Archive for category: emptywheel

Just some thoughts about what’s coming up.

First, we’ve got the FBI Agent (her name is Bond–could this thing get any more perfect?), who will introduce Libby’s FBI and GJ testimony. We’ll hear long tapes of Libby’s testimony. Fitz will pay particular attention to Libby’s efforts to get Scottie to exonerate him in Fall 2003.

Then we’ve got "the mystery witness." I’ll ask around if anyone has a better idea who it’ll be. But I suspect it will be one of Edelman, Rove (both are referenced in the indictment, and Rove may be able to place the timing of the Russert conversation), or Matalin (to enter yesterday’s "snake" comment) or Cheney.

And then we’ve got Russert. Why did Fitzgerald leave Russert for last? Does he believe he’s going to be that compelling? Or is it just a matter of Russert’s timing? In any case, both Prosecution and Defense seem to think that Russert will be very convincing. Is it because he hates Tweety?

The big question, at this point, is what Libby will do for defense. Will he take the stand? Will Cheney take the stand? If Libby doesn’t take the stand, this may be over–one way or another–sooner than we thought.

Understand this. Libby’s team is playing a big game with their witnesses, throwing a bunch of names out there–Cheney, Bartlett, Rove, Libby, Wilson, Woodward, and about 12 journalists to be named later. I really have no idea who will testify–remember that, even if Libby’s subpoenas someone, they don’t have to call that person as a witness. They may have subpoenaed these people just in case, for publicity reasons, to pressure the WH for a pardon–any number of reasons that may or may not mean they’ll testify. But here are some thoughts on the big four: Libby, Cheney, Rove, and Bartlett.

Libby
I love when I voice a speculation and Fitzgerald comes along a day later and agrees with me. I speculated on Wednesday that Libby’s team was trying to introduce all of the CIPA material without making Libby take the stand. Later in the week, Fitzgerald validated my suspicions by expressing the same concern.

Here’s why this is important. The two sides wrangled for four months to find appropriate substitutions for the classified information in the Daily Briefs which, Libby claimed, he wanted so he could demonstrate how busy he was which therefore made him forget all the leaking he was doing that week. Wells was fairly generous in his interpretation of CIPA, arguing that Libby needed anything he wanted to mount a defense. But the entire CIPA process was premised on the claim that Libby would take the stand and present it. Walton has only ruled this classified information admissible in the context of Libby explaining what the events depicted therein did to his state of mind. Throughout the rulings–such as one from November 15 that Typepad won’t let me link–Walton emphasizes the centrality of Libby’s testimony to the Very Important Defense.

However, the defense has affirmatively stated that the defendant intends to testify in his own behalf. It will therefore be the defendants testimony about what he was focused on and that his workday was consumed by the information [redacted–probably references Morning Daily Briefings] that makes the classified information revealed in this documents admissible under Rule 401.

This stuff is only supposed to be admissible if Libby testifies. Wells has already made it a central part of his opening statement. But, as Fitzgerald noted, they did not mention that Libby would testify, and they seem to be speaking for Libby.

As you learned a few days ago, my name is Ted Wells. And I speak for Scooter Libby. Scooter Libby is innocent. Totally innocent.

Their tactics suggest that either something has come up that has made it problematic to put Libby on the stand–or they never intended to put him on the stand, and only claimed they would to justify their graymail attempt. If Walton–who hates when people waste his time or the government’s money–learns it’s the latter, he will not be happy.

Here was my own personal favorite moment in the trial coverage on Wednesday. At one point, Cline was questioning Schmall about all the thing that Schmall’s work, as a briefer, helped Libby do with his work. He introduced 7 of the 9 very important things that Libby will use in his memory defense. Here’s the passage from the swell liveblog someone’s doing.

C Allowed them to address very serious issues. Terrorism, terroistthreats, homeland security, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Middle East.

This is really a huge condensation of what Cline was doing–he was getting a response from Schmall after each bullet item. Well, once he hit North Korea, I realized he was doing the very important dots. So I started anticipating what he was going to say next. So in the media room, it went like this:

Cline: North Korea.

Schmall: Yes

emptywheel: Iran

Cline: Iran

Schmall: Yes

emptywheel: Iraq

Cline: Iraq

Schmall: Yes

At this point David Corn, who was sitting next to me joined in. And at the end, we noted, "hey, you forgot the Turkish soliders! And Liberia." A bit of fun for the frantic liveblogger.

Now, I apologize to those in the media room if this pissed you off. But really, this defense already looks hackneyed to me. I’m sure it doesn’t, yet, to the jurors. But boy, it will be.  And what with the news that, instead of focusing on these very important security issues, he was instead chatting with Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz about how badly Germany treats Scientologists, I suspect it’s going to appear rather disingenuous to the American people. Perhaps if Libby had said no to the Tom Cruise meeting, we would have found Osama bin Laden.

I’m sure you’ve all either read my liveblog or read some reviews of yesterday’s coverage, so you know the stunners and new information from the first day of the trial:

• Libby is throwing Rove under the bus
• Ari leaked (according to the very unreliable Wells) to David Gregory, something which none of his colleagues knew
• Libby has his own annotated copy of Wilson’s op-ed
• Cheney wrote some orders on Libby’s sonnet looking for Scottie to clear him
• Armitage talked to Grossman the night before his FBI interview

I can’t help but think there’s an interesting dynamic going on. I’ve long argued that WH couldn’t pardon Libby bc if they did it would make the civil case easier. Well, I can’t count the number of times that Wells said Libby had "a day job" and his second "Meat Grinder" job of responding to Joe Wilson.

Geez. That seems like it would make it a slam dunk to take the civil case, at least to get past the bar of proving that whatever they did to Plame, they did it as a freelance activity, something outside the world of their ordinary duties.

So here’s what I’m wondering. Pre-trial, the White House had an incentive to wait on a pardon Read more →