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WASHINGTON - Five journalists must identify the government officials who leaked them details about a scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks, a federal judge said Monday. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the reporters to cooperate with Steven J. Hatfill, who accused the Justice Department and FBI of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving the media information about the FBI's investigation of him. The reporters named in the opinion are Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek, Allan Lengel of The Washington Post, Toni Locy, formerly of USA Today, and James Stewart, formerly of CBS News....

Time for all good FReepers to FReep a poll. The moonbats have skewed this poll in the wrong direction. http://www.indystar.com and go to the Cyberpoll "Do you support President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's sentence?"

WASHINGTON (AP) - Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is disputing President Bush's assertion that the 30-month prison sentence given to former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby was "excessive." That was 1 of the reasons the president cited in commuting the sentence hours after a federal appeals court ruled that Libby could not remain free while fighting the case. Fitzgerald said in a statement that Libby was sentenced under the same laws as other criminals. He also said "It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals."

WASHINGTON - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has shown no remorse for corrupting the legal system and deserves to spend 2 1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said Friday. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and an assistant to President Bush, is the highest-ranking White House official convicted since the Iran-Contra affair two decades ago. In court documents, Fitzgerald rejected criticism from Libby's supporters who said the leak investigation had spun out of control. Fitzgerald denied the prosecution was politically motivated and...

Fitzgerald's Cover-Up It's time to hold the special prosecutor accountable. Wednesday, April 4, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT For a prosecutor who claims to be a truth-seeker, Patrick Fitzgerald sure can be secretive. Even now that the Scooter Libby trial is over and his "leak" investigation is all but closed, the unaccountable special counsel wants to keep his arguments for creating a Constitutional showdown over reporters and their sources under lock and key. Mr. Fitzgerald is fighting release of the affidavits he filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to justify compelling two reporters to testify about their conversations with...

WASHINGTON - Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who spent years investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity, told lawmakers Wednesday that he could offer little help during congressional hearings on the leak. Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., asked Fitzgerald last week to meet with members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which will hold hearings on the Bush administration's handling of CIA operative Valerie Plame's classified employment status. Plame's identity was leaked to reporters after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, began criticizing the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq. In a letter to...

The verdict is in: Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, should be pardoned. At least according to two of the jurors who found him guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice. Asked about the possibility of a pardon, juror Ann Redington said, "I would like him to get one," and added, "I don't want him to go to jail." Asked how he would feel if Libby were pardoned, the ubiquitous juror Denis Collins said, "I would really not care." The jarring spectacle of jurors expressing support for, or at least indifference toward, an executive act...

It is, officially, a crime to support the President and his policies. That is, after all, why Scooter Libby is facing prison time. In a nutshell, special prosecutor Fitzgerald knew that no crime had been committed from the onset of his investigation. He was made aware that Richard Armitage was the person who revealed the identity of Valerie Plame in the very beginning of his investigation. Rather than do the honorable thing and just shut down his search and save the taxpayers millions of dollars, Fitzgerald chose to use his unchecked power and find a Bush administration official to persecute....

There are lies and there are memory lapses. Bill Clinton denied under oath having sex with Monica Lewinsky. Unless you're Wilt Chamberlain, sex is not the kind of thing that you forget easily. Sandy Berger denied stuffing classified documents in his pants, an act not quite as elaborate as sex, but still involving a lot of muscle memory, and unlikely to have been honestly forgotten. Scooter Libby has just been convicted for four felonies that could theoretically give him 25 years in jail for ... what? Misstating when he first heard a certain piece of information, namely the identity of...

Lewis Libby has now been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for lies that had absolutely no legal consequence. It was not a crime to reveal Valerie Plame's name because she was not a covert agent. If it had been a crime, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could have wrapped up his investigation with an indictment of the State Department's Richard Armitage on the first day of his investigation since it was Armitage who revealed her name and Fitzgerald knew it. With no crime to investigate, Fitzgerald pursued a pointless investigation into nothing, getting a lot of White House...

WASHINGTON - Saying “I don’t want him to go to jail,” a member of the jury that convicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case called Wednesday for President Bush to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff. The woman, Ann Redington, said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that she cried when the verdicts against Libby were read Tuesday. She said Libby seemed to be “a really nice guy.” Redington said “it was very difficult — it was hard” to vote to convict Libby, who was found guilty of...

