Usually, people remember past events best based on two criteria: 1) something highly emotional occurred (whether pleasurable or traumatic) and 2) if an event is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime event (versus the everyday, humdrum, repetitive).

During June and July 2003, several unique events occurred in regards to Libby’s daily routine, outside his normal nuts-and-bolts daily duties.

He, along with other top-level Bush administration officials, were ordered by Dick Cheney (and his partner in crime, George W. Bush) to go after administration critic, Joe Wilson.

Part of this effort involved leaking selected parts of a classified National Intelligence Estimate report to Republican lapdog members of the MSM, an effort which required presidential declassification of selected parts of this report to accomplish their goal of rebutting Joe Wilson’s challenge to the 16 words in the SOTU.

Would this presidential declassification action have been unique, however? Yes. Normal declassification of classified government documents follows a formal process. What Bush and Cheney did was abnormal and informal (and initially limited to a few BushCo insiders reportedly), thus making it a highly unique event in Libby’s day to day White House routine.

At the same time, this “get Joe Wilson” strategy morphed into a “get Joe Wilson by dragging his wife, Valerie Plame, into the picture” strategy. Which brings us to another singular, extraordinary, unique event in June and July 2003: the criminal outing of a covert non-official cover CIA agent along with revealing the identity of a CIA front company.

Thus, it is really hard to believe (or swallow) that Libby, in what he told the feds and the grand jury months later, misspoke because he misremembered his participation during this singular period in June and July 2003, and the unique events surrounding the outing of a covert CIA agent’s identity.

Libby committed perjury and he now has two hopes remaining: 1) on appeal, his case is heard by an appeals court packed with hardcore, right-wing Bush appointees who believe the U.S. Constitution has as much value as used toilet paper or 2) an eleventh hour vice-presid…er, presidential pardon.

But maybe the jury will find him not guilty? I have faith that Patrick Fitzgerald will successfully argue that Libby lied and obstructed justice, and win a conviction. Time will tell.

“Walton in reference to GJ testimony, I’ve given the limiting instruction that there’s no claim that Libby disclosed info illegally. I think that’s an appropriate instruction. I do believe it was a unique enough situation that it was of such a nature that the jury could conclude that it was an event he would not forget.”

Let’s hope the jury follows Walton’s logic and observations. Seems to get right to the core of the believability of an argument that Libby just “forgot” what he said or did.

Pectopah @ 104

And the Jury wore red??

That seems a bad omen to the defence. I don’t think it means they are red staters, instead sounds like they are united if they can all agree to wearing red. If someone was a descenter, he/she would have signaled it by not going along. Libby should plead while he has a chance.

Even more ominous to the defense, the jury has an uncoscious solidarity.

i think the jury wore red because it’s valentine’s day today. it was my first thought. and yes, it does sound like solidarity. a nice kind. playful.

If Fitzy was a Republican, he’s a Democrat now.
Can someone explain why they dropped a part
of the obstruction charge?

Yes, someone, please explain. This struck me as odd, and possibly ominous. I’d prefer to see him found guilty on ALL counts!

And I certainly hope that the one juror NOT wearing red today did so out of sartorial reluctance, and not as any sign of being a Lone Ranger during deliberations!

Bob in HI

Damiana @ 42

Hey Christy, LHP and other legal eagles–

If Scooter is found guilty of lying when he said he didn’t leak classified information, does that mean Fitz could then go back after him and deal with the actual leak issue, and get the whole “declassifying on the fly” issue brought into court?

My thought is that he gave Ari pig-in-a-poke immunity for some reason, and his testimony in this case doesn’t seem like it’s worth what Fitz paid for it. He ain’t stupid; he’s almost certainly got grander plans for Ari coming.

Libby is not charged with lying about whether he leaked classified information. He’s charged with lying about whether he had conversations with certain reporters about Plame (he said he didn’t when he did, and he said he did when he didn’t). So a conviction of perjury does not require a finding by the jury that Libby violated the IIPA. It just requires a finding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Libby is a lying sack of shit.

Yeah, I realized after I hit “submit” that it came out to sound like something completely different from what I intended. What I was trying to say was, if Libby is found guilty of lying here, particularly since it was established that he heard about Plame from people and in a context that would imply her status was (probably) classified, can he then be tried for his part of the leak? EPU managed to parse what I was trying to say, and answered me above. :-)

Christy Hardin Smith @ 69

You know, this is the second time that the defense has attempted the “poor discovery” tactic with regard to the government’s turnover of materials. And to say that they did not recieve the contents of Libby’s files really stretches credibility for me, I have to be honest. (especially after the Cathie Martin notes crap) I’ve gotten discovery from the FBI and/or DEA on federal cases that I’ve defendant and it comes in box after box in a much smaller-level drug case. I can only imagine how many boxes of evidentiary information Team Libby received.

Which they then should have gone through, catalogued, and gone over with their client, in triplicate. If there were materials that the government introduced at trial that they had not seen — the time to object to their admission was AT THE TIME THEY WERE MOVED, and not on the back end. That’s just incredibly brazen to try and object after the fact. You are required to object in a timely fashion, not days later.

This comment reminded me of something you said this morning:

Wells is more loose, and his style is not my preferred trial style, so it’s tough for me to comment on him without that clouding my opinion that he appears disorganized. But that may be a calculated tactic to confuse the jury — it’s hard to tell, but it just has felt so disorganized.

At this point, I’d be leaning toward Wells actually being disorganized, and not just appearing disorganized.

Yeah, it’s speculation on my part, but the facts in evidence seem to be pointed in that direction.

Team Libby does seem to have put on a smoke-and-mirrors FUD defense, haven’t they? The only reasons I can come up with for them having done so are (a) they didn’t have much to work with and were pretty much hamstrung by the administration so they had to try to whip what they did have up into a froth to make it look bigger and more solid, and (b) they weren’t really trying the case here, they’re making a case for appeal. (And IANAL, but it doesn’t seem like a very good one from this standpoint.)

And honestly, even if Wells is highly disorganized himself, Team Libby is easily big enough that it must include much more organized minds to support him. I have a hard time imagining such disorganization and apparent incompetence (trying to get documents thrown out AFTER both sides have rested???) as being anything but deliberate, odd as that might sound.

And the Jury wore red??

That seems a bad omen to the defence. I don’t think it means they are red staters, instead sounds like they are united if they can all agree to wearing red. If someone was a descenter, he/she would have signaled it by not going along. Libby should plead while he has a chance.

Even more ominous to the defense, the jury has an uncoscious solidarity.

That seems a bad omen to the defence. I don’t think it means they are red staters, instead sounds like they are united if they can all agree to wearing red. If someone was a descenter, he/she would have signaled it by not going along. Libby should plead while he has a chance.