From Deep Throat to Deep Bob
If Paul Mirengoff is right, Bob Woodward looks like a very interesting witness for the defense in the case of Scooter Libby, since, among other things, he was deposed for two hours, while several reporters supportive of the Fitzgerald narrative were more perfunctorally queried. Two worried hours for the Fitzgerald team is our guess. It boggles the mind that such a powerful and logical potential witness for the defense was not questioned by Fitzgerald before any indictments were handed down in the Plamegate case. Consider what Woodward himself gave as the background to his testimony the other day:
I testified under oath in a sworn deposition to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for more than two hours about small portions of interviews I conducted with three current or former Bush administration officials that relate to the investigation of the public disclosure of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. The interviews were mostly confidential background interviews for my 2004 book “Plan of Attack” about the leadup to the Iraq war, ongoing reporting for The Washington Post and research for a book on Bush’s second term to be published in 2006.
Woodward had unprecedented access, extensive notes and conversations, and off-the-record briefings at the relevant times and with the relevant people people for his 2004 book. Moreover, Woodward is the Gold Standard in keeping secrets about sources, even more so perhaps because he continues to work in the White House for another book. Woodward said before indictments were handed down that he thought the Plame story was no big deal, that it “started kind of as gossip, as chatter.” Surely this was not idle speculation, coming from a person in a position to know a great many non-public things.
Our view is that Woodward has blown half of Fitzgerald’s case sky-high. The important part. To establish any serious wrongdoing on the part of Libby or anyone else, the prosecution has to sell the jury that there was an underlying and serious wrong (unless the jury just really dislikes the defendent). Fitzgerald made all kinds of dark statements in his indictment press conference about secrecy and Plame, and Woodward has blown away that perspective:
[T]he reference [to Plame] seemed to me to be casual and offhand, and that it did not appear to me to be either classified or sensitive. I testified that according to my understanding an analyst in the CIA is not normally an undercover position.
Woodward will not be alone in the parade of reporters for the defense that we predicted long ago. As Tom McGuire notes:
Based on the Woodward story, we have clear indications that at least one reporter, Woodward, knew about a Wilson and wife connection and kept quiet. Is he the only one? If Fitzgerald lacks for names, we have some here: In addition to Ms. Mitchell, Martin Peretz, Hugh Sidey, Cliff May, and General Vallely may be worth a chat. The defense is going to hammer this point – reporters are not interested in giving up their sources, and the best way for reporters to avoid a court fight is to conceal the fact that they have relevant information. If Fitzgerald was waiting around for volunteers, that wasn’t going to get it done.
While in our opinion the gravitas of the case has been blown away, Libby still has legal troubles. He still has the problem-filled story he told the Grand Jury about forgetting Plame until Russert jogged his memory (while records apparently show Libby discussing Plame with half a dozen government officials beforehand). However, this case is beginning to look like a big waste of a jury’s time to us. And if a jury thinks that its time is being wasted, it might well take that sentiment out on the prosecutor.
Oh, the ironies of this case! We continue to be of the opinion that it was perhaps Libby’s intent in his statements to the FBI and Grand Jury that the inquiry either wither on the vine, or that its conclusion be pushed out past the 2004 election — attributing his knowledge of Plame to reporters was a helpful tactic in delaying the discovery of a cover-up, if that is what happened. But the delicious part is this: the man at the center of the nation’s most famous cover-up, who helped make that word part of the American lexicon, may also be at the center of its sequel, playing precisely the opposite role. From Deep Throat to Deep Bob.
November 16th, 2005 at 10:18 am
In honor of Mr. Woodward, let’s ask – What did Fitzgerald not know, and when did he not know it?
November 16th, 2005 at 11:26 am
Ben Bernanke’s nomination to replace Mr. Andrea Mitchell has been confirmed by the Senate Finance
Committee and will now move to the Senate floor.
As he is very very likely to be confirmed as soon as
vote is called, he will be ready very soon to take over
for the husband of NBC’s Andrea Mitchell as Fed Chairman.
