E&P: Analysis: Libby's Latest Filing Puts Judith Miller on the Spot

Analysis: Libby's Latest Filing Puts Judith Miller on the Spot
By E&P Staff
Published: May 03, 2006
NEW YORK

There was another significant court filing in the Plame/CIA leak case this week, as lawyers for Lewis "Scooter" Libby requested notes, emails, story drafts and the like from various reporters or their news organizations involved in this matter. E&P studies these massive court filings so you don't have to.

Actually, that's not generally true. More often, we rely on legal journalists and/or bloggers who have followed the case amazingly closely.

This week, we reprint a portion of the lengthy analysis of the latest filing by attorney Christy Hardin Smith at the popular blog, FireDogLake.com, which focuses on possible new perils for former New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Hardin predicts, "if this case goes to trial, it’s going to be an ugly ride for Judy on the stand." We have edited out some parenthetical comments. Much more at the blog.

***

Hardin writes:

On p. 10 (of Monday's filing), we get to the subpoena issued to Judy Miller. And that’s where the sparks begin to fly. Team Libby begins with a summary of the indictment portions wherein Judy figures substantially. By p. 11, we’ve moved on to a catalogue of her every nuanced equivocation….

On p. 12, they argue that Judy Miller’s stated recollections " by no means sufficiently reliable to prove that the conversations occurred as the government alleges." So poor Scooter has been forced to ask for every scrap of paper Judy Miller ever touched for an extended period of time, her calendars and anything else that might contain any piece of information about her life. You’ll pardon me if I think this might be considered rather a bit too broad by the court for witness impeachment purposes…....

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002462127

:popcorn:

introduce about Judy and the rest of them top prove the charges stated in the indictment. This is just one of a dozen or more areas where we'll get some substantial information about what evidence the prosecution thinks is significant. See Judge's Order regarding discovery:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1099419

:nopity:

And they were such a lovely warmongering pair....on their way to taking over the entire middle east in an orgy of blood and guts.

Wow, what a lesson about lying down with dogs, getting up with fleas...ya cozy up to people in the power circle, and they can screw you six ways to Sunday, brutally, if they are desperate enough. Of course, if you keep to a code of ethics, you can more easily avoid that sort of scenario....

Live and learn, Judy!

....member gets mixed up with them, they get turned out, ruined and left in the gutter for dead.

prove Judith Miller TRUTHFUL, in order to indict Libby for perjury. *I* could be getting a $1,000/hour as Libby's lawyer on that one. So could you. You think Libby will put the war on trial, and impeach her for all the lies she told on the front page of the NYT, straight from Ahmed Chalabi to your eyes?

Har-har.

Well, Fitzgerald has dealt with disreputable witnesses before; that's his bread and butter--and I doubt that he is resting his case on her "embedded" head. Also, his main goal--as stated by him--is to get to the bottom of the Plame/Brewster-Jennings outing (or the top, as the case may be), because he (and the judge, and two grand juries) consider it to be a grave matter of national security, and Libby has STOOD IN HIS WAY. He has obstructed the investigation.

I trust Fitzgerald. He has already shown that he is onto the conspirators' strategy of "seeding" the info on Plame all around town, to make it seem like "everybody knew"--when THEY were the source of it. Libby's defense team likely wants to trawl these reporters' notes for the bread crumb trails they laid out. Let them! For one thing, these reporters were not so dumb (Miller excepted*); they were apparently wary of the Plame outing and kept good notes on who said what and when. That's the gist of it so far. The bullshit that "everybody knew" has been exposed. Libby may also be trawling for whistleblowers and squealers--to mete out more Bush junta punishments; and for evidence of OTHER junta crimes that there may be clues to, in reporters' notes (in order to stifle other investigations). There is no reason to think that Libby is not still a Bush junta operative. He is obstructing the investigation, and has lied, on behalf of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other master criminals. There is more than likely a plan to pardon and reward him. The motives behind his legal motions in this case need to be seen in that light--there is likely more to it than simply his defense against perjury/obstruction.

*(Hard to know if Miller is stupid, or a devious Mata Hari. I tend toward the latter. It's possible she "seeded" her notes in ways that exculpate Libby and others, and that's why Libby is so avid to get hold of them. Her actions leading up to the Iraq war and afterward--in her phony "hunt" for the WMDs that everybody knew weren't there--point to her being in the employ of the Pentagon OSP. She was certainly cozy with the Neo-Cons, and was feeding Chalabi's tripe to the American people at a time when Chalabi was on the Pentagon payroll. (He may still be.) We have no evidence that she has broken these connections, and no reason to believe that she isn't still a Bush junta operative. In any case, as I said, I trust Fitzgerald. I think he is well aware of who and what he is dealing with.)