grossman and fitzgerald. doin the dance.

* pincus on the wapo frontpage:

"As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office, according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney's long-standing tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame."

and:

" Some lawyers close to the case cited courthouse talk that Fitzgerald might announce his findings as early as tomorrow, though hard evidence about his intentions and timing remained elusive."

and

" it is increasingly clear that Cheney and his aides have been deeply enmeshed in events surrounding the Plame affair from the outset."

Pincus also seems to be pointing closely to marc grossman - who has since left the egadministration and is working with william cohen.

"Senior administration officials said there was a document circulated at the State Department -- before Libby talked to Miller -- that mentioned Plame. It was drafted in June as an administrative letter and addressed to then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who was acting secretary at the time since Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Deputy Secretary Richard L. Armitage were out of the country.

As a former State Department official involved in the process recalled it, Grossman wanted the letter as background for a meeting at the White House, where the discussion was focused on then growing criticism of Bush's inclusion in his January State of the Union speech of the allegation that Hussein had been seeking uranium from Niger.

The letter to Grossman discussed the reasons the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) did not believe the intelligence, which originated from foreign sources, was accurate. It had a paragraph near the beginning, marked "(S)," meaning it was classified secret, describing a meeting at the CIA in February 2002, attended by another INR analyst, where Plame introduced her husband as the person who was to go to Niger.

Attached to the letter were the notes from the INR analyst who had attended the session, but they were written well after the event occurred and contained mistakes about who was there and what was said, according to a former intelligence official who reviewed the document in the summer of 2003.

Grossman has refused to answer questions about the letter, and it is not clear whether he talked about it at the White House meeting he was said to have attended, according to the former State official."

this is a fascinating turn of events. Grossman's name has never appeared in this story, AFAIK. the blogosphere seems not to have noticed that a good chunk of pincus' article is devoted to grossman.

for more info on mr grossman, check out this earlier post of mine where i speculated that fitzgerald's traitorgate investigation might possibly merge with some of the other scandals... not least sibel's claims that hastert was bought off on the armenian genocide bill. our friend mr grossman was prominent player in " US policy towards Turkey, particularly military aid and sales" alongside feith and perle and wolfowitz. perle is involved in another fitz investigation - Hollinger - and of course was also a major war instigator and was forced to resign from the Defense Policy Board.

grossman made news on another occasion:

""General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker...
Ahmed, the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the under-secretary of state for political affairs."

oh boy. hold on to yer hats, kiddies.