Libby Prosecutor Focuses on CIA Officer's Status

WashPost ^ | 5-22-06 | WALTER PINCUS

[STARWISE]

The classified status of the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame will be a key element in any trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, according to special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald has said that at trial he plans to show that Libby knew Plame's employment at the CIA was classified and that he lied to the grand jury when he said he had learned from NBC News's Tim Russert that Plame, the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked for the agency.

Libby's lawyers have said their client did not know that Plame's job at the CIA was classified, and therefore he had no reason to remember conversations about her or lie about them to the grand jury.

When Libby testified before the grand jury on March 5, 2004, he said, according to the government's indictment: "Mr. Russert said to me, did you know that Ambassador Wilson's wife, or his wife works at the CIA? And I said, no, I don't know that. And then he [Russert] said, yeah -- yes all the reporters know it. And I said, again, I don't know that."

[STARWISE]

Scooter/Pincus ping!

[STARWISE]

From Carnac, the Special Prosecutor's, crystal ball:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"At last week's court argument on pretrial motions, Fitzgerald said Libby had a "motive to lie" to the grand jury.

By "attributing to a reporter" his information about Plame's CIA status and emphasizing that he was "passing on" scuttlebutt but "didn't know if it were true," the prosecutor said, Libby in his testimony was deliberately casting his actions as "a non-crime" in a way that "looks much more innocent than passing on what you know to be classified."

To support his case, Fitzgerald disclosed that at some time after Robert D. Novak's July 14, 2003, column identified Plame as a CIA "operative," Libby was part of a conversation with a CIA official and one other Cheney employee who is not identified in court papers. The CIA official discussed "the dangers posed by disclosure of the CIA affiliation of one of its employees," according to a May 12 court filing by the government.

At the oral argument that same day, Fitzgerald, referring to the conversation, described the CIA official as a witness who described to Libby "and another person the damage that can be caused specifically by the outing of Ms. Wilson."

That conversation, Fitzgerald added, "goes directly to his [Libby's] state of mind as to . . . there [being] a motive to lie."

[pawdoggie]

How can this be true? Didn't Fitzgerald tell a judge that it didn't matter who had "outed" Plame, since Libby was being charged with perjury, and not with "revealing" classified information? Does this prosecutor want to have it both ways, or is there some awfully poor reporting going on, or both?

[demlosers]

Plame's former boss stated that her job was not in any classified secret status. Yeah, the knowledge that she worked at the CIA was classified alright - classified as Unclassified.

Pinko Pinkus, you can wake up from your fantasy...

[A CA Guy]

The issue was COVERT not CLASSIFIED.

Notice Fitz went to CLASSIFIED when he couldn't find COVERT.

The laws were about COVERT, not CLASSIFIED.

[gov_bean_ counter]

"the dangers posed by disclosure of the CIA affiliation of one of its employees,"

Statement without context. Means nothing. Could have been a hypothetical discussing the circumstances under which exposing a CIA affiliation could be harmful.

[Richard Axtell]

Haven't we been over this ground a million times? Hasn't one of the authors of the law that Fitzgerald would have to cite as violated, Victoria Toensing, explained in detail how Valerie Plame was NOT covered by its stipulations at the time Libby supposedly "outed" her? And hasn't it be shown again and again that the major liar and fraud in this entire affair was Plame's husband, Joe Wilson? Perhaps reality is fraying at its edges, and perhaps facts are being relegated to insignificance, but this whole affair should have been abandoned long ago. What is going on now?

[tobyhill]

Why is he not charged with disclosing classified information? Because Fitzgerald has no evidence he did! Fitzgerald is pretty stupid to try to make a case for evidence he doesn't have.

[tobyhill]

"In his May 12 filing, Fitzgerald said that same conversation provides "evidence [that] directly contradicts the defense position that the defendant had no motive to lie because at the time of his [FBI] interview and [grand jury] testimony the defendant [Libby] thought that neither he nor anyone else had done anything wrong."

Well there's libby's lie, he should have thought he and everyone else did something wrong even though they didn't think they did something wrong.

If this is the best they have Libby is going to have a field day with Wilson and Plame then making Fitzy look like a t-ball player trying out for the big leagues.

[Waco]

Fitz to question the Wilsons under oath? Vanity Fair editors? Nah, too simple, ruin case. "Slowly I turned, one step, another, Niagara Falls!!!"

[wildcatf4f3]

Fitz is an errand boy doing his job for his masters

[gondramB]

>>Fitzgerald has said that at trial he plans to show that Libby knew Plame's employment at the CIA was classified and that he lied to the grand jury when he said he had learned from NBC News's Tim Russert that Plame, the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked for the agency.<<

If Libby really said that to the Grand Jury - that was really stupid - somebody as in the loop as Libby surely knew who she was before the press told him.

