Judith Miller at the Libby Trial: “I Don’t Recall.”

National Review Online ^ | January 31, 2007 | Byron York

[Barset]

"Do you remember talking to Joe Wilson?"

Miller..."I don't believe I did."

He is asking her if she remembers talking to Wilson and she replies that she doesn't "believe I did."

The defense's line is to reveal her "memory lapses" that occur when, she claims, she "has no notes."

Well, she had a note about Wilson, his name, telephone number, extension. Follow-up question should go to where she got them, from whom, what news or events compelled her to write down his name, number, extension.

Google "Joe Wilson Daily Kos" to find a cornucopia of Wilson interviews, lectures, phone calls, e-mails, and chats with the most obscure and "unconnected" of Wilson's fans.

"Teacher Ken" a Kos contributor "ran into Wilson at his favorite watering hole in D.C." Wilson discussed with "Teacher Ken" the infamous "Rove indictment" lie of May 12, 2006, published by Jason Leopold at Truthout, and confirmed by William Pitt a fixture at Democratic Underground and Truthout who claimed in an e-mail to a Kos member that "Wilson was in it (the Rove indictment lie) and has always been in it."

Is it plausible that Wilson, an inveterate chatterbox, to the extent that he chums up with a stranger (if "Teacher Ken" was a stranger to him) in a bar and yacks about an indictment that was an outright lie, would forego the opportunity to kibbitz with a real live reporter for the New York Times?

"I don't believe I did." in response to "Do you remember talking to Joe Wilson?" is an evasion and may provide wiggle room if she is charged with perjury, so perhaps the next question should be, "what specifically did Wilson say to you when he talked to you and you didn't talk to him?"

The most thorough coverage (and great archives on the subject) of the Libby trial is at

http://www.justoneminute.typepad.com

Good stuff also at http://www,strata-sphere.com

[Howlin]

Scooter Ping!!

[Barset]

Sorry your name fell off the list of people to whom I sent post#41.

[Howlin]

Insulting, isn't it?

[Howlin]

They showed up two days after the Statute of Limitations expired.

Did they really?

[cpdiii]

Miller said her notes brought her memory back. She explained that, after her first grand jury testimony, she discovered a shopping bag full of notebooks under her desk in her New York office. One of those notebooks covered the June 23 interview.

Recently faxed over from KINKOS.

[pinz-n-needlez]

Miller told the jury that Libby did not treat Wilson’s role, or the fact that his wife worked for the CIA, as a big deal. “He said that people were beginning to focus on Mr. Wilson, but that Mr. Wilson was a ruse — that’s the word he used — an irrelevancy,” Miller testified. By that, Libby apparently meant that Wilson was just one small part of a much bigger story, which was the intensifying war between the CIA and the White House over Iraq intelligence.

Joe will not be pleased to hear this. He'll be even less pleased to have the rest of the world hear this.

LOL Poor Joe. Can even move up from being a gnat to being a boil on a bull's backside....

[pinz-n-needlez]

Of course, then there is the unforgettable, "It depends on what the meaning of the word, 'is' is."

He brings a whole new meaning to the term, Slimy Lawyer.

Glad he was disbarred! By a judge he appointed!

[pinz-n-needlez]

Maybe Hillary was busy cleaning closets while Judy was in jail. ;-)

[PeskyOne]

Thanks for the ping, Howlin. I had just read the article online, and since I don't do much posting, I was trying to figure out a way to send it to you and ask you to post it!

It was a great cross examination, and I wonder how Hardball will deal with it tonight. I don't watch Hardball anymore so I'll have to wait for someone to post their reaction. I didn't like Chris Matthews before, but after his treatment of Michelle Malkin, I detest him!

[pinz-n-needlez]

Wasn't Judy's gig at that time covering WMD in Iraq? I seem to recall folks at the NYT were annoyed with her coverage because she was bolstering Bush's case that they were there.

Seems like ample reason for Joe to call while he was trying to make himself into a big deal.

I also seem to recall that Valerie was working the WMD desk for the CIA, so it's surprising that there wasn't a pre-existing connection between Judy and Valerie.

