Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the question about Libby's truthfullness is gaged by comparing the word of investigators with the word of Libby. The issue is NOT whter or not Libby outed Plame, that issue is not before you today. The only issue before you is whether Libby mislead investigators by pointing to reporters as his source for Plame identity, when in fact, Libby called the CIA himself to find out Plame's function there. The evidence shows that Libby deliberately misled investigators by not telling them that he had personal authoritative knowledge in June of 2003.
In other words, ladies and gentlemen, you need not confront or settle the question of reporter's testimony, as Libby's counsel would have you believe. The question is do you believe that Libby forgot that he called the CIA, or whether he mislead investigators.
If both are true, then he didn't lie. I often have confidetntial information on clients that when it becomes public, I site the public source as my souce. Would I be lying if I site my public source rather than my private source when both are true statements? What if later I forget my private source gave me the info first, is that deliberate?
But NOT giving information to an investigator is not a crime. The question is if he lied about what he TOLD them. If he told them he heard if from reporters, and did not REMEMBER hearing it from other sources, how do you prove he's lying if there is a reporter that knew about it when he talked to Libby and testified under oath that he could have told Libby.
The indictments are based on the two conversations recollected with reporters. In both cases the primary source of them being "lies" are the reporters telling a different story. And the "background" support for them being lies are that 1) There is direct testimony that Libby had government sources for the information, and 2) every reporter testified that they did NOT tell Libby the information.
The 1st is necessary to show that Libby had a way to get the info. The 2nd is NECESSARY to show that Libby's claim is false. But now Woodward might be that source.
You still could say Libby lied because he testified that Russert was the source. But that would be a rather weak case.