Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Faux JOM Libby Open Thread

TypePad seems to have crashed again.

Tom's Top Post

Libby's defense team has posted their theory of his defense, some version of which ought to be included in the final jury instruction (Jeralyn Merritt explains this).

The .pdf is only two pages but the very short version is, Libby forgot but the errors were innocent and the information was trivial.

No surprise, but... I question this:

Mr. Libby further contends that when the investigation began he was confident that... he had not disclosed classified information about Mr. Wilson or his wife to any other reporters.

Really? I am confident Libby could argue that there is no evidence that he was aware that Ms. Wilson's status was classified at the time he disclosed it. However, is he really going to convince the court that as of October 2003 he was "confident" that Ms. Plame's status was not classified? Addington (OVP Counsel), Schmall (CIA briefer) and some newspaper articles Libby marked up all suggest that he was aware of such a possibility.


7 comments:

sad said...

Was dying to catch up and saw JOM had crashed. I need a fix!!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!

Alcibiades said...

Well it's still kind of there. It just looks weird, and obviously will crash soon.

Syl said...

Maybee at JOM made a good point I think. When the investigation started all Cheney had to do was ask Tenet (he was still there then, no?) what her status was. Thus would no of any possible liability.

And, as you, Rick, have surmised, an unnamed official could have been involved in her de-classification as early as July 7th. We won't mention that because of the you know what suit by you know who though.

Libby didn't think he had any liability for leaking when he testified.

Syl said...

The travesty (well one of several) in this case is that Libby has no way of PROVING that he knew he had no liability.

But, then, Fitz has no way of PROVING he had a basis for the investigation, either.

Somebody (admin or CIA) is keeping the status of her status classified.

Rick Ballard said...

"Somebody (admin or CIA) is keeping the status of her status classified. "

I agree. I think that Wells assertion in his opening about some sort of WH plot to let Libby take the fall was a signal that Libby is not going to fall on his sword. My bet is that the President declassified onboard AF1 on July 7 on the way to Africa. The word was passed to both Rove and Libby and Libby clued Miller in on the 8th - not knowing that Miller had it earlier from Armitage or Powell.

Rove also cut loose on the 8th to Novak.

I'd trace the genesis of the idea to push the nepotism angle to Batlett.

I'm beginning to think that there might be some real friction coming between the President and the VP because of this.

Syl said...

Yeah, and the rumors a couple of weeks ago (I think it was CBS) that Negroponte went to state to take over for Condi who's taking over for Cheney 'cause he's going to resign for 'health reasons' are probably not really rumors.

Barry Dauphin said...

What did Valerie Plame know and when did she know it? Check out Byron York's piece on the timeline.