I probably would not have immediately caught this without the LSM’s shock that GW was nominating Mr.
Bernanke “weeks early” and this was a move to take
spotlight/news cycle off all the admin’s problem.
To quote Tom Maguire:
“If Fitzgerald lacks for names, we have some here: In addition to Ms. Mitchell, Martin Peretz, Hugh Sidey, Cliff May, and General Vallely may be worth a chat.”
It will be interesting to see if I correct in thinking that
Pres. Bush was being generous to the old man Greenspan by giving him an easy early retirement once
the seachlights are fully focused on Mrs. Greenspan.
This is not purely alturistic on GW’s part – he would
certainly want to have the new Fed Chair confirmed
prior to the leaks re Andrea and her NBC buddy Tim
Russert, so as not to have uncertainty in the markets.
Also now that Goss is firmly in charge at the CIA with
the loyal Gonzales at Justice – who would know better
if in fact there is already a request from the CIA to
Justice to investigate Andrea’s leak of the CLASSIFIED
information that the CIA had made such a request
to Justice re Plame leak. Note that Russert greatly
assisted in broadcasting this classified information.
We will know if I am correct when Mr. Greenspan announces his early retirement soon after Mr. Bernanke
is confirmed by the Senate. Greenspan’s term does
not actually expire until late January 2006.
Woodward has put a serious breach in the dam, and
Andrea’s recent walkback on “everybody” already
knowing about Plame is quite inane. (pardon the poetry)
Wonder how new fictional spy thrillers are selling?
Even LeCarre when he was terrific with his Smiley,
would have trouble making all this up.
November 19th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
I don’t know whether Libby was intentionally false and misleading in his testimony, but it seems clear to me that (contrary to several commentators) the counts against him do in fact depend on the discrepancies in memory between Libby and the various reporters, told well after the fact, and not any discrepancies between Libby’s testimony and the well-established timeline of when Libby learned about Wilson’s wife.
Anyone who wants to argue about what Paragraph 32(a)(ii) in the indictment means should instead be looking at later (page 18) in the indictment, at (a selection of) Libby’s actual “perjurious” testimony, not at Fitzgerald’s characterization of it. It’s rambling and unfocused, like most oral testimony, and the punctuation is also, of course, Fitzgerald’s. I present the key portion with some quotes and commas added and some doubly stated phrases removed.
Concerning Tim Russert (~July 10, 2003)
And then he said… “did you know that Ambassador Wilson’s wife works at the CIA?” And I was a little taken aback by that… And I said, “no, I don’t know that.” And I said, “no, I don’t know that” intentionally because I didn’t want him to take anything I was saying as in any way confirming what he said, because at that point in time I did not recall that I had ever known, and I thought, this is something that he was telling me that I was first learning. And so I said, “no, I don’t know that,” because I want to be very careful not to confirm it for him, so that he didn’t take my statement as confirmation for him.
To Fitzgerald, Libby is here claiming that Libby did not know about Wilson’s wife when Russert told him about it. But to me, Libby’s use of the word “intentionally” and Libby’s being “careful not to confirm it for him” show that Libby is talking about the role he was playing “at that point in time” and later (with Cooper) “in my mind.”
My interpretation requires Libby’s use of language to “frame” his lies to the press to be unclear. Specifically, I believe that when Libby says “at that point in time” or “in my mind” he is speaking of a role he was then playing with a reporter. Fitzgerald’s interpretation requires us to instead ignore that Libby added phrases about intent (bold) which make no sense at all under Fitzgerald’s interpretation.
Libby had “to be very careful not to confirm it for [Russert]” precisely because Libby says he was lying to Russert then, which would not be true if Libby’s claim were that he actually didn’t know about Wilson’s wife, and was actually telling the truth to Russert. This is so clear it tempts me to consider conspiracy theories wherein Fitzgerald really wanted an indictment that would fall flat on its face, benefiting the Bush Administration. But it seems more likely that Fitzgerald was too rushed and overworked at the end to think logically.