Libby Judge Orders Time to Turn Over Matt Cooper Draft Articles
Did Matt Cooper change a material or a trivial detail of his Time Magazine article about meeting with Scooter Libby? Judge Walton today issued a 40 page opinion (text of opinion here (pdf), thanks to Tom Maguire) in which he ordered Time to turn over earlier drafts of his article to Libby. Walton has been reviewing in camera the materials Libby subpoenaed from Cooper, Judith Miller, Andrea Mitchell and other NBC reporters.
Walton said Time magazine must turn over drafts of first-person stories that reporter Matthew Cooper wrote about his conversations with Libby because the judge found inconsistencies between them..... Walton said, he found "a slight alteration between the several drafts of the articles" Cooper wrote about his conversations with Libby and the reporter's first-person account of his testimony before a federal grand jury.
"This slight alteration between the drafts will permit the defendant to impeach Cooper, regardless of the substance of his trial testimony, because his trial testimony cannot be consistent with both versions," Walton wrote.
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