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Your tax dollars at work:

GOVERNMENT’S (Fitzgerald's) RESPONSE TO COURT’S INQUIRY REGARDING NEWS ARTICLES THE GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO OFFER AS EVIDENCE AT TRIAL

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/2006_05_12_newspaper_article_response.pdf

The July 14 Chicago Sun Times column by Mr. Novak is relevant because on the day the article was published, a CIA official was asked in the defendant’s presence, by another person in the OVP, whether that CIA official had read that column. (The CIA official had not.)

At some time thereafter, as discussed briefly at the March 5 oral argument, the CIA official discussed in the defendant’s presence the dangers posed by disclosure of the CIA affiliation of one of its employees as had occurred in the Novak column.

This evidence directly contradicts the defense position that the defendant had no motive to lie because at the time of his interview and testimony the defendant thought that neither he nor anyone else had done anything wrong. Moreover, the evidence rebuts the defense assertion that the defendant could have easily forgotten his conversations with reporters Cooper and Miller on July 12 if he learned of the potential consequences of such disclosure as a result of the publication of the Novak column on July 14.

Instead, the evidence about the conversation concerning the Novak column provides a strong motive for the defendant to provide false information and testimony about his disclosures to reporters. In addition, there will be evidence that the defendant discussed aspects of the Novak article at other relevant times after July 14 but prior to his FBI interview and grand jury testimony.

The July 17, 2003, article on Time.com by Mr. Cooper and others is relevant because it contains a statement that:

Some government officials, noting that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, intimate that she was involved in his being dispatched Niger [sic] to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein’s government had
sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, for the purposes of building nuclear devices.

The article also reflects an “on the record” quote by the defendant regarding the Vice President’s lack of knowledge of Mr. Wilson’s trip until “it became public in the last month or so.” The evidence will show that an earlier Time magazine article published on July 14, 2003, only contained part of defendant’s quote.

After the OVP contacted Time magazine to complain that the defendant’s full “on the record” quote was not contained in the article, Time published the fuller version of the quote in the July 17, 2003, online column.

The statements to Mr. Cooper – an exceedingly rare "on the record" comment by the defendant – as well as OVP's desire to correct the article to include the full quote, are relevant to demonstrating the attention paid to the defendant’s statements to Mr. Cooper.

The effort to include the defendant’s full quote, while at the same time offering no dispute as to the characterization of anonymous government officials concerning Ms. Plame, is important because the Cooper article asserts that government officials had intimated that Ms. Plame was involved in sending Mr. Wilson on the trip.

The defendant testified to the contrary – that he did not think that Ms. Plame played any role in sending Mr. Wilson on the trip prior to reading the Novak article. The defendant testified that he thought Mr. Wilson to be fully qualified for what he did.

The defendant’s grand jury testimony indicates that he did not express any belief to Mr. Cooper on July 12 that Mr. Wilson was sent on the trip because of his wife and had not thought about that possibility until he read Novak’s July 14 column.

Rather, the defendant claims that he told reporters that he was not sure Mr. Wilson even had a wife. Mr. Cooper, to the contrary, testified that the defendant had advised him on July 12 that the defendant had heard that Mr. Wilson’s wife was involved in sending Mr. Wilson on the trip to Niger.

(This conflict in testimony heightens the relevance of the annotations on Exhibit A concerning whether Mr. Wilson’s wife had sent him on a “junket.”)

Whether the defendant lied about his conversation with Mr. Cooper is a core issue in the case. As with the New Republic article, the government anticipates offering a heavily redacted version of the online article, perhaps limited to the defendant’s on-the-record quote and the discussion of Ms. Plame.

Articles About Which the Government Expects to Offer Evidence, but Which the Government Does Not Presently Expect to Offer in Evidence Themselves

In addition to the Wilson Op Ed and the articles described above that the government anticipates offering in redacted form, the government expects its evidence in its case-in-chief to include testimony referring to several additional news articles, as well as passages from the defendant’s grand jury testimony that will refer to certain news articles.

Two of these news articles are associated with the Wilson Op Ed. The government expects that witness testimony and portions of the defendant’s grand jury testimony will contain references to the fact that an article concerning Mr. Wilson was published in the Washington Post on July 6, 2003 (the same day that the Wilson Op Ed appeared in the New York Times), and that Mr. Wilson appeared on Meet the Press on that same day and made statements during that appearance consistent with those made in the Wilson Op Ed.

While the government intends to make reference to the Washington Post article and the Meet the Press appearance as proof of the level of attention being paid to Mr. Wilson, and the level of attention being paid by the defendant and others to responding to Mr. Wilson at that time, the government does not intend to offer the text of the Washington Post article or the transcript of Mr. Wilson’s Meet the Press appearance, or otherwise to describe any specific statements contained in either of them.

In addition, the government’s evidence at trial (including the defendant’s grand jury transcript) will refer to a July 17, 2003, Wall Street Journal editorial entitled “Yellowcake Remix,” which contained quotations from the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (“NIE”).

This editorial resulted from the defendant’s transmittal, through another government official, of a copy of portions of the NIE to the Wall Street Journal shortly before the editorial was published.

This evidence is relevant to establish that during the relevant time frame in July 2003, the defendant, notwithstanding other pressing government business, was heavily focused on shaping media coverage of the controversy concerning Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Niger.

The government does not intend to offer in evidence a copy of the editorial itself, and will not contend that the defendant’s actions in this regard were criminal or otherwise unauthorized.

Finally, the government notes in the interest of completeness that it may offer annotated copies of an October 2003 article by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker if it appears that the defendant will pursue the defense that he was too focused on other urgent national security matters to remember accurately what took place during his conversations with reporters.

The government received from the OVP multiple copies of the same article bearing handwritten annotations, apparently by the defendant and others in his office. However, it is not the government’s present intention to offer those annotated copies.

In conclusion, the government wishes to emphasize that with respect to each of the above articles other than the annotated version of the Wilson Op Ed, the government is willing to consider offering any appropriate redactions, or alternatively a stipulated summary of the relevant assertions in the article, and will also agree to an instruction that the articles are not offered to prove the truth of the matters asserted in the articles, but instead are offered to prove that the statements were made and published and to explain any actions the defendant took in response.