A The reason it’s important in this case, if you want to communicate to an attorney, you have to talk to your private attorney. It’s important to be careful what you’re asking and what you’re answering. It’s an artificial complexity introduced by the DC circuit.

Send this to Glenn Greewald and let him have a go at it. Does the word artificial mean a complexity that the President resents but which is reguired for justice to be delivered when resolving issues of executive authority?

I guess it means that the President and VP are pissed off that they have to pay for their own private lawyers because their Counsels are employees of the “People of the United States of America”
and actually have a duty to protect the Constitution rather than the iridescent Mandrill arses of the Tyrant-in-Chief and his #2 if they act criminally!

Can someone explain the relevance of this exchange to me?

F walks him through how it looked when Addington got it. Has Addington talk though what Top Secret and SCI mean. Can documents be properly classified as “treated as Top Secret SCI” Is that a proper classification?

A President’s EO doesn’t use that phrase.

F Do you recall seeing any other document that were “treated as Top Secret/SCI”

F Did you put that marking there.

A No

F Do you know how it got there?

A On this particular page, no, but in the course of production, there were situations in which I received handwritten notes saying “treated as” some particular classification, when the govt came back later and asked for originals, from that I take it that when they made copies, they stamped that on there, but this one it seems like they stamped that on the original.

I noticed that Marcy bolded Addington’s response (which I also bolded). I think the legalese and Addington’s speaking style is confusing me. Is he saying that some documents may not have been initially stamped as “classified”, but they treated them as classified info, and therefore marked them as classified after-the-fact?

Also, what’s with the copies of documents versus originals? Are we to assume that if they couldn’t find originals, they used electronic copies of the originals?

This juror question may have interesting relevance to the above exchange:

Walton Can you provide clarification why sometimes request for documentations was sent to Libby, and why, sometimes, it was not.

A I have to make a judgment who might have responsive documents. The first one was very broad. For some of the later requests, such as originals of Scooter Libby’s documents, I’ don’t have to send them to the guys in the motor pool. There were a few requests for particular things, so I could go to the person who had that particular set of records.

My take on this is that this PHRASE is not something that the Office of the President or other Agency would normally have used. It’s simply be “Top Secret” or “Classified” or some other direct statement. The use of the phrase might occur in documents prior to their actual designation by an authorized classifier…but it was ODD that it was PRINTED in that form on the document.

I think Fitz has some evidence that someone outside a normal channel of classification put that designation on the documents. Who that might be clearly seems important for Fitz to get on the record.

Personally, I think you are giving way too much credit to the specific evidence you site and its potential effect on the jury.

More importantly, and this is just my opinion, the whole scape-goat defense is meaningless to the outcome of this trial, even if the defense could prove it, though I don’t they can. And, if I really had to make a choice, the scapegoat defense makes the very likely outcome of a guilty verdict more likely. And for two reasons – 1. it doesn’t answer the specific charges for which he is on trial (whether he was set up or not, he lied), and I think the jury will just think Scooter was part of the larger conspiracy, which I don’t see invoking “sympathy” with the jury. You may have different opinions.

sorry, but libby acknowledged that he’d been told this by Cheney, but told the grand jury that he’d forgotten by the time he heard about it from Russert “as if for the first time” on July 10th.

That is what this trial is all about…

Noted, but that was only after he was called back.

In my opinion the defense missed an opportunity to remind the jury of their explanation for why Libby changed his story, after originally omitting it.

A big fat lie in the defendant’s own hand hanging in the courtroom calls for a reminder of their cover story. Or at least if I was on the jury, so it would seem to me.

I assume Wells will hammer repeatedly on this during his presentation of the defense.

Mickey @
25

To my law student roomie in the early 60’s who explained lawyering to me in such a clear way that I changed my major from pre-law to anything else at the first opportunity -> my undying gratitude.

Jane S. @ 14

Is it me or when we go from Wells to Fitz, it feels like the fog has lifted. And the sentences make sense again.

Absolutely!

I buy at brick&mortar store, but always try to give ‘em a good friendly elbow-in-the-ribs about putting the book(s) out front on their NEW BOOKS table, and urging them to order more, because they’re “going to wish they had, since this is going to sell fast.”

If books haven’t come in yet, I don’t specifically order one. But I do tell the salesperson I’ll check back, but also look elsewhere to see if another store might have it.

If copies HAVE come in, but are “buried” under “Politics” section in the bowels of the store, I either suggest they put some copies out front, or I’ve even been known to do that myself, heh.

That old game of politics comes in all forms; dive right in & try it in your hometown.
Last week when I visited our local Borders branch with above schtick, result was that, as I was walking back out the door, young salesgal was staring at “Anatomy of Deceit” promo on her computer muttering, “This looks i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g!” BA-DAH-BOOM! ;->

oops! back to lurk…

It appears that Walton did some research during one of the breaks..came back and said that any leak after July 8 was not a leak because it had been declassified…am I right here?..can the president declassify info to cover their butts or is this just a coincidence?..this seems pretty important to me or am I way off base?…could someone who understand this please respond?