Cheney Could be Forced to Testify in Plame Suit

The indefatigable Murray Waas, whose National Journal reporting has discomfited the Whitewash House perjurers at every point, appeared this morning on Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales’s radio show “Democracy Now! The War and Peace Report.” The blockbuster teaser: Waas thinks the Paula Jones precedent of a sitting president testifying in a civil case will force Dick Cheney to testify in Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame’s civil suit against him for destroying her covert career.

AMY GOODMAN: Final question, Murray, and this goes back to the top story, and that is Scooter Libby getting a sentence of two-and-a-half years, quarter-million-dollar fine: what now happens to Valerie Plame? What happens to her lawsuit that she has against him?
MURRAY WAAS: Well, I think the civil suit -- the civil suit can proceed when the criminal stuff is over. So I think what it does, I think the thing that happens today, or perhaps it starts, pending the appeal, is that they can then proceed with that civil suit. And, you know, it’s very rare to bring a civil suit against the Vice President. The only kind of similar thing I can think of is the Paula Jones case against President Clinton, so we’re into uncharted territory. But it seems like it’s a much more substantial case or much more serious case than the Paula Jones case. So we’ve seen the Paula Jones case proceed, so we assume this will go ahead, too. And the civil case should be a vast source of information, discovery of new information, and perhaps the historical record will get straight, as, you know, more information about what happened comes out.
AMY GOODMAN: Could it lead to a parallel criminal investigation of Vice President Cheney?
MURRAY WAAS: Well, I think that Fitzgerald is pretty much -- his hands are tied beyond what happened today, absent Scooter Libby making a deal and testifying against any other official of the administration. But what’s interesting is what Ken Starr did, was look at erroneous, well, supposedly false statements for perjury, alleged perjury by President Clinton in the Paula Jones case. So, by having a vast civil record, by having days and days of sworn testimony and officials on the record, including perhaps the Vice President, it does open the possibility that those statements could be scrutinized by Pat Fitzgerald in the future or whoever else would have, you know, jurisdiction in case he wasn’t still in government at that point.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/06/1415230