and what’s under this card, i wonder

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was the first person in the administration told by the Justice Department that they had initiated an investigation, at the request of the CIA, into the outing of agent Valerie Plame. According to the records that have been made public thus far, Gonzales was contacted at 8:30 PM on September 29, 2003, and told to inform all White House staff to “preserve (any) materials” that might be relevant to the case. That, apparently, isn’t what happened, though.

According to Gonzales, in an interview broadcast this morning on Face the Nation, he took 12 hours to get the word out to White House staff, telling them not to destroy evidence… Actually, that’s not quite right. He didn’t wait 12 hours to tell everyone. According to Gonzales, one person got a “heads up” the night before, and that person was none other than White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card. (Gonzales, in his defense, says that his contact at the Justice Department told him that he didn’t have to send out the “do not shred or delete” order until the following morning.)

Now, it looks as though the investigation is going to focus on Card, and who, if anyone, he contacted that night, after speaking with Gonzales, and what he may have told them about shredding papers and deleting files that may have indicated contacts with journalists concerning the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame… And so, things continue to unravel.

If you want to know more, there’s a good article on this at Think Progress, and video of the Gonzales interview can be found at Crooks and Liars.