The NYT new lead story: “Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Notes Show.”

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.


[…..]


Mr. Libby’s notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson’s undercover status or that her identity was classified. Disclosing a covert agent’s identity can be a crime, but only if the person who discloses it knows the agent’s undercover status.


The article says that Tenet did not testify and “had been interviewed by the special prosecutor and his staff in early 2004.” “Mr. Tenet has not talked since then to the prosecutors, [a former intelligence] official said.” The NYT couldn’t reach Tenet for comment tonight. Hmmm.

Also: The NYT is referring to the 1982 law here. I think they’re wrong. But I’m going to toss this up and read the article again thoroughly. Also:

It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government’s deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry.

[T]he notes, now in Mr. Fitzgerald’s possession, also indicate that Mr. Libby first heard about Ms. Wilson — who is also known by her maiden name, Valerie Plame — from Mr. Cheney. That apparent discrepancy in his testimony suggests why prosecutors are weighing false statement charges against him in what they interpret as an effort by Mr. Libby to protect Mr. Cheney from scrutiny, the lawyers said.


The notes do not show that Mr. Cheney knew the name of Mr. Wilson’s wife. But they do show that Mr. Cheney did know and told Mr. Libby that Ms. Wilson was employed by the C.I.A. and that she may have helped arrange her husband’s trip.


OOPS! There goes another …. Oops! There goes another …. Oops! There goes another Republican Talking POINT!


(You know, the GOP talking point that Wilson was saying that Cheney requested he take the Niger trip, which Wilson did not say. The same point repeated ad nauseum by Andrea Mitchell and Chris Matthews. Andrea Mitchell even said that Joe Wilson lied about the Cheney connection. Even though she has the story all wrong — Wilson said no such thing — it’s also clear that Cheney indeed was aware of Mr. Wilson’s trip arrangements.)

[T]he evidence of Mr. Cheney’s direct involvement in the effort to learn more about Mr. Wilson is sure to intensify the political pressure on the White House in a week of high anxiety among Republicans about the potential for the case to deal a sharp blow to Mr. Bush’s presidency.


I bet so.

And, in the first paragraph, ” lawyers involved in the case said Monday” refers, surely, to Joseph Tate, Scooter Libby’s attorney whose veracity has been questionable in dealings with Judith Miller’s attorneys and it was only through the direct intervention of SP Patrick Fitzgerald that the roadblock before Ms. Miller’s release from jail was removed.