Raw Story is reporting this Wednesday Evening, April 12, 2006 that Scooter Libby's lawyers made a new filing in the CIA leak case this afternoon.
Libby makes new filing in CIA leak case The filing is not public yet, however, it is stimulating speculations about possible future directions in the case. As well, as curiosity about what other new background revelations we may learn from Fitzgerald's usually aggressive counter filings. I also include some excerpts from a thought provoking question about a possible conspiracy indictment against Dick Cheney.
Take a deep breath for another round of excitement. Libby's lawyers have challenged US Prosecutor Fitzgerald at every turn. First Libby says he was too busy, with other matters to have paid attention to such a little detail like outing Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald responded with evidence showing that outing Plame was just one piece of a coordinated and extensive campaign to discredit Joseph Wilson, whom Dick Cheney perceived to be a significant threat.
Last month, Libby's lawyer tried,unsuccessfully, to get the judge to dismiss the charges by challenging Fitzgerald's mandate and authorization to pursue anything beyond the Intelligence Identities Act.
Last week they tried suggesting that Libby was just following orders and that the information he provided to Judy Miller were not leaks. But this prompted Fitzgerald to release the now famous 39 page brief, where among other things, he asserted that it would be beyond credibility for Libby to try suggest that there was not an extensive, coordinated and long term ongoing campaign at the highest level of the White House to undermine critic Joseph Wilson.;
I never realized before this that court filings could be so gripping. As was unsubstantiated speculation that Fitzgerald is getting annoyed at some of these filings.
From Raw Story we learn,
Lawyers for I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff who was indicted for obstructing the investigation of an outed CIA agent, made a new filing in the CIA leak case Wednesday afternoon, RAW STORY has learned.
The filing has not been publicly released. RAW STORY will provide more detail when it becomes available.
Libby's filing comes in response to prosecutors' assertions that he was authorized by President George W. Bush to take part in an effort to discredit Joseph Wilson, a critic of administration's Iraq policy and husband of the outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. Wilson traveled to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had sought uranium from the African country; he found the claims to be spurious.
DEVELOPING...
UPDATE ON LIBBY FILING
Deb Riechmann, of Associated Press write that Libby lawyers want access to more evidence
WASHINGTON - Lawyers for a former top White House aide accused a prosecutor Wednesday of trying to "have it both ways" by playing up President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's role in leaking intelligence on Iraq to reporters but refusing to turn over evidence in the case.
In a court filing, lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said the criminal case stemming from the leak of a CIA officer's identity is much broader and no longer deals solely with Cheney's former chief of staff, as Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald contends.
Last week, Fitzgerald revealed that Bush cleared the way for Cheney to authorize Libby to counter administration critics on Iraq by leaking previously classified intelligence information to reporters.
This should be a fun filing. Libby is claiming this is not an isolated crime, but part of a much bigger operation. He wants all 14,000 boxes of evidence not just the half dozen they've been given.
I'd love to see the trial expanded to 14,000 boxes if we got to see them all. Or it increased the chances of leaks.
Can't wait to see what folks think about this.
Other Leopold Tidbits
Libby's lawyers said in Wednesday's filing that Fitzgerald, with his revelations about Bush and Cheney, set off "an avalanche of media interest" that shows "that this case is factually complex and that the government's notion that it involves only Mr. Libby and (the office of the vice president) is a fairy tale."
Fitzgerald and Libby's lawyers are fighting over a defense request for a wide assortment of documents that may be at the White House, State Department and the CIA. Libby's lawyers said Fitzgerald has collected hundreds of thousands of documents but given the defense only about six boxes, or 14,000 pages of records.
I have some other interesting background tidbits from a recent Leopold piece, that I've been sitting on waiting for a more substantive development worth reporting. I will retrieve them and put them here in just a bit. Perhaps, shedding some light into Fitzpatrick's state of mind.
So, soon, we should be expecting Fitzgerald counter filing to today's new filling form Libby's lawyer, as well leaks about today's filings, and, potentially, the new indictments Fitzgerald is purportedly intending to seek against Karl Rove and/or Stephen Hadley before the end of the month according to Leopold.
In some ways, though, the Fitzgerald releases, so far, may have done a sufficient job at encouraging such an tidal wave of other disclosures, that the trial itself is being overshadowed.
