Former Clinton advisor Dick Morris says new revelations implicating Vice President Dick Cheney in the Valerie Plame Leakgate scandal could force Cheney into early retirement and pave the way for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to become VP.
"There are questions that I think the vice president needs to answer," Morris told Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" on Tuesday.
The former top Clinton advisor said Tuesday's New York Times report that Cheney revealed Plame's identity to his chief of staff Lewis Libby could spell trouble, since Libby reportedly told prosecutors instead that he learned about Plame from reporters.
Said Morris: "If Cheney himself was the source of all this information and Libby in fact learned it from Cheney . . . then I'd want to know why the vice president didn't speak up."
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Prosecutors will also want to know, he said, whether Cheney's silence was meant as a signal to Libby to stick to his journalist cover story.
Morris said that if either Libby or Karl Rove lied to the grand jury, then they should be indicted.
"Just like I felt that Bill Clinton should have been prosecuted for perjury - if perjury was committed here by Republicans, then they should be prosecuted," he told Fox.
"There are a lot of questions that Dick Cheney needs to answer," Morris repeated, before tossing his rhetorical hand grenade: "And we may have Condi Rice [filling his shoes] before long."