Libertarian Leanings

Our misleading press

How's this for a misleading headline:  Woodward, others say Bush officials volunteered info on CIA operative.

The defense did show Libby had numerous opportunities to leak Plame's identity to reporters and did not. But none of Monday's testimony went directly to the precise charges that he lied about his conversations with three other reporters about her.

The day's highlight was the tape of Woodward's interview June 13, 2003, with Armitage about how Bush decided to go to war. Armitage's name was never supposed to be connected publicly to what he said. The scandal prompted him to release Woodward from his pledge of confidentiality.

The jurors heard him tell Woodward no less than four times where she worked.

To call Armitage a Bush official may be technically correct, since he served in the State Department during George Bush's term of office, but he was a career public servant, starting back in 1975 as a consultant to the Department of Defense.  Trial accounts indicate that the White House, State Department and the CIA were in a feud.  In his conversation with Woodward, Armitage was ridiculing the CIA for sending Joe Wilson on a mission at the urging of his wife.

Piling on

That would be Tom Maguire at JustOneMinute, as he digs up ancient quotes from the lips of Tim Russert.

PILING ON:  So, why might Tim Russert want to keep his dalliance with the FBI a secret?  Here is a question he asked Matt Cooper:

MR. RUSSERT:  Now, he came to Washington, [Editor-in-cheif] Pearlstine, and some other editors from New Work and met with the Washington bureau of Time magazine.

MR. COOPER:  Sure.

MR. RUSSERT:  At least two correspondents produced e-mails saying, "Our sources are now telling us they will no longer confide in Time magazine.  They will no longer trust us to protect our sources."  Is that going to be a long-term problem for your magazine?

Well gee, Tim - do you think the news that you folded up like a cheap suitcase when the FBI came calling will be a problem for NBC News?  How might it affect Meet The Weasel?  And did you think it might be a problem for lo those many years you kept that little secret?

On the grill

In the words of Lance Dunston who is reporting on the trial of Scooter Libby for MaineWebReport, "Wells is frying Russert here." 

Russert is Tim Russert of NBC's Meet the Press.  Wells is Theodore Wells, defense attorney for I. Lewis Libby who is on trial for perjury and obstruction of justice for his testimony in the investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame.  Plame is the CIA employee who sent husband Joe off to Africa, ostensibly to find out if Iraq had successfully acquired uranium from Niger.  Joe returned to say it didn't happen and then went on to accuse the Bush Administration twisting intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.  In the midst of all this Val's CIA affiliation became public knowledge and the investigation into the leaking of that bit of information ensued.

The crux of the matter is the disagreement between Libby and several journalists over who first told whom about Val's CIA employment.  Libby says Russert told him.  Russert says he never mentioned it.  The Special Prosecutor thinks Russert is telling the truth and Libby is not. 

But today was not a good day for big Tim.  Clarice Feldman explains in her post at JustOneMinute.

In sum, Wells established that (a) the FBI report of his conversations (they say he had two, he only recalls one) made far closer in time to the event indicate he conceded that Ms. Wilson's name may have come up in their conversation though he earlier discounted that as "impossible" (b) In a heated matter involving the Buffalo News, his own memory was faulty. He'd made two angry calls to a critical reporter, denied that he had, and then, after checking his phone records, apologized, asserting he had no memory whatsoever of the calls, and (c) while making an impassioned plea for the right of reporters to protect the confidentiality of sources, he'd already twice discussed the Libby exchanges with the FBI and failed to disclose that to the Court or the public.

From a filing by the prosecutor last evening trying to block inquiry into the accommodations made to Russert for his (total of 22 minutes) deposition testimony in his lawyer's offices, it appears that while this last point was not specifically noted in any pleadings I can see, the defense was provided with the FBI notes which provided some notice to them of the discrepancies in the NBC public pleading and that it contained a  false suggestion that Russert had not already cooperated with the government. It is not clear that this Court, or the Court which determined the related case on the reporters' obligation to testify, was ever informed that the Russert filing was false.

Not a good day for big Tim.

Russert on deck

Tim Russert is next up to testify in the Scooter Libby trial.  Tom Maguire provides background.

Ari Fleischer told the court that on the morning of July 11 2003 he leaked the Plame news to John Dickerson (then of TIME) and David Gregory of NBC, Russert's subordinate in the Washington bureau.

So it may well be that two of Russert's subordinates had picked up on the Plame tidbit.  Did they pass it on to Tim?  This episode of "The Tim Russert Show", which aired immediately after the Libby indictment, looks like a group exercise in story-doctoring but it certainly suggests that the reporters would have shared news if they had it.

So why did Libby call Russert?

Clarice Feldman, guest posting at JustOneMinute, is not terribly impressed with prosecution witnesses up to this point.

Wednesday was a good day for the Libby defense. Judy Miller, as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post,  and the AP’s Matt Apuzzo noted was not an all star witness for the prosecution. I don’t like ploughing a field that’s already been tilled and refer you again to my media bloggers association colleague, Rory O’Connor who has some good thumbnails on  the last portion of her testimony (1, 2).

The most amusing witness of the trial was up today, the charming Matt Cooper who with his sloppy notes, shoddy journalism and wry humor brought the old play “Front Page” to life before our eyes. He is the sort of person it would be fun to have dinner with, not the sort of person whose news story should be taken as a bit of serious journalism.

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