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Well, it's not quite Fitzmas , but it's certainly a happy day for Plameologists far and wide now that the Dept. of Justice's Office of Special Counsel website has posted PDF files of Scooter Libby's first and second grand jury appearances, on March 5 and March 24, 2004. (NOTE: The last two links will download/open the PDF files, so think before you click.  Also, there might be compatibility issues if you don't have the latest Adobe reader software — I couldn't get text to appear in Preview on my old Mac iBook, and had to switch to a different computer.) 

So now anyone and everyone can nitpick my live-blogging skim through the nearly 400 pages of Libby squirming in the face of Fitz's prosecutorial ferocity, such as this:

Q. It still remains that it is possible that the Vice President could have told you to talk to people about Wilson's wife working at the CIA, but you do not remember that?
A. It's, it's not what I had on my card from that meeting, and I don't recall him telling me to talk to the — to anybody about the wife working at the CIA on the airplane that day.

Q. But you do recall him telling you back in June, from your notes dated June 12th, and you recall that that stuck in his mind then in June as a curious fact the way he observed to you that his wife worked there. Correct?
A. Yes, sir.

Q. And you do know that Vice President Cheney was quite frustrated during the week of July 6th through July 12th at how the media was treating this issue, and the fact that he was being unfairly maligned in the media. Correct'?
A. Yes, sir.

Q. And you had gotten an e-mail, I believe, from Jay Carney of Time magazine the day before saying people are pointing fingers at OVP. Correct?
A. That sounds right, sir. I haven't looked at it recently, but that sounds right.

Q. And so, on July 12th, Vice President Cheney was still determined to get the full story out. Correct?
A. That's correct, sir.

Q. And the notes show all week he said, anything less than the complete truth would be a mistake. Correct?
A: Correct, sir.

Q. And during that time the Vice President was also expressing doubts about the validity of Ambassador Wilson's conclusions because, number one, he didn't think that — he thought it unusual that they had used a former ambassador to take this trip. Correct?
A. You say, "during that week," and it could be during that week. I just don't recall it as — I don't recall there was a discussion during that week, but that could be, I recall them later, and as you pointed out, we have — he had something like that on the lunch of the 18th. When Vice President Cheney said, "get the full story out," what I understood by that was the NIE, the January 24 document, the CIA's comments in February to the IAEA, those sorts of things. The substance, the full substance that he wasn't the one who was told, et cetera.

Q. Well, when Mary Matalin, we saw her notes last time, talked about "get the full Wilson story out, get Wilson motivation out."  Correct?
.A. Mary Matalin had said that. Yes, sir.

Q. . She talked about ["Wilson's a snake" -- redacted in files]. Correct? ' .
A. I don't know if that was her word. That was my note about the type of things she was saying, I think.

Q. And Vice President Cheney talked about it with you for the first time that your notes reflect, he brought up that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA in the functional Office of Counterproliferation. Correct?
A. Back in June… yes, sir.

Q. And the column July 6th written by Mr. Wilson with the Vice President's annotations asked, "did his wife send him on a junket." Correct?
A. Whenever he made that note. Yes, sir.

Q. And so you told the FBI in your first interview, or one of your two interviews, that it's possible that the Vice President could have told you on Air Force Two that you should tell the press about Wilson's wife, but you do not recall that happening. Correct?
A. Correct.

Q. And does that remain true?
 A. It remains true that it was possible, I don't remember it happening.

They also released PDF files with the grand jury exhibits for the March 5 and March 24 appearances (see the DOJ OSC link above), and were handing out CDs with 450-megabyte MP3 files with audio of Scooter's testimony.  So not only can you hunt merrily through the transcripts for your favorite excerpts, I suppose you can look forward to the dance remix, too.

Related posts:

  1. Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and the “Unremarkable” Meat Grinder
  2. Cheney’s Betrayal Made an IIPA Charge for Libby Possible
  3. Hung Out to Dry: One Former VP Chief of Staff
  4. New White House Counsel Bob Bauer and Scooter Libby Justice
  5. Late Night: Your Favorite World’s Greatest Deliberative Body Sucks, Because It’s Full of Senators