The Nation: Libby Trial: What Scooter Didn't Do

[marmar]

BLOG | Posted 02/12/2007 @ 6:37pm
Libby Trial: What Scooter Didn't Do


Scooter Libby didn't tell Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Libby didn't tell Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that she was employed at the CIA. Libby didn't tell New York Times reporter David Sanger the envoy's wife was CIA. Libby didn't tell Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post anything about her. And he said nothing to rightwing columnist Robert Novak about the woman.

That's how the defense in the perjury trial of I. Lewis" Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, began its case on Monday. The aim was to show that Libby was not willy-nilly spreading information to reporters about Valerie Wilson and her CIA employment in the weeks before she was outed as a CIA officer by Novak's July 14, 2003 column. Libby stands accused of having lied to a grand jury and the FBI when he told both that he had not passed official information regarding Valerie Wilson to reporter Judith Miller, then of The New York Times (during conversations on June 23, July 8 and July 12, 2003) and correspondent Matt Cooper, then of Time (during a phone call on July 12, 2003). With the testimony of the journalists who appeared on Monday, Libby's lawyers will be able to argue to the jurors that if Libby was purposefully leaking information on Valerie Wilson, he sure let plenty of opportunities pass him by.

The defense also elicited testimony from two reporters who each said he had been told about Wilson's wife (before the Novak leak) by an administration official other than Libby. Pincus testified that on July 12 Ari Fleischer, then the White House press secretary, said to him that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and had sent her husband on a boondoggle. (Pincus had previously disclosed that an administration source made such a remark to him without identifying the source.) And Woodward testified that on June 13 he met with then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who told him that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and had been involved with the trip Joseph Wilson had taken to Niger for the CIA to check out the allegation that Iraq had sought uranium there. (The day before Woodward saw Armitage, Pincus had reported on the trip in the Post without naming Wilson).

Libby's lawyers merged these two key points--Libby had not leaked to these reporters while other officials had leaked--and composed a timeline in front of the jury that listed Libby's conversations with Pincus, Woodward, Sanger, Kessler, and Novak and Armitage's conversations with Woodward and Novak and Fleischer's with Pincus. The Libby conversations were noted in black ink. (Black meant no mention of WIlson's wife). The other three were in red. (Red meant Wilson's wife was mentioned.) Voila! The only conversations on the chart involving Valerie Wilson were those between reporters and Bush administration officials besides Libby.

Libby is in legal trouble because in 2003 and 2004 he told the FBI and the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that when he discussed Wilson's wife with Cooper and Miller, he was merely passing along gossip he had picked up from Meet the Press host Tim Russert--not official information gathered from government sources. Fitzgerald has presented witnesses who have testified that Libby did seek and obtain classified information on Valerie Wilson's CIA employment from Cheney and CIA and State Department officials and then leaked it to Miller and Cooper. ......(more)

The rest of the piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=165617

[Fresh_Start]

1. so the point is....? He could have told more people?

did he tell his cleaning lady? did he tell the girl that does his dental hygiene?
Lets poll everyone Scooter knows to see who he told.