Shortly before he was inaugurated for his second term, President Bush was asked why no one was held responsible for the mistakes of the first. "We had an accountability moment," he replied, "and that's called the 2004 elections." Two years and a stinging midterm election later, Bush is having another accountability moment, but this one isn't working out as well. The conviction of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has coincided with a string of investigations into the mistreatment of injured soldiers and the purge of federal prosecutors, putting the operations of his administration into harsh relief....

The nearly-four year investigation of the Valerie Plame leak ended yesterday with one of the most derivative convictions in the history of Washington jurisprudence: Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted of offering misleading testimony to an inconclusive investigation of a non-crime. Special Investigator Patrick Fitzgerald knew at the outset of his investigation that outing Valerie Plame was not a criminal offense, that antiwar dove Richard Armitage leaked her name, and that the administration had acted to refute lies Joseph Wilson told during wartime. Pushing forward his inquiry under these circumstances looks very much like either extravagant self-justification or entrapment. It is...

Cross Posted: THE MINORITY REPORTI lack the inside baseball connections to know who Mel Sembler is, but I’m convinced the man is a great American. He has taken the personal initiative to rise up against the malignant injustice of our nation’s latest judicial witch-hunt. In the letter below, he requests our help. “As Scooter’s lawyer, Ted Wells, said today, we are all disappointed in the verdict. His attorneys will seek a new trial and if that’s denied, they will appeal. The defense team fervently believes in Scooter’s innocence and intends to continue fighting to establish Scooter’s innocence. Speaking for the...

Breaking on MSNBC

Jurors have been deliberating since Wednesday, Feb. 21. As they left for the weekend Friday, they passed U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton a note. "We would like clarification of the term 'reasonable doubt,'" jurors wrote. "Specifically, is it necessary for the government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

WASHINGTON - Notes from the jury deliberating the fate of ex-White House aide Lewis (Scooter) Libby gave a hint there might be one or two holdouts on a conviction. "We would like clarification of the term 'reasonable doubt,'" the jury wrote to U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton on the eighth day of deliberations. "Is it necessary for the government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?" The notes from the 11 jurors weighing the fate of Vice President Cheney's former chief of...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Jurors asked for the definition of "reasonable doubt" Friday after completing a shortened, eighth day of deliberations Friday in the perjury trial of ex-White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. "We would like clarification of the term 'reasonable doubt,'" jurors wrote. "Specifically, is it necessary for the government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." The note offered the first real glimpse into the deliberations and suggested jurors were discussing Libby's memory. Prosecutors say he lied about conversations he...

WASHINGTON - Jurors completed a shortened, eighth day of deliberations Friday without a verdict in the perjury trial of ex-White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. They resume work on Monday. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton granted their request to leave three hours early Friday to attend to personal, professional and medical obligations. On their way out, they handed Walton two questions, which will be addressed in court Monday. The questions were to be released publicly Friday afternoon. The seven women and four men got the case near midday on Feb. 22. They normally work from 9 a.m. to 5...

Jurors deliberated a third day Friday without reaching a verdict on whether former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby obstructed the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative married to a prominent Iraq war critic. After 2 1/2 days of deliberations over the fate of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, the eight women and four men went home until Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A jury ended its second day of deliberations on Thursday without reaching a verdict in the perjury trial of former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who is accused of obstructing an investigation tied to the Iraq war. The jury of eight women and four men has now spent nearly 12 hours considering whether Dick Cheney's former chief of staff lied to investigators as they sought to determine who leaked the identity of CIA analyst Valerie Plame in 2003 after her husband accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case for war. Jurors are...

WONDERLAND Scooter Libby and Reputation Prosecutions that wreak ruin on a lifetime. The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is the closest version of a Red Queen trial this country has had in a long time. One says that knowing it might start a stampede from past defendants laying claim to the most upside-down prosecution. Lewis G. Carroll's account of the Knave' s trial before the Red Queen and White Rabbit is famous for the Queen's dictum, "Sentence first, verdict afterward." But read the full transcript of the mock trial and one will see that the real subject is not...

