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Ping.

Yup, Mitchell - Gregory - Russert, and Mitchell - Harlow - Novak dots are asked by defense to be connected to impeach the witness testimony ;-) wants Eckenrode on the stand...

Walton up (jury not here) to deal with motions. We're going to start with the motion to quash Andrea Mitchell's subpoena.

Wells: We wish to call Ms. Mitchell, and elicit testimony at a minimum that would show how intensely she was working on the Wilson story. When this story started, Russert was on vacation. Gregory is on the record as knowing Plame's identity. We have the right to show how intensely NBC was covering this story from which one can infer that she learned Plame's identity. "We think this case presents a different factual model" than any of the cases the government has cited.

Walton: But you want this to go to the truth.

Wells: No, what I want, to the extent that I have a wish list, my extreme wish is that your honor would treat it as residual evidence. But I have also said that if it is not treated as substantive evidence, it still should come in as impeachment evidence with a limiting instruction.

Walton: Impeaching her on what?

Wells: Impeaching her on her testimony that she can rule out that Plame worked at the CIA.

Walton: But you couldn't argue from that she would have heard it.

Walton: To say that you're working on a subject and then to ask the jury to presume that you had heard about Mrs. Wilson,

Wells: If she's working on the story, covering the State Department, where Armitage worked [but of course he wasn't returning her calls].

Walton: I don't think it's logical to assume that Harlow told her.

Wells: Harlow told Novak, he confirms it. [he says he'll call Harlow]

Walton: In a roundabout way, you want to get before the jury this statement that maybe she knew using a roundabout basis.

Wells; She was the lead investigative reporter, she was out working on the case.

Walton: You want the jury to infer that because she was working on it, she would have heard about Mrs. Wilson. The only basis for assuming that is the inconsistent statement. You'd be asking the jury to speculate that just because she was working on this, he would have heard it.

Wells: Russert says there was a buzz. We've already got on the record. The 302 states, I cannot rule it out as a possibility.

Wells: I'm going to call the Agent [Eckenrode] tomorrow. This is the one instance bc the notes cannot be found–there was a diligent search for the notes.

Walton: but you're still trying to ask the jury to speculate.

Wells: I am allowed to present this with an instruction.

Walton: I agree, if there is a reason to show this in the first place. You want the inference to be drawn that because of the intensity that she was working the story, she would have heard of this.

Wells: Analytically we have a different perspective. It's a team. Russert and Mitchell and Gregory are a team.

Walton: I've heard all that, counselor, and I just don't buy it.

Well: For the govt to put Russert on, they created a situation for the jury that he's out by himself, and Ms. Mitchell is the reporter working on the ground.

Wells: I strongly disagree with Fitz' characterization of what took place. The obstruction count was based on three false statements. We wanted it clear that on terms of the obstruction that there was nothing wih Grossman and Miller, What the obstruction count was predicated on was that obstruction was based on three-prong statement. I opened on it. The Jury can consider June 23 and July 8 in terms of what Libby knew.

Fitz: I'll briefly respond, The vice in taking language out, as opposed to a count is that you're asking them to rule beforehand. I think the jury could find that the description of July 12 was a lie, but not using the language in the count, the jury can use that evidence against Mr. Libby, they can also use that evidence that when he said the first time he told her on July 12, that that was a lie. This proposed instruction would focus on July 12–and the language in the indictment, even though they were never going to see the indictment–would lead them to focus inappropriately on July 12.

Wells; We're not going to address that conversation. It has been dismissed. The jurors should know that it has been dismissed.

Walton: I'm going to have to … I'll have to go back and re-evaluate the evidence to see whether… I don't want something before the jury that could be prejudicial. I need to go back and review the indictment.

Here is the foam at the mouth DU version:

Tin Man (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-12-07 05:37 PM
Original message
Armitage, Woodward, and the "End of an Affair"
Edited on Mon Feb-12-07 05:39 PM by Tin Man
Oh man, this Libby trial is opening lots of doors into the scope of the CheneyGate conspiracy, specifically the complicity of many heralded Washington reporters. Like Bob Woodward.

Today's testimony at the Libby trial calls into question the nature of Woodward's involvement in CheneyGate. Was he just a bit player, a non-event, as he had originally claimed - or something more sinister? Follow along with me for a couple paragraphs...

1) Does anybody here remember prominent NeoCon Richard Armitage's mea culpa last August, that it was he who had innocently and inadvertently disclosed CIA agent Valerie Wilson's identity to Robert Novak? The suggestion being, that Armitage alone was responsible for PlameGate - and that there was no conspiracy in the OVP, and no ensuing coverup of the effort to discredit Wilson.

2) Today, at the Libby trial, we learned that Armitage was the source for BOTH Novak AND Bob Woodward. I guess this means that Armitage innocently and inadvertently slipped, not once, but twice. Some accident. But I digress...

3) And remember how, at the time of Armitage's mea culpa, the Corporate Media were so quick to accept and publish the claim as simple fact? Consider the 9/1/2006 WaPo editorial, "End of an Affair", in which the editorial staff so confidently dismissed PlameGate as much ado about nothing. It was all a mistake. There was no conspiracy in the OVP. Armitage was the accidental source of the whole affair. Hoo-boy, did the Post buy into that Armitage diversion - hook, line and sinker...

4) Kinda makes you wonder:

a) How could the distinguished Washington Post have been so thoroughly fooled?
b) Who among the WaPo staff actually authored the editorial?
c) And why, only for the first time today, did WaPo correspondent Bob Woodward confess his source was Armitage?
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Holy shit! Did Bob Woodward write the "End of an Affair" editorial in the 9/1/06 Washington Post ? Might this editorial have been Woodward's "red herring" attempt to assist in the CheneyGate cover-up???

Editorial below:

End of an Affair
It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband.

Friday, September 1, 2006; Page A20

WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.

Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him. Unaware that Ms. Plame's identity was classified information, Mr. Armitage reportedly passed it along to columnist Robert D. Novak "in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip," according to a story this week by the Post's R. Jeffrey Smith, who quoted a former colleague of Mr. Armitage.

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.\

(full editoral at link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20... )