What Scooter Libby And I Talked About

TIME Magazine ^ | 10/30/05 | Matt Cooper

[SE Mom]

I was wet, smelling of chlorine. It was July 12, 2003, in Washington, a beautiful summer day, and I had just come back from swimming. All morning I had been trying to reach I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby for a cover story about both President George W. Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa and former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's controversial Op-Ed.

[mikegi]

Libby is saying he recalls mentioning he heard it from reporters and Cooper does not recall reporters being mentioned. I am not saying the Libby truly did hear if from reporters first. Assuming he heard it elsewhere first then all he would be doing is lying to a reporter but not to the FBI or GJ about the conversation.

I think you're missing the whole point of the indictment. Libby was indicted because he told and/or implied to the FBI and GJ that he heard about Plame from reporters.

[Cboldt]

In his press conference he said if he needed another grand jury he would use any others that were available.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, this began as a leak investigation but no one is charged with any leaking. Is your investigation finished? Is this another leak investigation that doesn't lead to a charge of leaking?

FITZGERALD: Let me answer the two questions you asked in one.

OK, is the investigation finished? It's not over, but I'll tell you this: Very rarely do you bring a charge in a case that's going to be tried and would you ever end a grand jury investigation.

I can tell you, the substantial bulk of the work in this investigation is concluded.

FITZGERALD: This grand jury's term has expired by statute; it could not be extended. But it's in ordinary course to keep a grand jury open to consider other matters, and that's what we will be doing.

Let me then ask your next question: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn't result in a charge? I've been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something. ...

[Lame baseball analogy snipped, it amounts to justifying a search for Libby's motive]

And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?

FITZGERALD: Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray? And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.

As you sit here now, if you're asking me what his motives were, I can't tell you; we haven't charged it. So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.

I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.

---

QUESTION: You noted earlier that the grand jury's term expired but you said something about holding it open. Or will you be working with a new grand jury?

FITZGERALD: The grand jury, by its terms, can serve -- was an 18-month grand jury. By its statute, to my understanding, can only be extended six months.

FITZGERALD: That six months expired.

It's routine in long investigations that you would have available a new grand jury if you needed to go back to them. And that's nothing unusual. I don't want to raise any expectations by that; that's an ordinary practice.

---

QUESTION: Just to be clear -- you did touch on this earlier -- with the grand jury time being done, you have no plans to file another grand jury related to this case at all, is that correct?

FITZGERALD: No. I think what I said is we could use any other grand jury or avail of another grand jury. We couldn't use the grand jurors whose term has expired today any further.

---

QUESTION: Now, can you clarify the business question of keeping the grand jury open, which won't be the same grand jury -- I mean, you said you've done the essential bulk of your investigation is finished. Does that mean, in layman's terms, that you're just, kind of, in the mopping up phase, or are there things that you're actively pursuing?

And if so, can you explain to us lay people, bringing this to a grand jury that hasn't been involved for 24 years -- or 24 months -- what does that -- it feels like 24 years -- what does that entail? Do you have to, sort of, start from zero then bring them up to speed?

FITZGERALD: I think it varies on what you need to do, but I just -- you could probably talk to lots of people who don't know the case who could tell you what the general experience is. But if I try to opine on how that happens, there's no way you're not going to look at my answer as telling what's going on with this grand jury investigation, and I can't do that.

---

QUESTION: Do you anticipate needing to empanel a new grand jury in order to wrap up?

FITZGERALD: I'm not going to comment.

QUESTION: Do you need a new grand jury? Would you need to empanel a new one if you needed to bring further charges?

FITZGERALD: I can't charge myself, so if we wanted to bring charges we'd need a grand jury to do that. But I don't want to comment beyond that.

Here's what I'm trying to convey: We're not quite done, but I don't want to add to a feverish pitch. It's very, very routine that you keep a grand jury available for what you might need.

And that's all I can say because of the rules of grand jury secrecy, and that's it.

---

QUESTION: And secondly, if you empanel a second grand jury, is it always 18 months or is it 12 months?

FITZGERALD: I don't know. They vary.

And I'm just -- I'm not going to give you any time frame questions because I'll be as vague as I have been already and just waste time.

