'There is a cloud over the White House;' Not just Libby, prosecutor accuses 'them'

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While rebutting the closing argument by the defense at I. Lewis Libby's trial, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spoke of a "dark cloud over the White House," due to the alleged obstruction of justice by the former White House aide. At the Washington Post's website, columnist Dan Froomkin points out that for the first time, as many have speculated, the prosecutor wasn't just accusing Libby, he was also referring to "them."

According to Froomkin, Fitzgerald "at long last made it quite clear that the depth of Vice President Cheney's role in the leaking of the identity of a CIA operative is one of the central mysteries that Libby's alleged lies prevented investigators from resolving."

"There is a cloud over the vice president . . . And that cloud remains because this defendant obstructed justice," Fitzgerald said. "There is a cloud over the White House. Don't you think the FBI and the grand jury and the American people are entitled to straight answers?"

Froomkin continues, "After literally years of keeping his public pronouncements about the case to an absolute minimum, Fitzgerald yesterday finally let slip a bit of the speculation that many of us have long suspected has lurked just beneath the surface of his investigation. Suddenly it wasn't just the defendant alone, it was 'they' who decided to tell reporters about Wilson's wife working for the CIA. 'To them,' Fitzgerald said, 'she wasn't a person, she was an argument.'"

http://www.rawstory.com//news/2007/There_cloud_over_White_House_Not_0221.html