Posted on 05/02/2006 11:18:30 PM PDT by Starman417
From the first PDF. There are lots of tidbits in there. I will try not to repeat Tom’s findings, but I don’t have the time to cross reference - so my apologies for being repetitive. I like the premise of the argument that the press has not fundamental right to privacy when it comes to providing an America citizen a fair trial.
The central value of our criminal justice system is the defedant’s right to a fair trial - one in which the government’s case can be rigorously challenged and the defense fully presented. …To that end, the Constitution affords criminal defendants the right to obtain evidence and, when necessary, to compel its production.
Anyone who argues against that basic premise is just not thinking straight. The press is not above the law, and too many times its irresponsible, callous and greed driven actions have injured good, decent people without consequences. It is time to put responsibility back into ‘responsible journalism’.
I find it interesting, and sadly representative of what a shoddy or deliberately biased job Fitzgerald did in executing his charter to find who leaked Valerie Plame’s namd, that the information being sought by Libby was not sought (can we say ‘ignored’) by the SP. Page 6:
Accordingly, he [Libby] has issued his own subpoenas to obtain from those same reporters and news organizations [subpoened by the SP] evidence that the Special Counsel did not obtain, and that Mr. Libby will use to attack the government’s case and prove his innocence at trial. Among other things, the documents sought will ehlp to show whether it is Mr. Libby or the reporters who have misstated or misrecollected the facts.
This is Fitz-Magoo’s Achilles Heel. He knew early on neither Libby nor Rove where the ones who leaked Plame’s name to the media - the charter and sole purpose of his investigation. But he went on a witch hunt anyway, and has been caught withholding and now ignoring exculpatory evidence he must have known to exist.
An interesting foot note on PDF Page 7 (Page 2 using document numbers) thats states Tim Russert and CNN had no applicable documents and the Washington Post stated they only held a memorandum of the interview of Mr. Libby by Robert Woodward on June 27, 2003 (which they provided). Team Libby as agreed this satisfied their subpoenas. The footnote does indicate the SP has documents from the WaPo but accepts the court’s ruling they will not gain access.
More as I am able!
Addendum: OK, back at it for a bit. Libby is bold in this filing, something you might not want to do at this stage. The question is whether Team Libby is being forced to take a strong stand on what the requested documents may show (so they can get access to the documents) or are they confident what they will show. I’ll let the reader decide from the language in the filing (page 11 PDF):
As explained below, the documents sought are likely to contain evidence that some, if not all, of his [Libby’s] testimony was correct and that it is the reporters who have the unreliable recollection or have misstated the facts.
That’s a pretty bold claim. I was expecting the claim to be more of form ‘who can tell what happened when all sides have stated their memories are vague on the details?’. But no, Team Libby appears to be saying they will prove the reporters are in error in so many cases that no one can rely on anything they stated with any confidence, let alone Fitz-Magoo’s niave assumption they reflect cold, hard, immutable facts. The boldness doesn’t end there. Related to conversations Libby had with government officials, which form the core of Fitzgerald’s weak case (page 11 PDF again):
As detailed below, the documents sought likely contain evidence that the government’s witnesses [from the adminstration] are mistaken about those alleged conversations, or are shading their testimony to protect themselves or others.
Wow. How could information from reporters undermine testimony by administration sources in terms of veracity and motive? Did Cooper and Miller and Mitchell comment on what others like Grossman and Fleischer were telling them to Libby? How does Team Libby know reporters are holding information of that kind? The imagination can create a lot of interesting theories on that one!
Sorry for the continues interruptions - more later.
Addendum: Sorry folks. Went on a nice evening bike ride with the twins and LJStrata. Beautiful day! More on the withholding of exculpatory documents which challenge Fitz-Magoo’s contention that Libby (and others) were supporting a campaign against the Wilsons (page 12 PDF):
…the government believes - and may attempt to show at trial - that Mr. Libby anb other White House officials conducted “concerted” efforts to discredit or punish Mr. Wilson by disclosing his wife’s CIA identity. … Documents showing that Mr. Libby and other official talked to reporters about Mr. Wilson during this time but never mentioned his wife will help to show that there as no such campaign - ir that if there was, Mr. Libby had nothing to do with it. The Movants admit that they have such documents but refuse to turn them over.
Like I said, this is where Fitzgerald made his tragically stupid mistake. The fact that Plame was mentioned maybe once out of ten or twenty discussions is going to destroy Fitzgerald’s claims this was about getting back at Joe through Val. Not only did Fitzgerald admit in his previous filing that he withholding documents from government records showing not all the discussions about Wilson involved Plame, seems these reporters have a boat load showing them same picture as well. This is the egg that will be on Fitz-Magoo’s face the rest of his career. It will turn out that he will have only seen what he wanted to see, and went on witch hunt after he had learned what he was charged to find out - and it had nothing to do with Libby. There is no worse image than a dupe who falls for the Kool-aid and then breaks his pledge to uphold the law to fabricate charges by hiding evidence.
