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Best of the Web Today - March 6, 2007
By JAMES TARANTO

The Libby Travesty
We won't gainsay the jury's verdict in the Scooter Libby trial--"guilty" on four of five counts on perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation of the Valerie Plame kerfuffle. Life is too short to immerse oneself in the tedious details of the case. (If you're interested in Libby minutiae, we recommend Tom Maguire.) But it remains a travesty that Libby was ever prosecuted to begin with.

This was a political show trial, and partisans of Joe Wilson will use the guilty verdict to declare vindication. But along the way we learned that virtually all the claims Wilson and his supporters made were false:

On his trip to Niger, Wilson found no evidence that contradicted the famous "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, contrary to his New York Times op-ed claim.

Plame, his wife, who worked for the CIA, did recommend him for the Niger junket, contrary to Wilson's denials.

Plame was not a covert agent under the definition of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, contrary to Wilson's insinuations, which many of his backers, including in the press, presented as fact.

No one from the White House "leaked" Plame's identity as a CIA functionary to Robert Novak, who received the information from Richard Armitage at the State Department.
Libby stands convicted of lying in the course of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Valerie Plame kerfuffle--but that investigation was undertaken on the basis of a tissue of lies. When Fitzgerald began the case, in 2003, no one had committed any crime in connection with the kerfuffle, and that was fairly easy to ascertain, given that Plame was not a covert agent and Armitage had already owned up to the so-called leak. Fitzgerald looks like an overzealous prosecutor, one who was more interested in getting a scalp than in getting to the truth of the matter.

Of course, Libby could have avoided indictment and conviction if he had simply said "I don't remember" a lot more during the course of the investigation. Therein lies a lesson for witnesses in future such investigations--which may make it harder for prosecutors to do their jobs when pursuing actual crimes.

we recommend Tom Maguire

March 06, 2007
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2007/03/from_the_jurors.html

From The Juror's Mouth...
Denis Collins, former journalist and an author of a book on the history of spying: "The primary thing which convinced us on most of the accounts was the conversation... the alleged conversation... with Tim Russert...," he said.

TIME tells it a bit more usefully:

During the investigation into the leak of Plame's identity, Libby told the grand jury he heard about Plame being a CIA officer from NBC's Tim Russert. Libby testified that he recalled being "surprised" at the news during his conversation with Russert. The jury, looking at their compilation of facts posted on the wall, were convinced Libby already knew about Plame at that point. Denis Collins, 57, a novelist and former journalist who served on the jury, said this discrepancy persuaded them that Libby had perjured himself.

Well. As to the Russert conversation, possible doubt-inducing explanations include the following:

1. Libby was sincere but mistaken, and had the breakthrough phone call with another reporter, possibly Bob Novak on the 9th.

2. Russert was sincere but mistaken - the gist of his story was that he could not remember the Libby call on the 10th or 11th, but since he remembers learning about Plame in the Novak column (published on the 14th) he could not have mentioned her to Libby.

Fine, but... the Novak column hit the news wires on the morning of the 11th. Since Russert's story is undated, maybe an NBC producer slipped him an embargoed copy of the column for his perusal on the 11th. Impossible? Worth checking? How come no one has?

3. Russert is, hmm, misremembering in order to conceal sources. David Gregory received a leak on the morning of the 11th, according to the memory-challenged Ari Fleischer. Or perhaps Andrea Mitchell had received a Plame leak from a source whom she and Russert would prefer to protect.

All that said, if the jury focused on Libby's surprise rather than the fact of the conversation, believing Russert is not an issue. Since that was essentially my prediction, I can't get as exercised as I would like. My earlier guess:

As to the rest, the jury could (and IMHO, ought to) have reasonable doubt as to whether Libby sincerely believes (or actually) did hear about Ms. Plame from Tim Russert. However, they might not also believe that the Plame news surprised him - in other words, they might reject the "I Forgot" part of Libby's story. That would result in convictions on counts 1, 2, and 4, depending on how the jury interprets any "materiality" qualifications in the jury instructions.

I still want to hear from David Gregory, just for starters. Eventually, someone ought to grill some NBC producers and see whether they might have had access to the Novak column on the 11th, either directly or from a contact in the news biz. Had Fitzgerald been running a serious leak investigation (or even a serious perjury investigation) he would have done this himself just to pin down a loose end and maybe avoid a serious mistake. Oh, but then he couldn't have indicted Libby as a way-station on the road to Dick Cheney - my bad.

Or, if NBC News had investigative journalists and an interest in the truth, they would examine this themselves. Never happen. Clearly, protecting Tim "The Franchise" Russert trumps other considerations.

Posted by Tom Maguire on March 06, 2007 | Permalink