak by Wilson, Plame's husband, in his book, The Politics of Truth.

"In fact, senior advisers close to the president may well have been clever enough to have used others to do the actual leaking, in order to keep their fingerprints off the crime," Wilson writes.

"John Hannah and David Wurmser, mid-level political appointees in the vice-president's office, have both been suggested as sources of the leak ... Mid-level officials, however, do not leak information without the authority from a higher level," Wilson notes.

Jan Frel gets a leak "from a Democratic House member's staffer with tons of good dirt on the Plame investigation":

- Fred Flights, an assistant to John Bolton, is a named name who could be indicted.

-Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have been suggested as replacements for Dick Cheney.

-Colin Powell told John McCain he showed the infamous memo with Plame's identity on it two just two people; Dick Cheney and George Bush.

-Fitzgerald is looking at the precedent set from the indictment of Tricky Dick's veep Spiro Agnew to pursue against Cheney.

Elswhere at AlterNet, Cenk Uygur asks:

What if the real purpose of outing Valerie Plame was to out Valerie Plame?

... Remember, there were dissenters inside the CIA on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program. If Plame was one of those dissenters, removing her from her position would come in awfully handy. Out her and throw her husband’s objectivity into question – kill two birds with one stone.

And Howard Fineman muses on poetic justice:

Traits and tactics that lead to power lead to overreach, and ruin... Tightly-knit groups rise together, but they fall together. If the inner circle is small, it takes only one insider “flip” to endanger the rest.