could Fitz call Cheney to rebut a rebuttal witness without raising cheney’s 5th amendment rights
here’s how I could see it happening:
Fitz introduces the annodated Wilson Column, scooter presents a rebuttal witness to dispute the origins of the annotations
could Fitz call cheney in that narrow window without involving cheney’s 5th amendment protections ???
Anonymous says:
From one quick read, the Walton opinion puzzled me on several counts. But one I think I might get has to do with Calabresi from Time. If you look at the TIME article, I think you can discern that when Calabresi interviewed Wilson after Cooper had heard about Plame, he asked Wilson about it:
In an interview with TIME, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president’s father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. â€That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case,†Wilson told TIME. â€I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere [before the Feb 2002 trip]. None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job.â€
Presumably Walton is sufficiently convinced that Calabresi learned from Cooper, and not from Wilson himself.
I don’t get the ruling on the Times. And slight seems like a weird way to characterize an alteration that Team Libby could use to impeach Cooper. I guess maybe â€small but arguably significant†would be too Libby-friendly, to say nothing of less concise?
Anonymous says:
Jeff
Ah, thanks–I’ll move your explanation up into the text on the Calabresi explanation.
What don’t you get about the NYT case?
I need to review the Cooper testimony again, but I suspect it is significant in that Cooper was literally changing the language he used to refer to something. But may not change the overall jist of his reporting.
Anonymous says:
From an AP article re: Cooper’s drafts …
A person familiar with Cooper’s drafts described the inconsistencies as â€trivial.†The person spoke on condition of anonymity because Walton has warned the case’s participants against talking to reporters.
Anonymous says:
Well, that’s good news. I rather suspected as much (not least because when I was doing the Anatomy post, I realized he worded the description of his two Libby conversations almost exactly identically in the two stories.
But it’s good to hear from someone who has seen them.
Anonymous says:
I was bummed about the NYT thing too. I was really looking forward to the whole Abramson/Keller/Judy thing being untangled.
Now our best hope is that Judy gets a bee in her bonnet and decides she needs some more attention.
Anonymous says:
one thing I still don’t understand – I have always thought all along that Judy was the mouthpiece for Libby and Cheney, so why is it that Libby would want to go after her notes? Wouldn’t that just implicate him even more? and lets not forget her odd meetings with Ledeen especially in Iraq (there’s a whole lot there not yet discovered – Ledeen is a behind the scenes kind-of-guy.
Anonymous says:
PLEASE Pardon the interuption: I’m part of an effort to ask all daily kos bloggers to boycott the site until Markos demotes to regular user status a â€frontpage†blogger who is an attorney that represents Walmart, Clorox and other frequent members of the â€worst corporations†lists. In addition, this person is a partner in a law firm that boasts of representing over half of the United States largest corporations and even has a lobbying department to promote corporate special interests! On a daily basis, this firm fights against the same progressive issues that are promoted on Daily Kos. This person cannot reasonably be defined as a progressive and Dkos is supposed to be for progressives. This persons prominent presence on the site undermines the credability of not only dkos, but the entire progressive blogging community. Even though this person is obviously a public figure –he has openly â€outed†himself and said his full name and the fact that he is an attorney in numerous media inteviews, including NPR’s morning edition and The Majority Report– I am honoring many people’s sensitivity to this issue and not mentioning his name here.
Anonymous says:
OT – Please boycott sour grapes – at least until they make them like I like ’em.
Great post EW. I can’t wait for Judy to testify. I luvs that diva.
Anonymous says:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this suggests Wilson’s wife came up in some context, doesn’t it? I assume, having read the document, Walton knows what he’s doing. But what kind of mention of Plame would come up that wouldn’t be relevant?
point of information:
â€information used to impeach the credibility of a witness†is not necessarily relevant to central facts involved in the case.
For instance, one draft of a Cooper article might say that he called Rove to ask about welfare reform, while the final piece says that while Cooper had called about welfare reform previously, it was not the subject of the call in question. This contradiction has nothing to do with the case against Libby per se, but because the conversation with Rove will be part of Coopers testimony (needed to set up Cooper’s testimony on his confirming call to Libby), the difference between the two accounts can be used to raise questions about Cooper’s credibility/memory.
In other words, Walton’s statement in no way implies/â€suggests†that †this suggests Wilson’s wife came up in some context, doesn’t it? †Any information that contradicts/raises questions about what someone testifies to is admissible for impeachment purposes.
Anonymous says:
p luk
That refers specifically to subpoena item 1, which is anything of the other Time writers have that â€refer to the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whether by name or otherwise.†So it’s definitely Plame. But I think Jeff explains it away well.
Anonymous says:
On balance Walton appears to have produced a measured response. I still have questions about the timing of last week’s blizzard of Judy authorship in other media outlets, and wonder if that was preframing her authoritativeness in the region and on the topics involved, restating her own bonafides as a counterweight to whatever she senses Libby’s folks are attempting to discover. I wonder if Vinovka will have an opportunity to help muddy the waters by repudiating slanting facts and even impeaching Luskin’s own imagery artistry. I do not know about Andrea as category five. Anyone in the witness pool named Katrina?
Anonymous says:
They found the Canadian diplomat in Italy. His credit card was being used by a Nigerian. That’s where the foregeries were and the two Nigerian operations officers were found too?
He enjoyed internet cafes…………
Anonymous says:
I STILL think that Judy got her information about Plame/Flame from David Kelley… her ol’ gossip-buddy. Kelley’s unmasking and death during this July interval is an essential underpinning to the framework.
When she first got the name and possible activities involving WMD, she might not have linked Plame to Wilson. I doubt if she did basic research, but probably got the gossip from the conventions and panels as to who was working on what. Libby might have made the marital connection for her.