At the end of each witness's testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, after prosecutors and defense attorneys examined and cross-examined, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton asked jurors to write down any questions they had. Walton would then look through the papers, decide which questions were appropriate and pose them to the witness. Now, as the case heads to the jury, those queries are our best hints about what jurors are thinking. But last week there was a moment when we got a hint, not from a question that Walton asked, but from one he...

WASHINGTON - Jurors deliberated Wednesday without reaching a verdict on whether former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby obstructed the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative married to a prominent Iraq war critic. The eight women and four men heard 14 days of testimony, a full day of closing arguments and more than an hour of instructions from U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton before beginning their discussions. After 4 1/2 hours of deliberation, the jurors went home until Thursday. The jurors include a former Washington Post reporter, an MIT-trained economist, a retired math teacher, a...

WASHINGTON - Jurors began deliberating Wednesday in the perjury and obstruction trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is charged with lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Jurors heard about an hour of legal instructions from U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Wednesday morning before beginning deliberations shortly before 11:30 a.m. They heard a full day of closing arguments Tuesday after a monthlong trial. The jury of eight women and four men must be unanimous before...

IF, I say IF, Libby is acquitted, Special Counsel Fitzgerald will be re-titled Special Clownshow Fitzgerald. Although Sunday afternoon seems a bit early for speculating on *why* Fitzgerald blew his case, (only partly because it is really Thursday, and mainly because the verdict is not in yet), let me offer this as Fitzgerald's Biggest Blunder: Playing eight hours of Libby tapes from his grand jury testimony. Why? Assuming the jurors are human, after eight hours they were probably reeling, and may be quite sympathetic to the notion that Libby was reeling too. Too bad Fitzgerald didn't have video of Libby...

The lawyers defending I. Lewis Libby Jr. against perjury charges rested their case today, but not before suffering a series of defeats in legal rulings by the presiding judge. The judge, Reggie B. Walton, expressed in the strongest terms yet that he had been misled by the defense team about whether Mr. Libby would take the stand in his own defense ....Judge Walton said he “believed all along in the process that Mr. Libby was going to testify” and that his lawyers were now “playing games with the process.” The juror said that they were wearing the T-shirts (red with...

A summary of testimony from witnesses in the obstruction and perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby: PROSECUTION: MARC GROSSMAN: A former undersecretary of state, Grossman said he told Libby on June 11 or 12, 2003, that Valerie Plame, the wife of a prominent war critic, worked at the CIA. Under cross-examination, Grossman acknowledged some inconsistencies in his statements, such as whether the conversations were face-to-face or over the phone. ROBERT GRENIER: The former No. 3 official at the CIA testified that he told Libby about Plame on June 11, 2003. He originally told investigators he...

WASHINGTON - Neither Vice President Dick Cheney nor his former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will testify at Libby's perjury and obstruction trial in the CIA leak case, Libby's lawyer said Tuesday. Defense attorney Theodore Wells said he advised Cheney's lawyer over lunch that the vice president's testimony would not be needed. Wells also said he planned to rest his case this week without calling Libby. In December, Wells had announced he would call Cheney as a defense witness. Historians said it would have been the first time a sitting vice president would have sat as a witness in a...

WASHINGTON - Three prominent journalists testified Monday that Bush administration officials volunteered leaks about a CIA operative, as I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's attorneys sought to suggest he was not responsible for exposing her. The jury in Libby's perjury trial heard a 66-second snippet of one of the deep background interviews given to Washington Post editor Bob Woodward for use in one of his books. They also saw a parade of Pulitzer-prize winning journalists discuss who did and did not leak the information that set off a scandal and ultimately brought Libby to trial. Woodward, who never wrote about Plame, and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- NBC's Tim Russert got the sort of "Meet the Press" interrogation he usually gives to his guests as attorneys Thursday flashed excerpts of his previous statements on a video monitor and asked him to explain inconsistencies. Russert is the final witness for the prosecution in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The broadcast journalist, who hosts the Sunday network television interview show, found his own scruples questioned during his second day on the witness stand. Russert seemed uncomfortable at times as Libby's attorneys asked him to explain why he willingly told...

