Libby’s Lawyers Question Reporter’s Memory

By DAVID STOUT

Published: January 31, 2007
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 – A lawyer for I. Lewis Libby Jr. tried to portray a former New York Times reporter today as having a “fuzzy” memory of her conversations with Mr. Libby about a C.I.A. agent whose husband was a critic of the Bush administration.

The lawyer, William Jeffress Jr., brought up several occasions in which the reporter, Judith Miller, acknowledged a weak memory and seemed not entirely certain of the notes she made after meeting with Mr. Libby, once the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Ms. Miller’s credibility is crucial, because her testimony contradicts the account Mr. Libby gave to a grand jury about when and how he first learned of the agent’s identity.

She has testified that Mr. Libby discussed the C.I.A. agent, Valerie Wilson, and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, in two meetings in 2003, on June 23 and July 8 of that year. Mr. Libby testified before the grand jury that he first learned of Mrs. Wilson’s identity no earlier than July 10, from reporters.

He is charged with perjury and trying to obstruct an investigation into the leak of Mrs. Wilson’s identity not long after her husband, a former diplomat, criticized the administration’s Iraq policy.

In the courtroom today, Mr. Jeffress again and again elicited replies from Ms. Miller that, “I have no recollection,” or, “I can’t be certain,” or words to that effect. He was trying to persuade a Federal Court jury that Ms. Miller’s account of her meetings with Mr. Libby in the summer of 2003 are not necessarily to be believed.

Ms. Miller’s several pages of notes about the June 23 meeting refer, among other things, to Mr. Libby’s comments about whether Iraq was seeking to obtain uranium from Niger to further its nuclear-weapons programs, an issue that Mr. Wilson had gone to Africa to investigate. He then wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times questioning the might of Iraq’s arsenal, and therefore the administration’s rationale for going to war.

Another reporter, Matthew Cooper, then a Washington correspondent for Time magazine, testified that on July 11, 2003, he was told by Karl Rove, a top political adviser to President Bush, that he should not rely too much on Mr. Wilson’s assessment.

Mr. Cooper, who also resisted Mr. Fitzgerald subpoena for a time, said he had three sources for his knowledge that Ms. Wilson worked for the C.I.A. He said they were Mr. Rove; John Dickerson, a reporter for Time, “and Scooter Libby would be third.” Scooter has been Mr. Libby’s nickname since childhood.

Mr. Libby told a grand jury he did not discuss Mr. Wilson and his wife with reporters, so Mr. Cooper’s recollection of his exchanges with Mr. Libby could be damaging, even though there was no suggestion today that Mr. Libby mentioned the Wilsons to Mr. Cooper earlier than July 11.

Mr. Jeffress took Mr. Cooper through a deposition he gave under oath in a lawyer’s office, when he was asked if Mr. Libby had been the first source for the information about the Wilsons.

“You told them ‘no,’ right?” Mr. Jeffress said.

“Yes,” Mr. Cooper said.

In cross-examining Ms. Miller, Mr. Jeffress zeroed in on one of Ms. Miller’s notations about the June 23 meeting: “Wife works in bureau?”

“Is your memory fuzzy about that entry and where it came from?” he asked.

Ms. Miller replied that her memory was “fuzzy” about the question mark: whether she used it to indicate her uncertainty about Ms. Wilson’s status at some “bureau,” or whether she used it because she was puzzled that Mr. Libby would bring up such a thing.

Ms. Miller testified on Tuesday that Mr. Libby told her at the June 23 meeting that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at “the bureau,” a reference she first thought was to the Federal Bureau of Investigation but which she soon realized meant a division of the Central Intelligence Agency.

So, Mr. Jeffress said, Ms. Miller could not really be sure that she did not know about Ms. Wilson’s C.I.A. status before June 23, 2003, could she?

“I just have no recollection,” Ms. Miller said. But she insisted she was “confident” that she did not know before June 23.

At one point, Mr. Jeffress replayed a videotape, first shown on Tuesday, in which Ms. Miller comments to an interviewer that she had talked to various government officials (“senior and not-so-senior”) about Mr. Wilson’s July 6, 2003, article in The Times.

“I can’t remember with whom I had those conversations,” Ms. Miller said in reply to a question from Mr. Jeffress. When the lawyer persisted, Ms. Miller said, “I don’t remember their names. I don’t know what you want me to say beyond that.”

Later on, Ms. Miller insisted that Mr. Libby had indeed used the word “bureau” in the June 23 meeting, that it had “leaped out at her” as she was going over her notes later.

“O.K.,” Mr. Jeffress said, after more back-and-forth. “So you have a memory.”

In one exchange, Mr. Jeffress alluded to “Valerie Flame,” capitalizing on an erroneous spelling in Ms. Miller’s notes of Mrs. Wilson’s maiden name, Valerie Plame.

