Dark Clouds Over the White House; Fitzgerald lets the cat out of the bag

In their whining, complaining, often maudlin closing arguments, Scooter Libby's defense counsel averred that the prosecution had "cast a dark cloud over the White House" – as if that was, in itself, a bad thing, and, in the current context, a very bad thing. Leading prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, in his rebuttal, was quick to retort:

"There is a cloud over the vice president . . . And that cloud remains because this defendant obstructed justice. There is a cloud over the White House. Don't you think the FBI and the grand jury and the American people are entitled to straight answers?"

Libby, Fitzgerald averred, "stole the truth from the justice system."

Ah, but the truth is still out there, waiting to be recovered: the question is, has the trail gone cold? Well, not quite. We know what Fitzgerald's method is: he goes after the underlings, convicts them, and then gets them to "flip" under pressure from a potentially long and arduous prison sentence. There is no doubt, in my mind at least, that that's exactly what he intends to do in this case. After all, he didn't go after one of the most powerful men in Washington just to get a cut-and-dried conviction on a few counts of perjury and obstruction. He's after bigger game. In the hunt for who outed a covert CIA officer named Valerie Plame, Fitzgerald has lived up to his nickname of "Bulldog" – and my guess is that he's going after the big one. Dick Cheney, call your lawyer …. http://tinyurl.com/2ac466 [Open in new window]

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Defense Attorney Claims Fitzgerald Believes Cheney told Libby to Leak Plame's Identity

by Jason Leopold


It was the defense attorney representing I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby who first told jurors during closing arguments in the perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial Tuesday that the government believes Vice President Dick Cheney told Libby to leak the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to a New York Times reporter in July 2003 to undermine the credibility of her husband, a critic of the Iraq War.

Additional information about what the prosecution believes Cheney's role in the leak may have been surfaced in closing arguments this week. The jury enters its third full day of deliberations Monday to decide whether Libby is guilty or innocent of five felonies. Libby's attorney, Theodore Wells, told jurors that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and his deputy have been attempting to build a case of conspiracy against the vice president and Libby and that the prosecution believes Libby may have lied to federal investigators and a grand jury to protect Cheney.

At issue is whether a set of talking points Cheney dictated in July 2003, that the vice president's former chief of staff was instructed to discuss with the media, included information about Plame. The discussions with the media were supposed to be centered around Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, and the fact that he accused the White House of misrepresenting intelligence related to Iraq's attempts to acquire uranium from Niger, according to testimony by Cathie Martin, Cheney's former communications director....http://tinyurl.com/2ayb97 [Open in new window]
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