The Greymail Defense Rides Again

Looks like Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, and Elliott Abrams might have a bit of ’splainin’ to do early next year. Under oath. In a courtroom. Before a judge.

Lawyers for two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists facing espionage charges have subpoenaed Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams and several others to testify at their trial next year.

Or maybe not:

Prosecutors had challenged the subpoenas in federal court.

My guess is that the prosecution smells an attempt to set up a ‘poison pill’ or ‘graymail’ defense, the most famous recent example being in the Scooter Libby Treasongate case.

So what the heck is ‘graymail’? Christy explains here:

“Greymail” is a term that refers to substantial classified document requests on behalf of a defendant. It’s a tactic that is in bad standing with most prosecutors who deal with national security matters, because it puts you in a difficult place at times: defend your case or defend your government’s secrets.

Graymail is particularly invidious because it is likely to be most successfully employed by former officials from the heart of the government machine who subsequently face trial.

With regard to the “greymail” issue here, this is a complex subject that boils down to this for Team Libby: Scooter had a job that dealt with a lot of high level national security matters. He’d now like to use his complex job as an excuse for committing perjury, but to do that, he has to get access to a lot of the documents that crossed his desk in the service of the Veep. (Shorter Scooter: My job was hard, so you can’t hold me responsible for lying.)

I think you can see where this is heading.

Here’s what the defense wants to happen: They want to see Rice & Co. successfully defy the subpoenas on ‘national security’ grounds, at which point the defense will then say that the defendants can’t get a fair trial without Rice & Co.’s testimony, and the judge will agree — and the defendants will skate.

Now, this didn’t work in the Libby case — but then again, that turned out to be moot as Bush was always ready to swoop in and rescue the firewall that stood between Rove/Cheney/Bush and justice. Let’s see if it works this time.

Related posts:

1. Condi & Hadley Determined to Strike in U.S.
2. The Taxpayers Paid Dick Cheney’s Personal Defense Attorney to Obstruct Any Inquiries Into His Crimes
3. Defense counsel in USA v. KSM, et al petition federal appeals court to end Congress’s segregated, sham Military Commissions
4. Whose Legacy is Being Tidied Here?
5. The Bush Fairy Tale on the Libby Pardon