Oh shit, I’m wrong!! It was the reverse. After reading me suggest Ted Wells a misogynistic pig, they’ve now revised to calling her Ms. Wilson.

Did you also catch that they removed the reference to â€classified information about MR. Wilson†too? So are they ceding the point that Scooter probably DID leak Wilson’s trip report and ID’d him as Joe Wilson before that fact was widely known?

I had no idea trials were so ad hoc – adding and eliminating evidence throughout, rewriting the charges at the end, and renovating the defense rational until the final day. Thanks for the thorough blogging.

Great analysis.

You are awesome. And I just needed to tell you that.

EW–I bothered you the other day in the middle of live blogging with a question about how you knew Novak and Libby had spoken that critical week?

Also, this is a great post which clears up much of the muddle that was Thursday. And the live blogging was amazing. I look forward to closing statements. I finally had a moment to start your book and I couldn’t put it down. I’m delivering a second copy of it to my Mom tomorrow.

It’s obvious Libby became certain he didn’t leak to Novak when Novak didn’t testify that he did.

Emptywheel,

Even if Bush himself insta-declassifies Ms Plame’s identity and status (waves his wand), can he legally do that? Without notifying the CIA? Without telling her or her station chief? Especially with an entire officeful of CIA agents and employees at risk? Would he not have to call Tenet, and Tenet call the station chief on a secured line saying â€get our people out tonight!â€

Should there not be a paper trail designating the order, even if that trail is classified? Suppose that he fired her, he can’t just drop her out the window and her potted plant, too. He’d have to tell her boss and make sure that a pink slip in quadruplicate with a couple of signatures was handed to her. Exposing a spy ends her career just as surely. A total lack of paperwork would make a wrongful discharge case harder to repel.

His signing statements and executive orders seem to be mostly hidden from view, but there hasn’t been a whisper of authorization about this.

If Cheney insta-declassified her status, would he even bother to tell Bush? Anybody?

If Novak’s gossipy lobbyist buddy spread the news to the Administration on Friday that a story revealing Plame’s identity was due to be published on Monday, I’m surprised that not one of those officials bothered to let the CIA know what was in the pipeline.

Can Bush or Cheney insta-declassify anything for a half-hour (long enough to safely leak) before classifying it again? Wouldn’t the document get the equivalent of metal fatigue from being warped and unwarped too many times?

KM

Thank you–yes, that’s the idea.

Jane S.

I’m hoping to do a post dedicated to you to answer that question. Problem is I’ve got a lot this week–and I’ve got to at least do my â€indicting Dick†post.

But please, please, keep nagging me, bc I do want to do the post.

See also Fitzgerald’s Objections and Proposals to Final Jury Instructions, filed February 16. [Doc 292]

The government objects to this part of the Defense’s Revised Theory of the Defense on three grounds. First, it purports to set forth a fact, rather than the defendant’s contention, regarding defendant’s state of mind. Second, there is no evidence in the record indicating that journalists â€likely would†talk with the FBI, or that defendant believed that that was the case. Similarly, there is no evidence in the record that â€the journalists [defendant] spoke with†would in fact â€recount to the FBI their recollections of conversations they had with the defendant,†let alone that they would do so â€truthfully.†In fact, the evidence showed that a number of individuals with whom Mr. Libby spoke refused to recount their recollections to the FBI and to prosecutors, and that court orders were required to obtain the testimony of numerous witnesses. The government therefore submits the following proposed revision to that sentence from the defendant’s Proposed Theory of the Defense Instruction, which omits those aspects
of the statement that are unsupported by evidence and also corrects the reference to â€investigators†as the Court previously suggested:

Further, Mr. Libby contends he was well aware when he was first interviewed by the FBI and when he testified to the grand jury that the FBI agents could talk to government officials and the journalists he spoke with concerning Ambassador Wilson.

hauksdottir, I think you nailed it. Cheney can rant about his authority to insta-declassify all he wants. That process should go back to 12 June 2003, when Scooter’s notes confirm Cheney told him. Both Cheney and Scooter had ample, public notice after Novak’s article, that the declassification process, was massively incomplete at best. I have to believe, that the not insignificant paper trail, that declassification was supposed to generate, does not exist. That absence imho will be massive evidence against Cheney.