WASHINGTON -- A jury that includes four critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policies was seated Monday to try former White House aide "Scooter" Libby on charges of lying about what he told reporters concerning the wife of a prominent war opponent. The jury of nine women and three men was seated after a nearly hourlong court session that was as silent as a professional chess match. Prosecutors and defense attorneys consulted in whispers, then handed papers to the clerk to exercise their 20 unexplained strikes of potential jurors. The only sound was the clerk reading the number of each...

A pattern is emerging at the Lewis Libby trial, now in the middle of its third week in the federal courthouse in Washington. The pattern is this: A witness called by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald delivers testimony that seems clearly damaging to Libby, strongly suggesting that Libby lied when he testified before prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury in the CIA-leak affair. And then Libby’s lawyers take over, suggesting that the witness’s memory is so selective, or so flawed, or so sketchy as to render his or her testimony useless. Each day, most news reports from the trial focus on the damage...

But at the trial we learned that when Grenier was asked about it during the Fitzgerald investigation, he couldn’t remember whether he had told Libby or not. When he was first interviewed by the FBI, he didn’t recall. “My response at the time was that I didn’t clearly remember,” Grenier testified. Later, before the grand jury, Grenier recounted, “I told them that I may have, but I didn’t recall.” It wasn’t until a year later, when the Libby case was again in the news, that Grenier remembered that he remembered. “I was going over it and over and over in...

There is no holier icon in the church of the First Amendment than the anonymous leak. Ever since columnist Robert Novak published the identity of a CIA officer nearly four years ago, voices of journalism have delivered sermon after sermon about the centrality of leaks not just to journalism but to democracy itself: We need leaks to keep the government honest. In order to encourage leaks, it follows, reporters must be able to guarantee anonymity to their sources. And in order to protect that anonymity, journalists must be excused from the ordinary duties of citizenship, such as testifying in a...

NOBODY knows what is going to happen in the perjury trial of Scooter Libby, the one-time chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. Every day, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's team presents evidence that Libby lied to a grand jury. Every day, Libby's defense effectively pokes holes in the prosecution's case. ...snip.... I have no doubt that Fitzgerald gets up in the morning and looks in the mirror and sees a righteous man. But alas, his eyes deceive him, and his mirror shows nothing but Narcissus.

Audio recordings of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's secret grand jury testimony will be released publicly after they are presented at his trial, the judge at Libby's trial ruled Monday. In a victory for the news media, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said he had little choice but to make them public under the law as applied in the federal court system in Washington, D.C, even though he has concerns about releasing the recordings while the case is under way. Libby is charged with perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in an indictment that focuses in...

An FBI agent acknowledged Monday that some of her testimony could not be backed up by notes, an admission that attorneys for former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby seized on in an effort to undercut perjury and obstruction charges. Agent Deborah Bond testified last week that, in his FBI interview Libby adamantly denied discussing a CIA operative's identity with White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Under cross-examination Monday, however, Bond conceded that FBI notes contain no record of such a denial. Rather, they say he may have discussed it but couldn't recall. “Adamantly might not be the perfect word,”...

If you believe prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's case against Scooter Libby, you must also be ready to grasp the "evidence" for catastrophic man-made global warming over the next thousand years. Because in both cases you're looking for a needle in a haystack --- one that is so nanoscopically tiny that only the eye of faith can pick it out. The only way Fitzpatrick can believe his own legal charges is if he is dreadfully naive. (I don't even want to think about the idea that he is acting in bad faith.)

Note: you must refresh the page regularly to keep up with the testimony and page changes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We begin with some preliminary Fitz-versus-Wells squabbling over whether Tim Russert can be asked about Andrea Mitchell's statement (which she later disavowed) that Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA employment was "generally known" in certain press circles, since he's commented on TV about it. Fitz says "there's no TV exception to the hearsay rule," but Wells insists that his reasons and manner of asking will be justified, so please don't rule against him before he can present related evidence. Walton seems a bit bemused and...

One of the differences between reading live blogging of the Libby Trial and reading or hearing news accounts, is that we have it in real time. Even the most skillful of reporters in the court like Matt Apuzzo have filing deadlines which usually means that they get the direct testimony but not the cross examination in their first stories. But in this case the cross examination is the story. Tim Russert, who is a key prosecution witness, took the stand for about 11 minutes today to say that he had not mentioned the name of Wilson's wife in his call...

