Breaking Plame news

UPI’s Richard Sale has breaking news on the Plame investigation:

Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer’s identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said. According to these sources, [Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs] John Hannah and Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, were the two Cheney employees. “We believe that Hannah was the major player in this,” one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president’s office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah “that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time” as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said.

A little further down in the story is this quote about the White House’s reaction to the triggering event, Joseph Wilson’s op-ed bebunking the Niger yellowcake claim:

According to one administration official, “The White House was really pissed, and began to contact six journalists in order to plant stories to discredit Wilson,” according to the New York Times and other accounts.

Hat tip to Josh Marshall, who promises more soon. UPDATE: Robert Tagorda has blogosphere reaction, as well as a link to a Newsweek story Hannah’s prior involvement in Iraq intelligence. If this pans out,* I tend to agree with Mark Kleiman:

[I]f this stays in the VPs office, I’d call that very good news for Mr. Bush. The staff guys can be fired. If necessary, Cheney can be dumped from the ticket (which might not be a bad move anyway).

Chris Lawrence has further thoughts on Cheney. *One thing does trouble me: why haven’t the other wire services — AP, Reuters — picked this story up? [UPDATE: Josh Marshall comments on this as well, suggesting the following:

Yesterday I talked with an emissary from neoconland who pushed back heavily on the story, at least as regards John Hannah. No mention of Libby. But Hannah, this person insisted, is simply not a target of the investigation. Let me add another point. There are lots of people I know (of many political persuasions) who aren’t surprised Libby would be involved in this and won’t be shedding a tear if he gets brought down by it. But they feel the opposite on both counts about Hannah. None of this means Hannah is or isn’t in the clear. I’m just trying to give you a feel for the reaction to the mention of his name as a potential target of this investigation.]

ANOTHER UPDATE: This Asian Times piece has the rundown on Cheney’s travails as of late. This graf stands out:

According to recent polls, Cheney’s approval ratings, hovering around 20 percent, are already far below Bush’s, which have themselves sunk below 50 percent for the first time in his presidency. Even Halliburton, whose public image has become so tarnished that it has launched a controversial television ad campaign to boost its image, last week listed Cheney’s association to the company as a “risk factor” for its shareholders.

The approval rating argument seems bogus — but the Halliburton story is true.