“Excuse me,” he said with a chuckle, “Valerie Plame.”

Ms. Miller, who left The Times in 2005, spent 85 days in jail after refusing to buckle to demands of the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, that she discuss her confidential conversations with news sources. She relented after obtaining what she has called a “personal” and unambiguous waiver from Mr. Libby.

Judge Reggie B. Walton told Ms. Miller a juror wanted to know why she had not contacted Mr. Libby earlier, rather than stay in jail. Because she was afraid of “a fishing expedition” by Mr. Fitzgerald, she answered.

“I did not want to stay in jail,” she said, explaining that she did so that people who come to her with information can “trust me, that I would protect them.”Judge Walton announced today that another of the panel of 16 jurors (12 regular members and four alternates) had been excused for an employment-related issue. “That’s unfortunate,” he said.

Mr. Fitzgerald said he expected the prosecution to complete presenting its case by early next week.

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Ex-Bush Aide, in Testimony, Disputes Libby

Former press secretary Ari Fleischer arriving today at the Prettyman Federal Courthouse
to testify for the prosecution in the I. Lewis Libby case.

By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: January 30, 2007
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, recounted to a jury on Monday his experience at an unusual lunch on July 7, 2003, during which he said that I. Lewis Libby Jr. passed on detailed information about the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative.

The lunch in the White House mess for senior staff took place three days before the date that Mr. Libby had sworn he first learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from reporters.

Mr. Fleischer was the fifth prosecution witness to provide damaging testimony in the form of an account that conflicted with the version Mr. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, told a grand jury and investigators.

Mr. Fleischer’s day on the stand provided a riveting moment because of the detailed description of the conversation, which he said occurred in his last week at the White House and was the only time Mr. Libby had ever asked him to lunch.

Mr. Fleischer said that after casual talk about his new career and the fact that he and Mr. Libby were both fans of the Miami Dolphins, the conversation turned to the controversy then swirling around whether President Bush had used false information in his State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium in Africa.

The day before the lunch, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, had written an Op-Ed article in The New York Times that said he had taken a trip to Niger at the behest of Mr. Cheney’s office and had determined there was no truth to the assertion in the State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein had recently tried to buy uranium ore in Africa.

“Ambassador Wilson was sent by his wife,” Mr. Fleischer testified that Mr. Libby told him, disputing the notion that he had been sent by Mr. Cheney. “His wife works for the C.I.A.”

Mr. Fleischer also said that Mr. Libby used the woman’s maiden name, Valerie Plame, and that she worked at the agency’s bureau that dealt with efforts to curtail the proliferation of weapons.

“He said it was hush-hush, on the Q.T. and that most people didn’t know it,” Mr. Fleischer testified.

Mr. Libby, who is widely known by his nickname, Scooter, looked up occasionally at the witness and took notes.

Ms. Wilson’s name was first disclosed publicly on July 14, 2003, in a column by Robert D. Novak.

That disclosure led to an investigation into the leak as administration critics charged that her identity was disclosed to discredit Mr. Wilson’s charges. Neither Mr. Libby nor anyone else was charged in the end with violating the law in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s identity. Mr. Novak’s original source, Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, was not charged, as prosecutors said he did not have the needed intention to violate the law.

But Mr. Libby was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice after he swore he had not discussed Ms. Wilson with reporters. Judith Miller, a former reporter for The New York Times, and Matthew Cooper, a former reporter for Time Magazine, told the grand jury that Mr. Libby had indeed disclosed her identity to them. Mr. Libby’s lawyers have argued that if he was incorrect in recounting his conversations with reporters, it was simply a case of bad memory.

Mr. Fleischer, who as the public face of the White House for nearly three years and thus widely recognizable, was followed to the stand by a prosecution witness regarded as perhaps the most secretive and publicity-averse employee in the White House, David S. Addington.

Mr. Addington was counsel to Mr. Cheney at the time Ms. Wilson’s identity was disclosed and has since been promoted to replace Mr. Libby as the vice president’s chief of staff. He is widely reported to be the theoretician behind Mr. Cheney’s belief in a powerful executive branch, in which the president may exert wide authority unchecked by Congress or the courts.

While Mr. Fleischer, an experienced public spokesman, seemed at ease on the stand, Mr. Addington displayed gruff reticence.

His testimony concerned a meeting he had had with Mr. Libby in a small room in the vice president’s suite between July 6 and July 12. He said Mr. Libby had quizzed him as to whether the C.I.A. would have records showing when someone sent a relative on a mission.

Mr. Addington said his advice was sought because had he worked at the C.I.A. for years as a lawyer. As he provided the far-from-simple answer, he said that Mr. Libby had held out both hands in front, palms down, as if to remind him the information was sensitive. “He said, ‘Keep it down,’ ” Mr. Addington testified.