As well as tossing a dart into Tim Russert's credibility, Libby attorney Theodore Wells's cross-examination helped expose the all-too-chummy nature of insider Washington. He put up on the screen, Meet the Press-style, portions of the motion NBC filed in an effort to quash the May 2004 subpoena compelling Russert to testify in front of the Plamegate grand jury. It was a portrait of pomposity, and a bracing reminder of the way things work in Club Washington:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — The prosecution in the perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. neared the end of its case Wednesday with a final dramatic flourish — putting Tim Russert of NBC News on the witness stand to deliver what could be a serious blow to Mr. Libby’s defense. Nevertheless, Mr. Russert, who is accustomed to asking tough questions of his guests on “Meet the Press,” found himself in the clearly uncomfortable role of being the subject of tough questions during a cross-examination by Mr. Libby’s defense lawyer. Mr. Russert, whose signature technique in interrogating officials on his television...

The courtroom was packed, the overflow room was packed, the street in front of the Prettyman building looked like it did back when the Lewinsky scandal was in full flower. All the attention was for the media's star witness against President Bush: Tim Russert. Actually, Russert was prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's star witness against I. Lewis Libby.I arrived in the afternoon, a few minutes into the cross examination of Russert by Libby's attorney, Theodore Wells.Russert started off strong, a little too strong in his demeanor on the witness stand. He didn't want to get boxed in by Wells' questions so he...

WASHINGTON - NBC newsman Tim Russert testified Wednesday he never discussed a CIA operative with vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, contradicting Libby's version to a grand jury in the CIA leak investigation. The testimony came as prosecutors prepared to rest their perjury case against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. Russert, the host of "Meet the Press," testified about a July 2003 phone call in which Libby complained about a colleague's coverage. Libby has said that, at the end of the call, Russert brought up war critic Joseph Wilson and mentioned that Wilson's wife worked for...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Prosecutors in the CIA leak trial on Wednesday sought to limit how much they must reveal about how they gained the cooperation of NBC News reporter Tim Russert, whose testimony is key to the case against former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The dispute came as jurors listened to the final 2 1/2 hours of Libby's audiotaped grand jury testimony which forms the basis of perjury and obstruction charges against him. Once the tapes are played in their entirety, "Meet the Press" host Russert is expected to testify that he didn't talk to Libby in...

Is Everything We Know About Joe Wilson’s Trip to Niger Wrong? New evidence from the Libby trial — evidence Senate investigators never saw — could change the storyline. By Byron York For the last two weeks, a number of Republicans in Washington — in the administration, on Capitol Hill, and in the intelligence community — have been watching closely as the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Lewis Libby unfolds in federal court. In particular, those Republicans have been poring over dozens of documents released as evidence in the case. Much of what they’ve seen is old stuff, things...

Lawyers defending Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., at his ongoing obstruction-of-justice trial in Washington are raising fresh doubts about whether the vice president and his one-time top aide will be called as defense witnesses. The hedging on possible testimony from Messrs. Cheney and Libby came as the defense asked Judge Reggie Walton to reconsider his ruling last month that Mr. Libby must testify if his lawyers plan to argue that memory failures accounted for any false statements he may have made to the those investigating the disclosure of a CIA officer's identity.

NBC's Russert Set to Testify for Prosecution in CIA Leak Trial Wednesday, February 07, 2007 AP WASHINGTON — NBC News reporter Tim Russert should find the format familiar: An interviewer, a television screen and a gauntlet of pointed questions. Unlike his seat as host of "Meet the Press," however, Russert won't be asking the questions. He'll be in the witness box, fielding questions from prosecutors about his conversation with former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and from defense attorneys who want to undercut his credibility. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says he expects Russert to be his final witness...

CIA agent's naming led to giant hoax by Bush foes Fred Barnes September 15, 2006 THE rogues' gallery of those who acted badly in the CIA "leak" case turns out to be different from what the media led us to expect. Note that we put the word "leak" in quotation marks, because it's clear now that there was no leak at all, just idle talk, and certainly there was no smear campaign against former US ambassador Joseph Wilson for criticising President George W.Bush's Iraq policy. It's as if a giant hoax were perpetrated on the country - by the media,...