Salon/John Dean:Why Ashcroft removed himself from Valerie Plame Inquiry

Why did Ashcroft remove himself from the Valerie Plame Wilson inquiry?

Heavily edited. Dean has some intuition that the investigators were getting close to someone that Ashcroft knew.

This is a Salon subscription article. I think you can get a 1-day free pass. Or pm me if you want more.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/01/09/dean_ashcroft/

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What facts would raise serious questions of the appearance of a conflict of interest here? I'd bet that the investigation is focusing on at least one target whom Ashcroft knows more than casually, or works with regularly. After all, Novak did identify his sources as two "senior administration officials."

What explains the timing of Ashcroft's removal? Recall that the removal occurred as a result of events that took place in the same week the Post reported that the FBI had told potential witnesses they might have to face a grand jury.

Some of those witnesses very probably hired lawyers as soon as they heard the news. Especially likely to hire a lawyer would be a middle-level person with knowledge of a leak by a higher-up. And such a lawyer would likely have gone immediately to the prosecutors to make a deal.

SNIP

When the lawyer -- diGenova, Toensing or someone else -- went to the government seeking immunity for his or her client, Ashcroft would have heard that the middle-level person was offering to finger the high-level leaker. At that point, he would have realized he himself knew the high-level leaker, decided to recuse himself from the case, and let Fitzgerald take over.

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