Judy’s notebooks would make fascinating reading… as much for what they missed as to which dots got linked.
that’s why we love you, ew
I’ve been pondering an oddball question:
could Fitz call Cheney to rebut a rebuttal witness without raising cheney’s 5th amendment rights
here’s how I could see it happening:
Fitz introduces the annodated Wilson Column, scooter presents a rebuttal witness to dispute the origins of the annotations
could Fitz call cheney in that narrow window without involving cheney’s 5th amendment protections ???
From one quick read, the Walton opinion puzzled me on several counts. But one I think I might get has to do with Calabresi from Time. If you look at the TIME article, I think you can discern that when Calabresi interviewed Wilson after Cooper had heard about Plame, he asked Wilson about it:
In an interview with TIME, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president’s father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. â€That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case,†Wilson told TIME. â€I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere [before the Feb 2002 trip]. None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job.â€
Presumably Walton is sufficiently convinced that Calabresi learned from Cooper, and not from Wilson himself.
I don’t get the ruling on the Times. And slight seems like a weird way to characterize an alteration that Team Libby could use to impeach Cooper. I guess maybe â€small but arguably significant†would be too Libby-friendly, to say nothing of less concise?
Jeff
Ah, thanks–I’ll move your explanation up into the text on the Calabresi explanation.
What don’t you get about the NYT case?
I need to review the Cooper testimony again, but I suspect it is significant in that Cooper was literally changing the language he used to refer to something. But may not change the overall jist of his reporting.
From an AP article re: Cooper’s drafts …
A person familiar with Cooper’s drafts described the inconsistencies as â€trivial.†The person spoke on condition of anonymity because Walton has warned the case’s participants against talking to reporters.
Well, that’s good news. I rather suspected as much (not least because when I was doing the Anatomy post, I realized he worded the description of his two Libby conversations almost exactly identically in the two stories.
But it’s good to hear from someone who has seen them.
I was bummed about the NYT thing too. I was really looking forward to the whole Abramson/Keller/Judy thing being untangled.
Now our best hope is that Judy gets a bee in her bonnet and decides she needs some more attention.
one thing I still don’t understand – I have always thought all along that Judy was the mouthpiece for Libby and Cheney, so why is it that Libby would want to go after her notes? Wouldn’t that just implicate him even more? and lets not forget her odd meetings with Ledeen especially in Iraq (there’s a whole lot there not yet discovered – Ledeen is a behind the scenes kind-of-guy.
PLEASE Pardon the interuption: I’m part of an effort to ask all daily kos bloggers to boycott the site until Markos demotes to regular user status a â€frontpage†blogger who is an attorney that represents Walmart, Clorox and other frequent members of the â€worst corporations†lists. In addition, this person is a partner in a law firm that boasts of representing over half of the United States largest corporations and even has a lobbying department to promote corporate special interests! On a daily basis, this firm fights against the same progressive issues that are promoted on Daily Kos. This person cannot reasonably be defined as a progressive and Dkos is supposed to be for progressives. This persons prominent presence on the site undermines the credability of not only dkos, but the entire progressive blogging community. Even though this person is obviously a public figure –he has openly â€outed†himself and said his full name and the fact that he is an attorney in numerous media inteviews, including NPR’s morning edition and The Majority Report– I am honoring many people’s sensitivity to this issue and not mentioning his name here.
OT – Please boycott sour grapes – at least until they make them like I like ’em.
Great post EW. I can’t wait for Judy to testify. I luvs that diva.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this suggests Wilson’s wife came up in some context, doesn’t it? I assume, having read the document, Walton knows what he’s doing. But what kind of mention of Plame would come up that wouldn’t be relevant?
point of information:
â€information used to impeach the credibility of a witness†is not necessarily relevant to central facts involved in the case.
For instance, one draft of a Cooper article might say that he called Rove to ask about welfare reform, while the final piece says that while Cooper had called about welfare reform previously, it was not the subject of the call in question. This contradiction has nothing to do with the case against Libby per se, but because the conversation with Rove will be part of Coopers testimony (needed to set up Cooper’s testimony on his confirming call to Libby), the difference between the two accounts can be used to raise questions about Cooper’s credibility/memory.
In other words, Walton’s statement in no way implies/â€suggests†that †this suggests Wilson’s wife came up in some context, doesn’t it? †Any information that contradicts/raises questions about what someone testifies to is admissible for impeachment purposes.
p luk
That refers specifically to subpoena item 1, which is anything of the other Time writers have that â€refer to the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whether by name or otherwise.†So it’s definitely Plame. But I think Jeff explains it away well.
On balance Walton appears to have produced a measured response.
I still have questions about the timing of last week’s blizzard of Judy authorship in other media outlets, and wonder if that was preframing her authoritativeness in the region and on the topics involved, restating her own bonafides as a counterweight to whatever she senses Libby’s folks are attempting to discover.
I wonder if Vinovka will have an opportunity to help muddy the waters by repudiating slanting facts and even impeaching Luskin’s own imagery artistry.
I do not know about Andrea as category five. Anyone in the witness pool named Katrina?
They found the Canadian diplomat in Italy. His credit card was being used by a Nigerian. That’s where the foregeries were and the two Nigerian operations officers were found too?
He enjoyed internet cafes…………
I STILL think that Judy got her information about Plame/Flame from David Kelley… her ol’ gossip-buddy. Kelley’s unmasking and death during this July interval is an essential underpinning to the framework.
When she first got the name and possible activities involving WMD, she might not have linked Plame to Wilson. I doubt if she did basic research, but probably got the gossip from the conventions and panels as to who was working on what. Libby might have made the marital connection for her.
Judy’s notebooks would make fascinating reading… as much for what they missed as to which dots got linked.