What I read into all of that is that Fitz might use another GJ to probe the Libby obstruction/perjury matter, since that matter is on the track for going to trial. And other criminal activity might be exposed in that line of inquiry - although I very much doubt any possible criminal uncovering in that line is in the nature of an illegal leak of a CIA agent's identity.

[SE Mom]

GOD I love FReepers:)

[savedbygrace]

The issue is whether Libby was asked if what he told Cooper, et al, was accurate or not, and what Libby's answer to that question was.

He's allowed to lie to reporters. He's allowed to relate to the FBI and the GJ the play-by-play of those lies to the reporters. But if he was then asked whether those statements to the reporters were true or not, then he'd better 'fess up.

Naturally, it's a whole 'nuther ballgame if one or more of those reporters recorded the conversations, and the actual conversations are different than Libby's play-by-play testimony to the FBI and the GJ.

[Cboldt]

I wonder if Cooper had testified: "Libby replied 'Yeah, I've heard that too from reporters' that there would be no references to Cooper in the indictment as far as false statements or perjury.

That hypothetical difference would be irrelevant.

Libby told investigtaors that at the time, July 12, he (Libby) did not know that Plame worked for the CIA. But in fact, Libby did know that, as of that date, becaue Libby had personally inquired the CIA with precisely that question. Libby knew, but he told investigators he didn't know.

[Cboldt]

This bureaucratic mediocrity cannot even count to one.

I snipped off the preceding two questions, just to focus the transcript excerpt.

[frankjr]

"I think you're missing the whole point of the indictment. Libby was indicted because he told and/or implied to the FBI and GJ that he heard about Plame from reporters."

I think you are missing my point. All I was referring to is if Cooper recalled that Libby said he heard it from reporters, would the Cooper convesation be out of the indictment. Fitz has Libby's own testimony to show that Libby is claiming to hear it from reporters, the Cooper testimony does not add to that except, as the indictment states "LIBBY confirmed to Cooper, without qualification or elaboration, that he had heard this information too." which Fitz is using to imply that Libby lied about his call with Cooper, not that Libby said he heard it from reporters first (in fact Cooper makes it sound like Libby is not saying he heard it from reporters first).

No need to respond. Thanks.

[sine_nomine]

It was a dark and moonless night. Somewhere outside a dog barked.

[frankjr]

"Libby knew, but he told investigators he didn't know."

Why does Fitz need Cooper's call? Fitz has Libby's own testimony that states he said he heard it from reporters first.

[Dems_R_Losers]

Well, this nails my theory. Matt Cooper was part of a Democrat plot to get Karl Rove on the record outing Valerie Plame and to try to nail him as Novak's source, and to create a myth that the White House, at Rove's direction, was running a "war" on Joe Wilson. Libby was never the intended target. Cooper was set up by the Kerry campaign, no doubt through his wife, to start calling the White House and setting up Rove. Notice he was much more willing to go to jail to protect his conversation with Rove than with Libby. He didn't want to testify about his conversation with Rove because he knew there was nothing there, but as long as he refused to testify Rove would be considered the main target of the investigation, which is what he wanted. Remember what Rove said in his email to Steve Hadley: "I didn't take the bait." Rove knew exactly what Cooper was up to.

This was all an orchestrated effort by the Kerry campaign, using Joe Wilson and playing on his delusions of grandeur and desire for fame. The Kerry campaign set Wilson up as a leaker to the WaPo and New York Times, then when Novak busted Wilson as a liar, they tried to set up Rove for "outing" his wife.

It's all come to naught. They never cared about Scooter Libby; he is not the political genius that has put the Democratic Party in the dustbin. This was ALL about burying Karl Rove. And they failed utterly.

Conservatuves need to stop with the right-wing conspiracy theories that this was some sinister plot within the CIA to overthrow the President. It wasn't. It was a blatant political plot by the Kerry campaign. led most likely by Chris Lehane - who, if you will note, has completely disappeared.

I just wish some enterprising reporter would put all these facts together and tell America the true story: that the Kerry campaign orchestrated a campaign of lies by Joe Wilson and used major media reporters to try to undermine the President in a time of war and throw the 2004 election.

[palmer]

I was sitting on the toilet, straining. Thinking happy thoughts of happy smells.

I poured the last of the potato chips from the bag into my mouth. The phone rang. My hands were greasy so I wiped them on my shirt. I picked up the phone. It was Libby.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

LOL! Even Snoopy gets into the act!

