Reply #44: More:

[H2O Man]

Highlights & Quotes

During the weeks leading up to the indictment of I. Lewis Libby , the vice president's former chief of staff, a number of bloggers and pundits speculated on whether John P. Hannah, then the principal deputy assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney , was providing information to the special prosecutor that could be used to indict White House officials in the so-called PlameGate affair.

On October 19, shortly before the Libby indictment was handed down, the Nelson Report , produced by Washington “uber-insider” Chris Nelson, reported that “ today's hot gossip is that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald may have sent a ‘target letter' … an official warning of a likely indictment …to Vice President Cheney's deputy chief of staff, John Hannah. According to sources which have been right from time to time, Hannah has told associates he has been forced to cut a deal, and that they think this includes testifying against his immediate boss, Lewis ‘Scooter' Libby.” (2)

At about the same time, the Washington Post reported that Hannah had “told friends in recent months he is worried he may be implicated by the investigation, according to two U.S. officials. It is not clear whether Hannah had any role in unmasking Plame, or why he should fear Fitzgerald's probe. But the eleventh-hour emergence of another possible target shows how Fitzgerald has cast his net so widely over the past two years that it is impossible to know who, if anyone, it might ensnare.” (3)

On October 28, Fitzgerald announced—no doubt, much to Hannah's relief—a single indictment against Libby. Three days later, the White House announced that Hannah, along with the vice president's council David Addington, had been appointed to fill Libby's post in the VP's office.

(more at: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/2926 )