We don’t have a clue whether or not Scooter Libby is guilty, though we have speculated in the past on this matter. But someone sure looked guilty in the courtroom, like he got caught by his grammar school mentor Sister Lucille in a pretty serious venial sin.

That would be Tim Russert. Russert has looked extremely uncomfortable on TV over the past year whenever the subject of Libby came up, and now we apparently know one reason why. Russert told the FBI all about his conversation with Libby way back in November 2003, and then promptly spent the next year fighting a Grand Jury subpeona about the same subject — all the while huffing and puffing about noble journalistic principles.

And that’s not the worst part. Russert did not disclose to the Libby court, in his papers trying to quash the subpoena, that he had already given the super-secret information to the FBI. This just came out in the Libby trial:

“Did you disclose in the affidavit to the court that you had already disclosed the contents of your conversation with Mr. Libby” to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Wells asked.

“As I’ve said, sir … ,” Mr. Russert began.

“It’s a yes or no question,” Mr. Wells interrupted.

“I’d like to answer it to the best of my ability,” Mr. Russert replied.

“This is a very simple question. Either it’s in the affidavit or it’s not,” Mr. Wells said. “Did you disclose to the court that you had already communicated to the F.B.I. the fact that you had communicated with Mr. Libby?”

“No,” Mr. Russert said.

What was Tim Russert trying to hide by trying to duck the expansive questioning of the Grand Jury? Perhaps we’ll never know. Tom McGuire speculates it may have to do with the equally squirrelly Andrea Mitchell, Russert’s employee, who once famously said that everyone who’s anyone in Washington knew about Plame, and then promptly recanted. Be that as it may, there is no question that elite Washington reporters have been acting in a manner set to arouse suspicion about their truthfulness. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Our favorite piece of armchair psychologist evidence of Russert’s guilty conscience comes to us courtesy of Clarice Feldman. It turns out that Tim Russert lambasted Bob Novak on Meet the Press for doing exactly the same thing that Russert himself had done:

Mr. Russert beat-up on Robert Novak when Novak revealed on Meet the Press that he had talked to the FBI without a subpoena. Here are some choice bits from the Meet the Press transcript captured by Raw Story:
– Russert asked Novak why he seemingly gave up so quickly without a fight.
– “We were subpoenaed at NBC,” Russert said. “We fought the subpoenas. Time Magazine subpoenaed, fought the subpoenas. The New York Times was subpoenaed, fought the subpoena. Why didn’t you fight the subpoena?”

What schoolyard scanario is this — the scared kid trying to be the bully? Tim Russert was third grade around 1959, and he sounds just like a little kid of that vintage, in a traditional Catholic grammar school, wrestling with a guilty conscience.

UPDATE

For some super-fun, see Tom McGuire’s excerpts of Tim Russert’s faulty memory about what he actually says and does while on the air at NBC.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 8:21 am and is filed under art, culture, business, General, MSM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.