But it was Mr. Fleischer’s testimony that seemed the most damaging to date. He said he had heard again about Ms. Wilson four days later from the White House communications director, Dan Bartlett, aboard Air Force One as it was heading to Uganda. He said Mr. Bartlett was reading documents and began “venting” that reporters kept repeating Mr. Wilson’s claim that it was Mr. Cheney who had sent Mr. Wilson on his fact-finding trip.

“His wife sent him,” Mr. Fleischer recalled Mr. Bartlett saying. “She works at the C.I.A.”

Mr. Fleischer said he relayed that information to reporters from Time and NBC, a fact that figured in his later demand that he would testify only after being given a grant of immunity from prosecution.

When the investigation began in the fall of 2003, he said he was suddenly afraid he had inadvertently violated the law.

He said that, upon reading that Ms. Wilson’s identity was classified, he thought to himself, “Oh my God, did I somehow play a role in outing a C.I.A. operative?”

Mr. Fleischer freely cooperated with the government, he testified, while refusing to grant interviews to Mr. Libby’s defense lawyers.

Aside from recounting that anxiety, Mr. Fleischer was unruffled on the stand, even under cross-examination by William H. Jeffress Jr., one of Mr. Libby’s lawyers.

Mr. Jeffress noted that Mr. Fleischer had in earlier testimony shown he did not know how to pronounce the maiden name of Ms. Wilson, referring to her as Ms. Plame or Ms. Plah-MAY. He suggested to Mr. Fleischer that that meant “the first time you ever heard it was reading it and not hearing it,” meaning his account of the conversation with Mr. Libby was incorrect. Mr. Fleischer replied, “No, when I heard it, it was not very important.”

Over all, as he had for nearly three years at the White House, Mr. Fleischer “stayed on message.”

Before he took the stand, the jury heard the second day of testimony from Cathie Martin, who had been Mr. Cheney’s communications director. Ms. Martin testified for the prosecution that she told Mr. Libby she had learned about Ms. Wilson and her role at the C.I.A. also before the date Mr. Libby claims to have learned about her.

Mr. Addington is expected to finish his testimony on Tuesday. He will be followed on the witness stand by Ms. Miller, the former Times reporter, who is expected to testify that Mr. Libby told her about Ms. Wilson on three occasions.

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Reporter Testifies in C.I.A. Leak Trial

Judith Iscariot Miller, the evil bitch who fanned the flames to launch an illegal war walks into the courthouse Tuesday. The smirking grin verifies that this miserable piece of shit is blissgfully
unconcerned with the blood on her hands. If we were a middle-eastern theocracy,
a fatwa would rest on her head, most assuredly.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 30, 2007
The New York Times

Filed at 3:06 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified Tuesday that former vice presidential aide I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby first discussed a CIA operative with her weeks before he told investigators he believed he first heard it from another reporter.

Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to cooperate with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into who leaked the CIA operative's identity to reporters. She had refused to disclose conversations she had with Libby.

Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. Fitzgerald says Libby discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with reporters, then lied about those conversations.

Miller ultimately agreed to cooperate with authorities, saying Libby had given her permission to do so. She is a key witness in Fitzgerald's case because she describes two conversations with Libby regarding Plame before Libby told investigators he was surprised to learn about Plame from NBC reporter Tim Russert.

Miller testified Tuesday that Libby discussed the CIA officer on June 3, 2003. He said Wilson's wife worked for the ''bureau,'' Miller recalled. She was confused about that at first, she said.

''Through the context of the discussion, I quickly determined it to be the CIA,'' she testified.

The discussion occurred amid a growing controversy about intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said he debunked some of the intelligence that was used to justify the war and said Vice President Dick Cheney should have known it.

Miller also discussed a second meeting with Libby, this one on July 8, 2003. She said Libby mentioned that Wilson's wife worked for a CIA division specializing in weapons of mass destruction.

Libby says his discussion with Russert occurred on July 10, 2003.

Journalism groups have criticized Fitzgerald for calling reporters as witnesses and demanding they discuss conversations with sources. Miller's notes likely will be used as evidence, and Fitzgerald is expected to call two other reporters -- Russert and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine -- during the trial.

Earlier Tuesday, David Addington, who served as Cheney's legal counsel during the CIA leak scandal, described a September 2003 meeting with Libby around the time that an investigation into the leak began.

''I just want to tell you, I didn't do it,'' Addington recalled Libby saying. ''I didn't ask what the 'it' was,'' Addington added.

Fitzgerald hopes Addington's testimony will bolster his argument that Libby was worried about whether his conversations with reporters were improper and therefore lied to conceal them.

^------

Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.

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