Is this a dog that didn't bark?

[dfwgator]

Now I've got that Peter Gabriel song playing in my head:


I don't remember
I don't recall
I have no memory of anything at all.

[pointsal]

Judy Miller seems to be a little slack on her housekeeping.

[Texas Songwriter]

I wonder if Fitzgerald told Miller that she would be prosecuted if she did not 'get her mind right'? They did not have a "failure to communicate" after 85 days in lockup.

Would that be prosecutorial misconduct? Especially now after she has gone under oath and lied, told the truth, lied , told the truth, could not remmeber, told a lie, told the truth.............?

[IamConservative]

A brilliant cross-examination.....

Indeed. Filleted like a fish.

I am not a fan of the perjury trap or prosecutorial witch hunts.

That said, if you tell the truth all the time, you have nothing to remember. She is so wrapped around her own axle I suspect she told more outright lies in that transcript than Scooter did in total.

[UCANSEE2]

Bottom line of all the testimony seems to be this.

CIA backpeddled on the info they provided, mostly because it was BS and they were getting caught.

Joe Wilson thought that he could turn his CIA funded trips to Niger into a JAMES BOND novel, but nobody would pay any attention.

So, he claimed the VP sent him 'personally' to Niger (to investigate possible sales of Yellowcake ore to Saddam by the President of Niger) and they ignored his information when he gave it to them (where he claimed that the President of Niger did not directly sell the ore to Saddam, at that time).

Joe Wilson's private company is a broker for the President of Niger. Has handled sales of yellowcake Ore several times in the past. But they didn't sell it directly to Saddam. (went through Libya first).

NOTE: The trip to Niger as a CIA spy was done not once, but twice. Once during the Clinton Admin, once during the Bush Admin. Joe Wilson started making a big deal out of it because he hadn't gained the publicity he felt he deserved for being THE SPY who went after all the GOLD. He even paraded his CIA SPY wife around town to anyone who would listen.

[Steve_Seattle]

"He was concerned that the CIA was beginning to backpedal to try to distance itself from the unequivocal intelligence estimates it had provided before the war . . .She told the jurors that Libby had called the CIA’s action “a perverted war of leaks" . . . “He said the vice president did not know that Mr. Wilson had been sent on this trip” . . . She said Libby assured her that Dick Cheney did not know of Wilson and “did not get a readout” on Wilson’s findings. As “an aside,” Miller said, Libby mentioned that Wilson’s wife “worked in the bureau.” Libby apparently meant that Wilson was just one small part of a much bigger story, which was the intensifying war between the CIA and the White House over Iraq intelligence . . . "He accused the CIA of leaking information that would attempt to distance the agency from its earlier estimates. He said that nobody had ever come to the White House from the CIA and said, ‘Mr. President, this is not right.’ He felt that if the CIA had had such doubts, they should have shared them with the president.”

This is incredible testimony, a huge story, rebutting everything that has been claimed by Wilson and the MSM in their efforts to create a scandal. But the MSM will utterly and totally ignore this aspect of her testimony. The MSM already has their story, and they're sticking to it. Bastards, complete partisan bastards.

[Mia T]

Hillary was busy cleaning closets

I can just picture hillary yucking it up with bill about all those double entendres fashioned to hoodwink supposedly credulous women even as it ridicules them.

As this 'candidacy' proceeds, people--and especially women--will increasing see it as just another sickening example of hillary clinton's flagrant abuse of women

[colorado tanker]

Wow, that's a really damaging cross-exam. This is not being reported accurately in the MSM. Quelle surprise.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Wow, that's a really damaging cross-exam."

I was actually more interested in the fact that Miller conveyed a very clear picture of what was motivating the White House: contrary to press reports, and contrary to Wilson, Cheney had no knowledge of Wilson's trip and had not been briefed on his findings, for the simple reason that the CIA thought Wilson's findings were trivial and inconclusive. This shows that the whole conspiracy scenario - the White House trying to destroy Wilson because he was "speaking truth to power" - was a complete fabrication. Wilson was lying through his teeth, and the MSM were spreading his lies.