The ever evolving Plame scandal is just that -- ever evolving. In the latest development, as reported this weekend by Frank Rich in this weekend's New York Times magazine, then Presidential counsel Alberto Gonzales warned the White House that the investigation was coming. Rich explains the significance of the story as follows:

As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18½-minute tape gap. "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence," said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago. A new Gonzales confirmation process now would have quickly devolved into a neo-Watergate hearing. Mr. Gonzales was in the thick of the Plame investigation, all told, for 16 months.

As the AP's Nedra Pickler informs, Gonzales shed more light on the story this morning on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday that he notified White House chief of staff Andy Card after the Justice Department opened an investigation into who revealed a covert CIA officer's identity, but waited 12 hours to tell anyone else in the executive mansion.

The White House did not respond to questions Sunday about whether Card passed that information to top Bush aide Karl Rove or anyone else, giving them advance notice to prepare for the investigation.

[...]

Gonzales said Justice Department lawyers notified him of the investigation around 8 p.m., and he got permission from them to wait until the following morning to direct the staff to preserve any materials related to the case.

"We were advised, `Go ahead and notify the staff early in the morning, that would be OK,'" Gonzales said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "And again, most of the staff had gone home. No one knew about the investigation."

Gonzales said he immediately notified Card, then told President Bush the next morning before notifying the White House staff.

To get a better idea of the interchange, check out the two and a half minute video of it hosted on the blog Crooks and Liars.