When we get into the details on each reporter - the defense strategy becomes clear. For Miller the challenge idea is to expose the caveats and hedges in Miller’s statements regarding the three conversations she had with Libby (which only go to count 1, which is the weakest charge). The filing notes Miller’s own words which completely undermine Fitzgerald’s tortured interpretations that there are hard facts among all these vague recollections:
For example, she [Miller] has written that she testified to the grand jury only that she ‘believed [her June 23 meeting with Mr. Libby] was the first time [she] had been told that Mr. Wilson’s wife might work for the CIA.” …She was even more equivocal with her New York Times colleagues, telling them that her notes ‘leaves open the possibility that Mr. Libby told her [on June 23 that] Mr. Wilson’s wife might work at the agency.”
As I pointed out in this earlier post, when you read Miller’s account of discussions regarding the June 23rd meeting it is clearly possible (and likely) Libby never mentioned the name “Joe Wilson” at all. Libby is noted as saying “some clandestine guy” by Miller early on. Then there are notes discussing Wilson. But the notes are not quotes form Libby - as if Miller had known before hand the guy Libby was anonymously referring to! Read her comments:
But he [Libby] added that the C.I.A. “took it upon itself to try and figure out more” by sending a “clandestine guy” to Niger to investigate. I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I thought “clandestine guy” was a reference to Mr. Wilson - Mr. Libby’s first reference to him [Wilson] in my notes.
If Miller knew the guy sent by the CIA was Joe Wilson, all her notes using that name was expressing her knowledge - not Libby’s comments. Instead of writing ‘clandestine guy’ all the time she simply knew to replace that with “Joe Wilson’. In fact, she is trying to tell Fitzgerald the ‘clandestine guy’ is a REFERENCE to Joe Wilson. Check out how things are worded later - in Miller’s own recollections:
My [Miller] notes indicate that Mr. Libby took issue with the suggestion that his boss had had anything to do with Mr. Wilson’s trip. “Veep didn’t know of Joe Wilson,” I [Miller] wrote, referring to the vice president. “Veep never knew what he did or what was said. Agency did not report to us.”
Notice how Miller is very precise (and being a journalist you would expect her to be) in clearly saying ‘I wrote’ and not ‘Libby said’. I would wager there is no place in those notes where Miller can say Libby used the name Wilson once. If I am right then Fitzgerald was just hallucinating and imagining meanings in statements that just do not exist.
The filing by Team Libby notes that this so called outing of Joe Wilson and his wife was not even memorable to Judith Miller! Page 16 PDF:
Notably, Ms Miller did not remember that the June 23 conversation had even occurred until after her first grand jury appearance when she came across a notebook recording the interview.
This is a double whammy against Fitzgerald. He has Libby and Rove having to come back and fill in forgotten details, and getting charged for perjury for doing it, but a reporter who does the EXACT SAME THING is treated like her recollections were complete and 100% accurate. Fitzgerald is going to have a lot of trouble explaining that double standard between journalists (paid to leak) and administration officials (paid to keep the record straight).
There are numerous more examples of Miller saying she cannot recollect what was the source or impetus for comments in her notes regarding Plame. She is clearly saying she is fuzzy on the sequence and sources. She specifically said to the Grand Jury, according to the filing, that she ‘didn’t know and didn’t want to guess’ about whether Libbyt had ‘given her the name Wilson” - which supports the point I made above. Her notes do not clearly and unambiguously tie the name Wilson to Libby (and in fact might actually do the opposite).
What is surprising is Miller/Bennet admit to having information that can further establish this probable set of events, but have motioned to squash the request because (following Fitzgerald’s lead) they do not go support Libby’s defense.
Ms Miller has identified the following specific materials that are responsive to those requests: two original, unredacted notebooks, work-related phone records, and an appointment calendar.
That ain’t going to fly! Want to be Miller heard of Wilson before June 23 (probably because she was being asked to verify Kristof’s earlier articles). If I was right about this, then Fitzgerald’s case will crumble super fast. Without the June 23 meeting as one fo the key times ‘Wilson’ was mentioned by Libby, Fitzgerald’s time lines start to crumble. Even worse if Miller blurted out the name Wilson to Libby!
More Later.
Short Addendum: I had to find a complete copy of Judith Miller’s NY Times acount so I could be sure, but I am correct that if there was no mention of the name ‘Wilson’ on June 23 Fitzgerald is hosed. The subsequent meetings were after Wilson outed himself! So if Libby talked about some clandestine guy who was sent on the mission by his wife, he is not exposing Valerie Plame! Joe Wilson did that when he went public. More from Miller in the NY Times:
My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson’s [aka the ‘clandestine guy’s’] wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the C.I.A.