[Cboldt]

Why does Fitz need Cooper's call? Fitz has Libby's own testimony that states he said he heard it from reporters first.

The Cooper call is merely context. It could have been a conversation between Libby and his mother. The indicemtn builds the case that Libby lied about what he knew when he had the conversation.

When you had the conversation on July 12, did you know that Plame worked at the CIA? Libby's answer to investigators was "No, I didn't know that at that time."

The allegation in the indictment is that he did know (Plame worked for the CIA) at that time, a deliberately misled the investigators. The evidence presented clearly points in that direction. It will be interesting to hear Libby's defense.

[JustDoItAlways]

It seems that with both Judy Miller and Matthew Cooper's testimony, Libby did not "out" a classified agent. Even Tim Russert's testimony does not lead directly to Libby being indicted for outing a classified agent.

(Fitzgerald keeps refering to Valerie Wilson as a classified agent not a "covert" agent. That means he has determined that she, indeed, was not covert or that he didn't need to reach any conclusion because Libby is charged with lying to the Grand Jury only.)

If Libby would have just told the truth, he would not have faced any charges whatsoever.

But he didn't learn of Plame's name from reporters, he learned it from several other government sources.

So why tell the Grand Jury a false story?

I think he was just hoping he could get away with it and then keep his job as the VP's chief of staff. He probably would have been fired for leaking classified information if he testified to that fact. That does lead one down a road that I don't want to post on this board.

[rocklobster11]

I'm only focussing on the part of the indictment that will be trouble for Libby. All the he-said/she-said stuff should be easy for his lawyer to shoot down. I'm only concerned about what Libby said to the investigators, specifically "all I had was this information that was coming in from reporters". That statement to the GJ is independent of any conversations with reporters.

It's possible that Libby had heard the information from both reporters and insiders, and that Libby was being very careful not to only pass information to reporters that he got from non-official stories. Libby obviously had tons of insider info from the CIA, state department, Karl, Ari, and Cheney, and it predated the conversations with the three reporters mentioned (russert, miller, cooper).

In another part of the indictment, it mentions a discussion between Libby and another insider where Libby specifically says he can't talk about some information over a non-secure line, so Libby seems a very careful guy. We also know that he's a very obtuse guy in his use of language (his supposedly unreadable novel and the undecipherable letter to Miller), so it's likely that he made some jumbled statements before FBI and GJ that could be construed in a variety of ways:

1) all I had was this information that was coming in from reporters, because I couldn't discuss the other information I had since it was classified.

2) all I had was this information that was coming in from reporters, and I hope you FBI guys aren't smart enough to figure out that I'm making it all up.

Fitz obviously went with door number 2. The potential problem with that is that full Libby testimony to the GJ and FBI may show that libby admits to having insider info as well. Also, I think the FBI testimony was presented with Libby's attorneys present, so you'd think they would have helped make sure he was clear. Of course, his attorney didn't make sure he was clear in his letter to Miller.

[Dolphy]

I think everyone agrees with that, at a time when we need our spy agencies to have people work there, I think just the notion that someone's identity could be compromised lightly, to me compromises the ability to recruit people and say, "Come work for us, come work for the government, come be trained, come invest your time, come work anonymously here or wherever else, go do jobs for the benefit of the country for which people will not thank you, because they will not know," they need to know that we will not cast their anonymity aside lightly.

This may have been the most troubling and insightful comment Fitzgerald made. The Wilson trip to Niger, from how he was chosen, to his lack of qualifications, to the Pincus article in June, 2003 which said the results were not provided to the White House, to Wilson's ultimate political use...how could Fitzgerald show any reverence or treat Plame as an innocent patriot serving her country?

[beckaz]

We know that Plame is NOT a covert agent. Fitzgerald has addressed that through his silence

I don't get it. So Fitz should have known this at the very start of his investigation. What the hell was he investigating then?

[Hildy]

He's probably writing a book....why else would he be so clammed up?

[palmer]

He probably would have been fired for leaking classified information if he testified to that fact.

Why do you assume he knew Plame was undercover? The only information being passed around at that point was that Plame was a CIA employee who wrote a memo recommending her husband for the trip. The one paragraph where her name and status were marked secret was not widely spread around.

[wildbill]

"yeah, I've heard that too." is the basis for perjury? Give me a break.