The Long Plame Game

While Karl Rove's lawyer is denying the story that his client has already been indicted (and Rove was confident enough of at least a day's grace to be out speaking about politics), the court record itself has a more solid piece of news, in Patrick Fitzgerald's latest filing.

According to David Schuster of NBC:

But the latest prosecution pleading says that on the day columnist Robert Novak's column first disclosed Valerie Wilson's identity, a quote "CIA official discussed in the defendant's presence the dangers posed by disclosure of the CIA affiliation of one of its employees as had occurred in the Novak column. This evidence directly contradicts the defense position that the defendant had no motive to lie. Instead, the evidence about the conversation concerning the Novak column provides a strong motive for the defendant to provide false information and testimony about his disclosures to reporters.

This is potentially an important piece of any case, not only on Libby's lying, but on Rove and others, and possibly even about the underlying act of outing a covert agent. The whole thing is way too complicated to follow, but there is the impression that Fitzgerald will lay out the evidence and build his cases, even if it takes years.