[tobyhill]

He's going to be embarrassed when and if a jury hears all this he said, she said crap while trying to determine a man's guilt or innocence. They'll walk back out of the jury room 20+ times more confused each time than the time before to a point they give up. A lie is usually straight forward but Fitzy is trying to prove a lie based on hearsay which almost never works in court.

[kcvl]

WALTER PINCUS writing a story about a story he is involved with. How appropriate to make the news instead of reporting it.

The July 12 conversation, Pincus says, was the first time he ever heard of Valerie Plame’s CIA employment. (In previous accounts, he has not been entirely explicit about that point.) He says he has no recollection of Woodward’s mentioning Plame in the newsroom the previous month. He also says that while he was reporting the lengthy June articles on prewar intelligence, he discussed Wilson’s Niger report with members of several federal agencies. Some of those sources criticized the report on various grounds, Pincus says, but “not one person mentioned Wilson’s wife.”

More...

[ScaniaBoy]

Either the it is the author of this piece or Fitzgerald that is totally deluded (most likely both).

As has been pointed out by others:

• Libby is indicted on perjury - not leaking classified information.

• IIRC Fitzgerald in an earlier statement a couple of months ago said that Plame's status was not germane to the case.

• And then this:

"To support his case, Fitzgerald disclosed that at some time AFTER Robert D. Novak's July 14, 2003, column identified Plame as a CIA "operative," Libby was part of a conversation with a CIA official and one other Cheney employee who is not identified in court papers. The CIA official discussed "the dangers posed by disclosure of the CIA affiliation of one of its employees," according to a May 12 court filing by the government."

Have they given up completely on logic and causality? How would this show that Libby knew he outed - if he did, a big IF - a covert agent if this conversation took place AFTER Novak published his article?

• And then there is the amici curiae brief from the newsagencies showing that Ms Plame had been "outed" by her own agency once and by Ames once, which made her far from covert.

Can't wait until this trial gets under way and Libby's team pull down the pants of the prosecutor.

[tobyhill]

I doubt Libby said it in a way that was that definitive. He probably said,"to the best of my recollection" or "the first time I actually learned her name".

[kcvl]

Pincus, in the CJR article:

Pincus believes that the Bush administration acted obnoxiously when it leaked Valerie Plame’s identity, but he has never been convinced by the argument that the leaks violated the law. “I don’t think it was a crime,” he says. “I think it got turned into a crime by the press, by Joe” — Wilson — “by the Democrats. The New York Times kept running editorials saying that it’s got to be investigated — never thinking that it was going to turn around and bite them.”

Can it be true that the nearly-omniscient Walter Pincus of the WaPo was not aware that Valerie Plame, Ambassador Wilson's wife, was at the CIA during the "Summer of Leaks" when Matt Cooper, Judy Miller, Bob Novak, and Bob Woodard were in the know? Did he really only learn about this on July 12, 2003?

******

The negative elements of the story were probably contributed by the story's co-author, Walter Pincus. He was once described by scholar Michael Ledeen as the "slimer-in-chief for his many smear jobs on Republicans and other conservatives." Ledeen said that Pincus and his wife threw a dinner party for Bill and Hillary Clinton when Mrs. Pincus was a political appointee in the Executive Branch.

Journalist Kenneth Timmerman said that when the congressional Cox Commission confirmed that China had committed nuclear espionage against the U.S., "the Washington Post assigned a journalist whose wife was a Clinton administration appointee to cover the story." That was Walter Pincus. Timmerman said that Pincus and his wife Ann were guests of the Clintons at Camp David. Timmerman said that after several years at the U.S. Information Agency, Ann Pincus was transferred in the late 1990s to the Office of Research and Media Reaction at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the same office that "lost" a laptop computer loaded with highly classified intelligence documents in April 2000.

Timmerman noted that, in his reports for the Post, Walter Pincus consistently sought to debunk the Chinese espionage allegations. Now he's sliming the administration for acting against the Iraqi nuclear threat. No wonder the Democratic National Committee cites his work.

More...

[Atchafalaya]

Politics in advance of the 06 elections. I think Fitzgerald has bet his career that the Dem's are in ascendancy and he hopes to ride on their coattails and reap a reward later.

[gondramB]

>>I doubt Libby said it in a way that was that definitive. He probably said,"to the best of my recollection" or "the first time I actually learned her name".<<



I would hope so - I would think you'd need to be pretty bright and fast on your feet to be chief of staff for V.P. Cheney - this term, that job is not ceremonial.