My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson’s wife by name
Boy, am I going to laugh if it turns out Wilson outed his own wife when he went public! This ties into how Tim Russert explained his reaction to the Novak article. It cleared up discussions that had occurred in an NBC meeting about someone’s wife. Again, in Russert’s own words on his own TV show:
RUSSERT: Well, that’s exactly right. “Meet”–Joe Wilson had been on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, which you moderated because I was on vacation.
MITCHELL: And…
RUSSERT: I came back after that interview, after The New York Times piece, and there was a discussion about Joe Wilson and I didn’t know very much. And then when I read Novak’s column the following Monday, I said, `Oh, my God, that’s it. Now I see. It’s his wife, Valerie Plame, CIA, sent him on the trip. Now I understand what everybody was trying to figure out.‘
This is a continuation of my previous post on the contents of Team Libby’s filings in response to Judith Miller, The NY Times, Matt Cooper and Andrea Mitchell’s motion to squash the Libby subpoenas. In that first post I felt vindicated that Judith Miller never once heard the name ‘Wilson’ during her first meeting with Scooter Libby on June 23rd, 2003. This was a theory I proposed back on October 16th of last year based on Miller’s NY Times recollections of her testimony and her notes. My understanding is Clarice Feldman will be presenting some confirming information in an article coming soon to The American Thinker (which I will link to the minute it comes up). Rumor is she will present evidence that Miller did indeed know about the Wilsons prior to her first meeting with Libby, confirming her testimony she did not learn from Libby the name ‘Wilson’ before Wilson outed himself (and therefore his wife) in the NY Times.
But now back to the filing. At the bottom of page 16 (PDF numbering) of the first halflf of the filing hosted at Just One Minute we find this interesting statement by Miller regarding her testimony to the Grand Jury:
Miller’s recollection of the July 8 conversation [2 days after the Wilson Op-Ed] is equally sketchy. … “I said [to the grand jury] I couldn’t be certain whether I had known Msl Plame’s identity before this meeting, and I had no clear memory of the context of our conversation that resulted in th[e] notation [(wife works in Win Pac)]”.
This is the same dodge I noted earlier, that Miller is not prepared to say Libby told her the name ‘Wilson’, or now the name ‘Plame’. Her notes use these names, but it could easily be because she knew the names before hand and was using her knowledge in her notes. Basically we see a lack of quotation from Libby in all these incidents. Fitzgerald’s case relies heavily on the assumption Judith Miller heard the name Wilson from Libby. Funny thing is, all accounts to date by Miller coulld just as easily be seen as her having the names Libby did not have. Which puts Miller in the position of being one of the first reporters to leak the names Wilson and Plame to Libby! Oh the irony if that was true.
OK, back to reality. What has me intrigued is the part of Libby’s request dealing with any documents prior to her Libby meetings mentioning the Wilson under any name (NY Times editors and Kristof come to mind). I think they know something exists regarding other Miller sources. Possibly UGO, possibly others. The tip off will be in the Miller-NY Times response - if they produce one. They should give up and just let the chips fall where they may.
Here is the bombshell I have been looking for:
For example, the highly redacted notebooks provided to Mr. Libby by the government indicate that Ms. Miller was given Mr. Wilson’s name and phone number before she spoke with Mr. Libby on June 23. Armed with the unredacted page on which that notation appears, Mr. Libby may ask Ms. Miller why and from whom she obtained Mr. Wilson’s contact information - and whether she may have learned of Ms. Wilson’s CIA affiliation from the same source at the same time, before she first spoke with Mr. Libby.
Boy, oh boy. If this is true Fitzgerald is in a world of hurt. Not only will he have known the true source of Plame’s identity, he will have known Miller had know about the Wilsons prior to meeting Libby, exposing his interpretation of her notes as something akin to a fantasy! Remember, in this country we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. If Fitzgerald ignored this and tried to slant evidence through omission and withholding the guy deserves to be drummed out of the DoJ and disbarred for life. And there is more:
Likewise, the redacted versioj of the notes suggests that Ms. Miller’s notation “Victoria Wilson” may have been made before her conversation with Mr. Libby on July 12, perhaps based on information received from someone else.
Well, let’s see what Ms. Judith Miller had to say about notations in her notes regaring one Valerie Plame Wilson:
On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name “Valerie Flame.” Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled.
I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
…
My third interview with Mr. Libby occurred on July 12, two days before Robert D. Novak’s column identified Ms. Plame for the first time as a C.I.A. operative. I believe I spoke to Mr. Libby by telephone from my home in Sag Harbor, N.Y.
