Go read my diary on "the more things change, etc.", from yesterday;  there was also a crafty liar in that case, and it took extended, close questioning until he broke, too. And, of course, the extended, difficult and thorough questioning of prisoners in secret CIA prisons, Gitmo, and the Charleston brig took place and came into being through the efforts of his boss - who wanted to go to the "Dark Side" (his words)-  during the time Scooter was his factotum.  Those programs doubtless went across Scooter's desk.  

Yet we should feel some sympathy for him?

And eight hours before the grand jury was too much?

Tell that to Jose Padilla.
Boo f'g hoo.

Mr. Yoo - vying for favor in this administration of criminals - proposed seriously that crushing or cutting the testicles off the young son of a terror suspect was wholly acceptable as a means of making him talk, provided the Preznit said so (at the instigation of Dark Side Deadeye).  

And we should "give Scooter back" because he's a family man?

And lastly - a tree no one's seemed to notice.  Or, at least it wasn't clear they did from the live-blogging.  

It's been quite clear throughout that one of the targets Plame and her subordinates were hunting was A.Q. Khan and his network.  You remember him.  He was both the mastermind of the Pakistani (soon to be Al Quaeda) nuclear bomb program and the nexus of the black market for a lot of nuclear-capable technology (to countries like Iran and North Korea, no less).  You also no doubt remember that Scooter's successor, who came in to testify about all the weighty issues that crossed Scooter's desk (in contravention to the feathery-light issue of Wilson and Plame), to buttress the idea he was entitled to have forgotten.  What was one of the weighty topics on the list of items testified to?

A.Q. Khan.

I find it incomprehensible that people who have spent the last quarter century totally immersed in national security - like Scooter, Deadeye and Addington, to name three - would not make a connection between the deep concern and interest the USG had and has in A.Q. Khan, on the one hand, and the fact that the wife of someone they were putting a hit on was in charge of running (part of) the intelligence war against that same A.Q. Khan, or that (at a minimum) she worked in the section of the CIA concerned with just that issue, on the other.

Particularly when Khan was on the list of Very Serious Topics.

Nor do I find it comprehensible that Very Important People like Deadeye and Scooter, who would go over to Langley themselves or by proxy (like Newt) to walk into an analyst's cubicle and demand answers they liked, would fail to make the connection.  I have little doubt they had the ability to find out exactly who Plame and Wilson were, and what they did.

Frankly, I don't know if Fitz will now pursue the higher-up Cheney, a course he's taken in so many of his former prosecutions, but in a less conflicted and political world he would. Regardless, we now have a clearer picture of the Machiavellian shenanigans this administration has been using since the day the Supreme Court handed them the keys to the White House.

The level of frustration I've experienced while watching and listening to this malevolent administration has grown as we progressed from their early actions to gut the government through the Iraq invasion and recent threats against Iran has finally received a bit of solace in a DC courtroom.

What I found most refreshing about the trial is that for the first time in six years a small part of this administration's illegal actions were bathed in disinfecting light, and the possibility of immediate and remedial consequence. There's something especially satisfying about a situation where there's limited opportunity for the usual political obfuscation and smoke blowing that often clouds more public discourse.

The lies were very strategic to cover up his and Cheney's role in airing the info.  Yes, the specific lie he was charged with was the tall tale about how he allegedly learned of Plame and did nto blab it to reporters, but its part of a broader obfuscation of his and Cheney's role in the whole smear.

As was well summarized in closing, it was not the type of issue in which one could easily misrecollect.  Plus the nature of the fabrication was so obvious and strategic.  He did not misremember one detail (how he learned of Plame), but also the whole panapoly of other details concerning his involvement in outing Plame and smearing Wilson.  That is why the case has been proven.

And the other big weirdness is: 1) I first learned it from Cheney; 2) then I forgot (although many witnesses say otherwise); 3) then I relearned it from Russert, but mistakenly thought it was the first time; and 4) went back and told Cheney that my story was that I mistakenly thought I first learned it from Russert.  To which Cheney cocks his head and says "hmmm."  Why would he go back and tell Cheney, Libby's source for the info, that he had thought Russert was his source.

Jeralyn: Will I be disappointed if there's an acquittal? Yes, but in Fitzgerald, not the system. And if there's a conviction? Then I'll be disappointed in the Judge, for refusing to allow a memory expert to testify at trial.

Hi Jeralyn, I've been reading your posts here, at FDL, and HuffPo, for, umm, over a year (obviously, I'm finding them interesting, insightful, and informative) and finally decided to de-lurk.

Anyway, while agreeing with some of the points you raise, I think you're missing the four corners of the indictment for the forest.

Each of the five charges against Libby rests not just on Russert's or Cooper's testimony, but on Libby's -- in particular Libby's assertions that:

(a) he learned about Plame from reporters and,

(b) "as if for the first time".

