TruthOut has reported that Rove has been indicted and has been given 24 hours to get his affairs in order (see earlier post). Now handwritten notes by Dick Cheney on the “margins of a July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed column by former ambassador Joseph Wilson,” have been included as part of the latest “filing Friday night by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the perjury and obstruction case against ex-Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.”

The notes, Fitzgerald said in his filing, show that Cheney and Libby were “acutely focused” on the Wilson column and on rebutting his criticisms of the White House’s handling of pre-Iraq war intelligence. In the column, which created a firestorm after its publication, Wilson wrote that he had been dispatched by the CIA without pay to Niger in February, 2002 to investigate an intelligence report that Iraq was seeking uranium from the African country for a nuclear bomb. Wilson said he was told Cheney had asked about the intelligence,but the White House subsequently ignored his findings debunking the Niger claims.

In the margins of the op-ed, Cheney jotted out a series of questions that seemed to challenge many of Wilson’s assertions as well as the legitimacy of his CIA sponsored trip to Africa: “Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb. [sic] to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?”

Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reports that “It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for Cheney’s own notes to be made public.”

The notes—apparently obtained as a result of a grand jury subpoena—would appear to make Cheney an even more central witness than had been previously thought in the criminal probe. Fitzgerald’s prosecution has created continued problems for the White House.

This all raises the question, could Cheney be next on the indictment list in the PlameGate case? The notes show that “the vice president personally raised questions about Wilson’s trip right after the publication of the Wilson column-and five days before Libby confirmed to Time reporter Matt Cooper that he had “heard” that Wilson’s wife, former CIA agent Valerie Plame, had played a role in sending him to Africa.” The contents of Fitzgerald’s filing yesterday are available here.

Another interesting piece of news on Cheney also surfaced today in the NY Times. The Times reports that “In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e-mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists, according to two senior intelligence officials.”

Dick’s dirty hands seem to be all over a few of the scandals and controversies involving the Bush administration. Obviously Patrick Fitzgerald isn’t even close to concluding his investigation… Perhaps Dick should resign in the fashion of Porter Goss, before he too is forced out.

UPDATE: Two posts at The Next Hurrah offer a deeper look at the implication that Cheney is next inline for an indictment… “Fitzgerald Collecting Cheney’s Smoking Guns” and “Dick Takes Notes.” Both good reads…

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