I told Mr. Fitzgerald I believed that before this call, I might have called others about Mr. Wilson’s wife. In my notebook I had written the words “Victoria Wilson” with a box around it, another apparent reference to Ms. Plame, who is also known as Valerie Wilson.
I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I was not sure whether Mr. Libby had used this name or whether I just made a mistake in writing it on my own. Another possibility, I said, is that I gave Mr. Libby the wrong name on purpose to see whether he would correct me and confirm her identity.
I also told the grand jury I thought it was odd that I had written “Wilson” because my memory is that I had heard her referred to only as Plame. Mr. Fitzgerald asked whether this suggested that Mr. Libby had given me the name Wilson. I told him I didn’t know and didn’t want to guess.
In the first case, dealing with the name ‘Flame’ Miller states the name is nowhere near notes on discussions with Libby. In the second case where the name is ‘Victoria’ - and is on July 12 - Miller hints that it could have been a trap she set for Libby to confirm the name. The pathetic thing is this ‘Victoria’ designation comes well after Wilson outed himself in the NY Times and Miller admits, in her notes, she knew Wilson’s wife had something to do with his trip much earlier (she has that noted nearly a month earlier in the June 23rd meeting). Mrs. Wilson is not news at this stage. Wilson is out in the open and his wife was tagged to him when he was known as ‘clandestine guy’ with no name attached.
And I can see some handwriting experts being called into court as well. Fitzgerald missed the most obvious check on notes: where they all written at the same time! Apparently not (page 18 PDF):
… an entry on the second page of Ms. Miller’s notes regarding her June 23 conversation with Mr. libby reads “(Wife works in bureau?).” An entry on the fourth page, referring to the July 8 interview, contains an entry, also in parenthesis, “(wife works in Winpac).” … The condition of the original pages (e.g., the color of the ink and the weight of the markings) may allow Mr. Libby to ask Ms. Miller whether it is possible that she did not write the parenthetical references to Mr. Wilson’s wife when she interviewed Mr. Libby, but added them later, based on information she learned from a source other than Mr. Libby.
Emphasis in the original. Fitz probably sent out xeroxed copies, but the hint is in the pen line width. Even in a black and white copy you can detect different pens easily if they have different widths and ink flows. Team Libby has something and I think they have caught Fitzgerald cold. And they have her with a different source on Plame (page 19 PDF):
from the endnd of her July 9 interview with Mr. Libby.
Ms. Wilson does not deny that conversations she had with other reporters or other government officials about Ms. Wilson are directly relevant to this case.
She then goes on to make the ridiculous claim these are not relevant to Libby’s defense. Ridiculous. If Plame is first mentioned between the 2nd and 3rd meeting with Libby then these contacts are essential to prove he did not discuss the name Wilson or Plame prior to Wilson outing himself, and that Miller clearly learned of these names from someone else! Checkmate. More tomorrow if time permits.
Full of typos, but worthwhile PING!
You always do this to me late at night! LOL!
=== placemark === for tomorry's reading.
I bookmarked 'Strata-Sphere' last week (thanks for the link) and it's a pretty interesting blog. Also, that 'MacRanger' blog Strata keeps referring to is pretty interesting.
Oh what a tangled web we weave..
Hope her Armani keeps her warm.
This is the key to blowing this entire fiasco to smithereens IMHO. The Wilsons entertained reporters at their residence BEFORE the Novak story hit. They were actively participating in the media cabal and outed themselves.
Put Val Plame on the stand and make her explain this tradecraft error!
JULY 4, 2003 : (PARTY AT THE WILSON'S HOUSE INCLUDES ONE OR MORE REPORTERS)In concluding their article, Leiby and Pincus [of the Washington Post] write [in an article on July 6] , "Last week, Wilson said of Hussein: 'I'm glad the tyrant is gone.' But he does not believe the war was ever about eliminating Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. It was, he said, a political push to 'redraw the map of the Middle East.' While his family prepared for a Fourth of July dinner, he proudly showed a reporter photos of himself with Bush's parents."
Link to the 4th of July "reporter openhouse" at the Plame residence.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0706-05.htm
Thanks, Howlin. Fascinating!
Bump.
Pinz
I doubt she would understand the question. Look at her! Some CIA bureaucrat hired her as eye candy 20 years ago. The guy probably got some good slaps on the back around the office.
She's a bimbo.
Conservatives need to be bold when facing down these rogue RAT prosecutors. Good for team-Libby!
Very interesting read, Howlin.
The thing is they are feigning victimhood, while the reality is they actively courted the media. I'm sure the CIA must have rules against contacts with the media, and having an open house would be forbidden.
I don't believe she was classified in the first place, but this media open house certainly throws a wrench in thier "exposure victimhood" fairy tale.
bttt
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