There’s nothing on the Special Counsel’s website nor on the DC District’s opinion page for the period in question. But at least 8/18’s Order was made public on PACER presumably, per the AP story (as was something a week ago Monday (8/7) or so with regard to CIA discovery – no idea exactly what that was though either).

Reading between the lines of this new AP story 8/18, it appears I jumped the gun on part of the Libby case comment I made above [#2 in my #217 — I wonder what exactly that AP article on 8/9 was referring to, specifically - there’s really no way to tell from its lack of specifics]:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..cia_leak_1

“The documents and information at issue are extremely sensitive and their disclosure could cause serious if not grave damage to the national security of the United States,” Walton wrote in a ruling that sides with prosecutors and intelligence officials who opposed turning them over.

Walton ruled that the documents being withheld would not aid Libby’s defense.

I had not seen any sign of a Libby 7/11 Motion to Compel further PDB discovery filing on the internet, nor any sign of a government response by 7/31 or the 8/9 Libby reply. But it sounds like all that must have transpired after all, and today, Judge Walton denied Libby’s motion.

Today’s Order is also not on-line, so it’s possible it is in reference to a different, CIPA matter of some sort, but it doesn’t sound like it. And it comports with Libby’s m.o. that he pursued this to the bitter end this way without coming to agreement with Fitzgerald and the CIA as I’d (mistakenly it appears) assumed had happened.

This would be the tail-end of the graymail effort by Libby (in this round) which the Judge ruled on today, if I’m reading the short news article correctly. [The guessing game as to ongoing developments in this case is getting pretty hopeless, at this point, with the now almost complete lack of media coverage of case developments.]

Whether that means there was a hearing today and this is registering something decided at it; or whether all of the issues that were to be addressed in a hearing today have been pushed back to September; or whether this is it for now, I have no idea.

Thanks. Walton’s schedule looked too packed today to include anything re Libby. But it may not be included on the schedule for, say, some time in the next week, since it is off the public record.

The idea that Fitzgerald got what he wanted from Rove is, for me, too full of speculative ifs ands and buts for me to feel confident about, at all.

I agree on Armitage. As for Novak, I feel pretty confident that he did in fact testify after Rove did, but I am again not at all confident about what that means and whether it is really significant at this point. Maybe it had nothing to do with Rove at all, but rather had to do with Armitage, and Fitzgerald wanted to check the story from Novak in light of the new discovery that Armitage also blew Plame’s cover with Woodward. Or maybe Novak’s appearance had to do with Rove, but gained Fitzgerald no meaningful new information. Who knows. Certainly someone should have asked Novak about it when he did his brief and failed effort at vindicating his reputation. There’s a lot Novak should have been asked but wasn’t. That’s what happens on Fox News. We’ll probably have to settle for the lifelong humiliation of Robert Novak, who knows that the second line of his obituary will mention the fact that he helped blow the cover of a CIA officer.

I think Fitzgerald ended up with Rove pretty much where Fitzgerald wanted him. And thus that Fitzgerald got what he was looking for from Rove, but perhaps via a different route than he was expecting (assuming your scenario would have been the expected route). I have a difficult time, though, with the sort of overall analysis emptywheel does so well (and which you’ve done here to some extent), because of the lack of known fact. Too many ifs, ands, or buts for my mind to be able to synthesize anything coherently that way, I guess.

I can sympathize with ‘depressed,’ but everyone needs to realize how much the “bad guys” are driving this whole process: there was no way for Fitzgerald to move in 2004 because he couldn’t get the critical testimony that he needed until finally the Supreme Court refused to act in 2005. That’s all because the media was covering up for Libby and Rove under the pretense of protecting (legitimate) confidential sources, which neither Libby nor Rove were acting as in this circumstance, as courts have now affirmed.

Remember how Rove said “It was Hell,” or something to that effect, after his three hours of testimony at his fifth grand jury appearance in April? Well, “Hell” for Karl Rove is telling the truth. I think that was the shakedown cruise for Rove’s attempt to escape indictment: Fitzgerald was finally in a position to really force the truth out of him beginning in April, and probably continuing in some manner until June 12th. This time not on Karl Rove’s schedule, but on Fitzgerald’s schedule. Thus, Fitzgerald finally got the upper hand on Rove. But we just don’t know where it goes from there. [And in the end, I think the timing worked out pretty well for Fitzgerald on the Rove discovery, although I could be wrong. It seemed to me that things were a bit touchy there for a while, but got resolved without Judge Walton having to put much if any pressure on.]

I do know I have HUGE questions about a certain Mr. Richard Armitage, and his motives, behavior, and “innocence” in this whole scenario, now. And as indicated above, I’m starting to buy that Kornblut scoop about Novak – as emptywheel has pointed out, that is a highly significant fact if true (which must be why no one allowed to interview Novak recently asked him to confirm that fact).

