Tag: Libby Trial Coverage (page 3)

Doubts are growing in the blogosphere that Dick Cheney will in fact be a witness for Scooter Libby at his trial. Marcy (Empty Wheel) explores this today at Huffington Post and concludes Cheney won't be called.

Marcy reminds us that FBI Agent Bond testified Thursday that Libby told the FBI in his second FBI interview in the fall of 2003 that he and Cheney might have discussed leaking Plame's identity to reporters.

As soon as Libby admitted to talking with Cheney about leaking Plame's identity, he committed to one of two scenarios: either he and Cheney both forgot Plame's identity, both learned it "as if it were new" from journalists, and thought that a piece of news that was forgettable in June was so newsworthy in July that they should share it with journalists. Or, he and Cheney learned of Plame's identity through classified channels and a month later decided to share that information with journalists. We're in the realm of an IIPA violation, folks, barring Cheney claiming that he declassified Valerie Wilson's identity ... without telling her (which is where I think Cheney's prepared to go, if it gets that far--that should make the Wilsons' civil suit all the more delectable, I think).

I think there's another reason Cheney will back off from testifying -- and it goes to the heart of the case against Libby.

There's been lots of blogging coverage of Scooter Libby's first day of trial. In addition to those I mentioned in earlier posts, Christy at Firedoglake who was in the real (not media) courtroom posts this wrap-up.

As to Ted Wells' opening argument, I'm a bit surprised he chose to go after Rove so hard. It leads me to believe Rove won't be a witness. If Libby were to call him, surely he'd be a hostile witness after today's opening. I don't think Ted Wells wants to go mano - a - mano with Rove, not with Fitz backing Rove and Rove not impeachable on grounds he got a deal. There's no evidence Fitzgerald gave Rove anything for his multiple grand jury appearances.

Until today, Wells had a clean defense: Libby forgot and didn't intend to mislead investigators or the grand jury. Wilson's wife was just a speck in the grand scheme of things. Now, he's put Libby in the midst of an alleged frame-up. That's going to be a tough sell to the jury. But, given the Judge's refusal to allow a decent instruction on the principles of memory, maybe Wells needed a backup defense.

But that's not the headline for today. The real headline is much bigger and with far graver consequences to Libby. More below the fold.