OT, emptywheel, I’m concerned that the MSM is slanting their coverage in a way that makes Russert’s testimony more important than it is. The key evidence imho are his notes from 12 June 2003 that Cheney told him and his GJ testimony that Cheney told him that Bush had explicitly authorized the leak. Long before Russert, I would rank Cathie Martin’s testimony that she told both Scooter and DeadEye that Plame was classified, as more damaging to Scooter. I think the Addington conversation was also more damaging.

OT, I cannot believe that Gregory and Mrs. Greenspan hadn’t told Russert prior to July 10, that Plame was CIA.

– I’m concerned that the MSM is slanting their coverage in a way that makes Russert’s testimony more important than it is. –

I’m not concerned, but I share the same sense that nearly all the observers miss the point of the case. If Russert did, in fact, tell Libby, then Russert is â€just another Cooper†in the scheme of things. The objection of the leak investigators and grand jury bottoms out on Libby’s apparent insistence that he forgot the only official source he heard from (Cheney, and he volunteered that by showing his June 12 Cheney note at the first FBI interrogation), and only remembered hearing from reporters.

Sure, Libby filled in some details around that basic framework. Heard from Russert, for example. The defense is well-served by making the case all about the detail (if Libby heard from Russert, or honestly but mistakenly thought he heard from Russert, then he didn’t obstruct justice), and thereby diverting attention from the basic objection of the investigator.

If the jury picks up the gist of the investigator’s objection, then they will, as you do, find the testimony of Miller and the government witnesses (including their contemporaneous notes that indicate Libby asked about the people involved in sending Wilson to Niger) will carry more weight than the testimony of Russert.

Thanks emptywheel, very much. I never understood until your liveblogging what organized chaos a trial involved, the amount of energy expended by Judge and attorneys, day by day.

OT, in a lot of the video of Fitz entering the courtroom, he’s walking with a woman. I’m assuming that’s Bonamici. Any rumors that they are an item?

I really think everybody has missed the smoking gun. Does anybody remember the story about Hadley telling friends he expected to go to jail? Do you remember the story about President Bush hiring a lawyer? With those things in mind, go take a look at the Grand Jury exhibit 59 (it is page 41 of 45 in GX1A.PDF which you can find on Fitzgerald’s website: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/…..index.html ).

This document contains Libby’s notes from a meeting on 7/10/03 attended by Hadley, Cheney, and Libby. It says (based on Libby’s own description of his personal shorthand):

Hadley (quoting McLaughlin quoting Tenet): Wilson is declassified. We haven’t started to declassify the NIE.

Hadley {weird spacing} quoting Rice: I spoke to the President, he’s comfortable.

Hadley: It’s better if we leak NIE.

Cheney: Anything less than full and complete disclosure is a serious mistake.

Hadley: That’s what I told Tenet.

Libby claims that the line that says Wilson is declassified refers to the Wilson trip report. If that is true, there will definitely be a paper trail at the CIA showing the declassification process. The thing that strikes me is that the what changed in the OVP’s approach on 7/10/03 wasn’t that they started directly leaking Wilson’s trip report, but rather that they started directly leaking Valerie Wilson’s identity to independent journalists (as opposed to leaking to Miller who can hardly be described as independent).

If we read the â€Wilson is declassified†as referring to Valerie Wilson, the sordid story starts to make a lot more sense, at least in regard to Libby’s actions and later lies. It does, of course, raise a rather interesting conundrum in regard to Hadley making this statement. If Tenet, via McLaughlin, really did â€declassify†Valerie Wilson’s status, then he pulled an incredible double cross when he allowed the Justice Department referral (and still got his Presidential Medal of Freedom). That seems a bit unlikely. I also can’t imagine Hadley intentionally setting up Cheney and Libby. On the other hand, Hadley screwing things up by misunderstanding what was really going on seems entirely consistent.

To sum up, here’s what I think happened. The CIA was declassifying the Wilson trip report for Tenet’s statement. Hadley misinterpreted something McLaughlin said as being authorization to leak Valerie Wilson’s involvement in her husband’s trip. Hadley got Rice to get Bush’s buy-in on the smear. Rove and/or Libby gave Novak the go-ahead to publish his bile. The whole Russert story and the NIE leak authorization B.S. was designed to protect Bush and Cheney.

The Toensing column is an atrocity.

A Fitzgerald filing today, clarifies who the instigator was.

Fitzgerald Response to Court’s Proposed Jury Instructions [Doc 296]

The Washington Post has been publishing a lot of the moonbat columns (Elizabeth Cheney, Feith, and now Toensing). The one from Toensing is really atrocious.