It looks like the jig is up for Dick Cheney. It was announced today that the special prosecutor may call Cheney as a witness. This is only bad for Cheney. If he is called before the grand jury, they can ask him anything they want to ask. I don’t think that he would be granted a deal his testimony would be limited in scope. After all, the grand jury and the special prosecutor are investigating the purposeful leak of the identity of a covert agent. The prosecutor would be shirking if he offered a deal. Unlike a President, the Vice President has only one Constitutional duty, that of serving as the President of the Senate, a duty Dick Cheney has thus far neglected. From the Washington Post,
In a filing last week, Libby’s lawyers said Fitzgerald would not call Cheney as a witness and would have a hard time getting the vice president’s notes admitted into evidence.
“Contrary to defendant’s assertion, the government has not represented that it does not intend to call the vice president as a witness at trial,” Fitzgerald wrote. “To the best of government’s counsel’s recollection, the government has not commented on whether it intends to call the vice president as a witness.”
If Cheney testifies, it seems like there are three options available.
- tell the truth about his involvement
- lie, and face a perjury charge that this prosecutor seems very capable of adjudicating
- plead the Fifth
In any case, it would seem that the political career of Dick Cheney is at end if he testifies.