‘depressed’ should keep in mind too that the long battles in court against the media yielded fruit for future such scenarios, as well. The recent victory for Fitzgerald in his terrorist case in New York/Chicago against the NYTimes and Judy Miller regarding their sources was helped out by his victories in court in the Plame investigation, with regard to alleged privileges of the media when they get caught up in criminal wrongdoing by government officials. [A real lesson to the media, too, about having off-the-reservation pseudo-journalists like Miller harbored in their midst — think of the legal bills she has cost the New York Times, for nothing (well, except for one horrific and unnecessary war, anyway).]

Finally, here’s a little bit about CIPA Section 5:

The linchpin of CIPA is section 5(a), which requires a defendant who reasonably intends to disclose (or cause the disclosure of) classified information to provide timely pretrial written notice of his intention to the Court and the Government. Section 5(a) expressly requires that such notice “include a brief description of the classified information,” and the leading case under section 5(a) holds that such notice must be particularized, setting forth specifically the classified information which the defendant reasonably believes to be necessary to his defense.

So it sounds like Libby is moving off the discovery stage finally, and on to specifics of which classified documents he wants to present to the jury as evidence. That filing may have been related to today’s scheduled hearing, or may not be. [It’s possible today’s hearing was just left off the court’s online schedule because it is closed to the public anyway. Perhaps the AP will mention it somehow tonight, if it did in fact take place.]

I guess we all just need to wait and see, yet again.

For all the energy and blog column inches that were expended over Fitzgerald, fitzmas and all that other happy horseshit, where are we?

Convict someone first. Then celebrate.

Let’s see the Wilson’s win their civil suit, then I’ll dance.

There were a number of matters that were supposed to be covered at the hearing originally scheduled for today, and there’s evidently no hearing today, and nothing on Walton’s schedule for the next week as far as I can tell. I suspect, like you, that things have mostly been resolved. Also of note is that back at the 6-12 hearing, Libby’s defense suggested they might have some more, smaller scale discovery motions, which would be filed by the end of July. Nothing came.

Two other notes. Libby filed a CIPA section 5 thing yesterday. And second, I’ve not seen any response from Fitzgerald to Libby’s motion to use the memory expert. Not sure what the implications of either of those notes is.

For my part, I never bought into the Fitzgerald as savior thing, and I do believe that one of the reasons he was chosen was because it was clear that he would be leak-free and scrupulously thorough, which was helpful in 2004. But so it goes.

Finally, here’s a guess as to what happened with Rove, curious for your thoughts on its plausibility from a legal strategy angle: Fitzgerald was initially going to indict both Libby and Rove and do a little prisoners’ dilemma on them, getting one of them to turn on the other and their henchmen and/or bosses. But Luskin got any Rove indicted delayed at the last moment. So Fitzgerald’s fallback strategy was to call Rove official A in the indictment, thereby signaling to Libby who he wanted Libby to turn on in any plea bargaining (which, it’s worth noting, Fitzgerald strongly invited at the press conference, it seems to me). The hope was to get Libby to turn on Rove, and then get Rove to turn on Cheney. One of the virtues of putting embarrasing details about not just Libby but also Cheney in his filings was to put pressure on Libby to end it by giving up Rove.

But it didn’t work: Libby held out (probably understanding what was going on); Armitage and Woodward sort of mucked things up by waiting so long to be honest; and the judge put pressure on Fitzgerald (both in what he said in court and in his opinion on the motions to compel discovery) to wrap up with Rove and give Libby discovery on Rove, which Fitzgerald was holding out on in the hopes of pressuring Libby; and Fitzgerald just didn’t feel, at the end of the day, that he had a strong enough case to definitely convict Rove, so he let him off the hook.

For now. Probably forever, but there is always the possibility that Libby, before, at or after trial, will reveal new information that damns Rove, and then Fitzgerald’s get out of jail free card for Rove is revoked. Not going to hold out hope, but I imagine these things sometimes happen.

That’s my story, for now, anyway.

If you have serial killer, and you can arrest him, is it wiser to allow him to continue to kill and kill while you tighten up your indictment?

The crime here is that all of this was suppressed prior to the 2004 election (and now almost certainly the 2006 as well) and Rove and Cheney continue to rape the world unabated.

The people who are most responsible for allowing it to be suppressed were: various employees of Time, the NYT, the WaPo, NBC, and Fitz himself.

Whatever Fitz is working on or not working on is a wasting asset which will expire worthless in December 2008 when Bush pardons the whole mess of crooks just like his dad did.

Really pathetic. It makes me sick to think of all the “Fitz the Savior – Fitz the man with integrity” BS we were all spewing. I’m not saying Fitz allowed himself to be unethically manipulated, but I’m far from convinced that he didn’t. Not indicting Karl Rove on false statements and perjury before the 2004 election was inexcusable and not indicting him at all just makes me ill.