I am still looking forward to seeing Karl Rove and Stephen Hadley indicted. This will send an important message to the public. And it is important to validate what many progressives and some other Democrats have been saying for so long about the lack of integrity in the Bush Administration. But, other disclosures from the Washington Post, Murray Waas, Colin Powell, the NYT, and others as well have raised our attention to the central role and culpability of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
This new much broader and higher level aspect of what appears to be an extensive long term conspiracy in the White House deserves and requires Congressional investigation. While as many indictments that Fitzgerald can make at a lower level, in addition to as much information as he can release in the form of pre-trial filing can be helpful in substantiating our calls for Resolutions of Inquiry in the House Judiciary Committee.
I'll be back here soon to update this with more on this developing story as well as the tidbits from this recent Leopold article.
Update 1: David Corn Asks About Possible Dick Cheney Conspiracy Charges
David Corn writes an article in Huffingtonpost, today entitled The Cheney Conspiracy? asking if Patrick Fitzgerald came close to indicting Vice President Cheney with a conspiracy charge.
But curiously, he writes this in the past tense as if, Fitzgerald has cleared Cheney of such a possibility which I do not believe he has. In fact, we know that Fitzgerald only received a good deal of the most damning evidence as recently as a month ago--such as the White House emails for example.
* In the Scooter Libby indictment, Fitzgerald notes that Cheney informed Libby on June 12, 2003, that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA's Counter-proliferation Division. The CPD is part of the operations directorate, the CIA's clandestine services.
Many, if not most, of its employees are undercover. Certainly, their employment status at the CIA is classified information. The indictment does not note exactly what Cheney told Libby about Valerie Wilson -- whether he said she was an undercover operative or not. But he was passing on classified information to Libby.
* On July 12, Cheney, according to Fitzgerald's latest filing, "specifically selected" Libby "to talk to the press about the NIE and Mr. Wilson" -- or, at least, that's what Libby said.
* Later on July 12, Libby confirmed to Time's Matt Cooper what Karl Rove told Cooper: that Joe Wilson's wife works at the CIA. Libby that day also talked about Valerie Wilson with New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
It works for me.
Fitzgerald had two basic options when it came to prosecuting Libby for the leak. He could have charged him under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. This law, though, only applies to a government official who discloses identifying information about a covert US officer and who knows that officer is undercover.
To win a conviction, Fitzgerald would have to prove that Libby knew -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- that Valerie Wilson was undercover. Libby might have realized that. He certainly should have at least considered that possibility once Cheney told him that she worked at the Counter-Proliferation Division of the CIA's clandestine service.
Still, if Libby could claim before a jury that he was not sure or did not bother to ask or think about her cover status, Fitzgerald would have a tough time winning the case.
The other option was to prosecute Libby for disseminating classified information to unauthorized parties -- Cooper and Miller. But this course also carried a problem. It would place Fitzgerald on the path to turning laws not usually used by prosecutors for media leak cases into an Official Secrets Act. At his press conference last fall, Fitzgerald signaled he was not enthusiastic about doing this.
David Corn's Analysis Seem To Be Based On Libby's Indictment Last Fall
But Corn seems to have missed the part where Fitzgerald points out that due to Libby's obstruction of justice, he could not see if the underlying Identities Protection Act laws were violated. More recent evidence and grand jury testimony from Libby may have solved this problem. Certainly, what we've heard in the last few weeks is suggestive.
But it is clear that Fitzgerald thought long and hard about each of these possible prosecutions. And as late as last September, according to sources familiar with the investigation, he was still collecting information that would have been needed for a prosecution under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
Had Fitzgerald pursued either of these options, he would have had another matter to consider: whether to charge Cheney with conspiracy. If Fitzgerald had a case that Libby had acted criminally at the instruction of Cheney, then he would have had reason to indict Cheney as well.
But Fitzgerald indicted Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice, charging that Libby lied to FBI agents and grand jury about the Plame leak. He decided not to go after Libby for violating the Intelligence Identities Protect Act or for leaking classified information. Because of that Cheney lucked out -- perhaps much more so than has been assumed up to now.
Stay tuned, David Corn. Nothing prevents Patrick Fitzgerald from bringing additional indictments against Libby, and others. And it seems to me that we have sufficient new evidence now to ask for a phase three investigation. And if not from Fitzgerald, then from Congress.