Neither of these statements is credible, given the testimony of the 5 or 6 government officials who testified about having conversations with Libby regarding Plame prior to July 8. Whether or not the 3 reporters (Miller, Cooper, and Russert) memories are reliable is kind of moot, given the way the charges are written in the indictment.

Four of the five counts refer to the 'as if for the first time' language, and that response from Libby is simply not credible, beyond a reasonable doubt.

All five counts refer to Libby saying he heard about or learned about Plame from reporters. Count 3 (False Statement) regarding Cooper's testimony is the only charge that relies strictly on the statement about reporters, and I suppose it's plausible that a jury could regard that charge as not being proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Still, I don't see how anyone could find Libby's language about learning Plame's CIA status from reporters as particulary credible either, nor do I see how a memory expert could have helped the defense on either of these statements from Libby, and suspect that Fitzgerald would have decimated the expert's testimony by focusing in on those assertions.

So I don't think you need be disappointed by Fitz or the judge.

I disagree.  it seems to me that your defense attorney instincts are interfering with your political activist insticts, and vice-versa.

This isn't a case about "memory", it a case about whether knowingly false statements were made.   The case isn't really about whether Russert told Libby about Plame -- its whether it was possible that Libby could have heard this information from Russert "as if for the first time".   Its not about whether Libby did or did not tell Matt Cooper that he'd heard about it from other reporters--- its about whether Libby could have not known that Joe Wilson had a wife when he was speaking to Cooper.

In other words, the relevant lies are those told by Libby regarding his state of mind that he told in order to make his lies regarding his conversations "credible".  

As for the lack of testimony from a "memory expert", the bottom line is that if Libby brought in an expert who said his memory could have been this porous despite all the evidence, Fitz would have brought in his own experts saying that was complete hogwash -- that memory doesn't work like that (or completely destroyed the "expert" on cross by demanding that s/he provide scientific evidence of the kind of highly selective and specific memory "loss" --and creation of memories of things that never happened -- claimed by Libby.)

I personally think that Libby will be (and should be) acquitted of charges of lying to the FBI (counts 2 & 3), because the evidence regarding Libby's statements to the FBI was ambiguous, and Fitz never established that "faulty memory" was not the reason for the false statements.  

When I have been on juries we were aware of human nature. We were also aware that there were holes in the cases of the prosecution sometimes. But reasonable doubt is just that: and it was not one mistake but a collection, a pattern of mistakes that make it pretty obvious there was fabrication.

 I very often disagree with TL but the effort to put aside political bias and analyze a case based on the evidence and law rather than political desires is one I applaud.

This case should be compared to Capone.  Yes, the government could not prove murder, etc.  But, they got the conviction that they could - income tax evasion.  And a long enough sentence to put him away for the rest of his syphillitc life.  

so -- while i respect her
greatly, i firmly disagree
with jeralyn's view about
fitz missing the forest. . .

did you all really look at
libby trial exhibit 802.1?

it looks to be the
document that places cheney
in fitzs' cross-hairs. . .

did he lie to both the fbi and the grand jury?

while i, as a member of the jury, might accept the "bad memory" defense for the fbi interviews, using that same defense for the later grand jury testimony is stretching credulity, to the breaking point. by that time, he knew what he was going to be asked, and had sufficient time to refresh his memory by reading his notes.

I don't believe leaking Valarie's name (wasn't Armitage the first leaker?) is a crime.

Wilson's argument is full of holes, he's not very credible and the simple fact is the only reason he was sent was because his wife was in the CIA.

If she was covert why did she allow her husband to write an op-ed in a world wide publication?  

Why couldn't the administration point that out?  All sorts of horrible things are said about leakers and accusers in other political fights by both sides (see Clinton years, see Reagan years) they are politically motivated but not criminal.

So IMHO the moral dilema you find yourslef in is of your own making.   It appears to me that you and others truley hoped that this case would be the one that would show some sort of criminal guilt that the administration commited in the run up to the war.  

For me the war was just poorly executed and I understand the argument that it should never have happened but to make it a criminal matter and then to make this case the hinge point takes critics of the war on a strange tangent that simply has no basis in law or sense.  

as noted above, by the time of his grand jury testimony, mr. libby had more than enough time to "refresh" his memory, and correct any mistatements he might have made during earlier questioning. he didn't. the jury will notice that as well.

i suspect mr. libby will become a guest at one of of our finer penal institutions, for a brief period of time.

of course, this in no way changes the fact that we are involved in a costly war, which was predicated on fraud and deceit, at the highest levels of govt., of which mr. libby was a part.

I unlurked and registered to make this comment.

I understand you had to leave the courthouse yesterday to catch a plane, and therefore missed Fitzgerald's summary. My reading of it was that it certainly was emotional, as well as logical, and clearly aimed at the bigger "conspirator" - i.e. Cheney.