Krauthammer’s defense of Libby
From WaPo Charles Krauthammer (my comments are highlighted and in italics):
There are lies and there are memory lapses. Bill Clinton denied under oath having sex with Monica Lewinsky. Unless you’re Wilt Chamberlain, sex is not the kind of thing you forget easily. Sandy Berger denied stuffing classified documents in his pants, an act not quite as elaborate as sex, but still involving a lot of muscle memory and unlikely to have been honestly forgotten.
Bill Clinton paid for his lies by being impeached. Sandy Berger paid for his lies by pleading no contest. He was fined and given a two-year probation. I love the way conservatives tried to downplay Scooter Libby’s felony. This opening paragraph suggests that nothing happened to Bill Clinton and there are no consequences to Sandy Berger. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Scooter Libby has just been convicted of four felonies that could theoretically give him 25 years in jail for . . . what? Misstating when he first heard a certain piece of information, namely the identity of Joe Wilson’s wife.
Think about that. Can you remember when you first heard the name Joe Wilson or Valerie Plame? Okay, so it is not a preoccupation of yours. But it was a preoccupation of many Washington journalists and government officials called to testify at the Libby trial, and their memories were all over the lot. Former presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer testified under oath that he had not told Post reporter Walter Pincus about Mrs. Wilson. Pincus testified under oath that Fleischer definitely had.
Someone please get me a violin. I need the sympathy music to come up in the background. What Charles Krauthammer is trying to get us to believe is that Scooter Libby was so stupid that he went into the grand jury completely cold. He didn’t review any of his notes. Scooter Libby took extensive notes. Notes of his conversations with the vice president. Notes of tasks that he needed to perform. He kept all of these notes. He was meticulous, as you would expect any Chief of Staff to be. Therefore, the argument that this was simply a faulty bit of memory is completely disingenuous. At any point in time, Scooter Libby could have said I’ve reviewed my notes and I’ve made some mistakes in my testimony. He could have said, I would like to correct these mistakes. He didn’t. Why? Because he was intentionally trying to cover for Vice President Cheney.
Obviously, one is not telling the truth. But there is no reason to believe that either one is deliberately lying. Pincus and Fleischer are as fallible as any of us. They spend their days receiving and giving information. They can’t possibly be expected to remember not only every piece but precisely when they received every piece.
Should Scooter Libby? He was famously multitasking a large number of national security and domestic issues, receiving hundreds of pieces of information every day from dozens of sources. Yet special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald chose to make Libby’s misstatements about the timing of the receipt of one piece of information — Mrs. Wilson’s identity — the great white whale of his multimillion-dollar prosecutorial juggernaut.
So what Charles Krauthammer is trying to get us to believe is that Scooter Libby was too stupid to review his notes. Vice President Cheney instructed Scooter Libby to do something very specific. Vice President Cheney in the presence of Scooter Libby devised a plan to combat Joe Wilson. Therefore, this wasn’t like he forgot when he blew his nose two years ago. This is a specific effort to combat an outspoken critic, a critic whose criticism was just published in the New York Times. All of these things — notes, Vice President Cheney, New York Times, Ambassador Wilson — make it highly unlikely that Scooter Libby would just “forget”. As a matter of fact, if you’re going to the grand jury to be asked about this specific case you would not only go over your notes which would also, in front of your defense team, review the days and the dates.
Why? Because on his essential charge as special prosecutor — find and punish who had leaked Valerie Plame’s name — he had nothing. No conspiracy, no felony, no crime, not even the claim that she was a covert agent covered by the nondisclosure law. Fitzgerald knew the leaker from the very beginning. It was not Libby but Richard Armitage. He also knew that the “leak” by the State Department’s No. 2 official — a fierce bureaucratic opponent of the White House, especially the vice president’s office — was an innocent offhand disclosure made to explain how the CIA had improbably chosen Wilson for a WMD mission. (He was recommended by his CIA wife.) Everyone agrees that Fitzgerald’s perjury case against Libby hung on the testimony of NBC’s Tim Russert. Libby said that he heard about Plame from Russert. Russert said he had never discussed it. The jury members who have spoken said they believed Russert.
Everyone agrees? No. Tim Russert was a cherry on top of the icing on top of the cake. You have Judith Miller’s testimony and not one occasion, but on three occasions, Scooter Libby talked to her about Valerie Wilson. As a matter of fact, he steered the conversation back to the CIA leak when she wanted to talk about biological and chemical weapons in Iraq. Judy Miller was someone who valued her access to the secretive Bush administration. She was someone who is extremely sympathetic to Scooter Libby and Vice President Cheney. She had similar beliefs about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. It could be argued that she was obsessed with this topic. As a matter of fact, she went to jail to protect Scooter Libby (it is probably more appropriate that I say she went to jail to protect a reporter’s right to protect their source.) Also, Scooter Libby talked with Matt Cooper. The more interesting question is why did Scooter Libby choose Tim Russert as a reporter that he would falsely accuse of giving him Valerie Wilson’s name? Did he already know the Tim Russert didn’t keep accurate notes? Was he expecting Tim Russert to cover for him? Or was Tim Russert chosen because he someone who has a reputation of integrity and honesty?
And why should they not? Russert is a perfectly honest man who would not lie. He was undoubtedly giving his best recollection.
But he is not the pope. Given that so many journalists and administration figures were shown to have extremely fallible memories, is it possible that Russert’s memory could have been faulty?
I have no idea. But we do know that Russert once denied calling up a Buffalo News reporter to complain about a story. Russert later apologized for the error when he was shown the evidence of a call he had genuinely and completely forgotten.
There is a second instance of Russert innocently misremembering. He stated under oath that he did not know that one may not be accompanied by a lawyer to a grand jury hearing. This fact, in and of itself, is irrelevant to the case, except that, as former prosecutor Victoria Toensing points out, the defense had tapes showing Russert saying on television three times that lawyers are barred from grand jury proceedings.
This demonstration of Russert’s fallibility was never shown to the jury. The judge did not allow it. He was upset with the defense because it would not put Libby on the stand — his perfect Fifth Amendment right — after hinting in the opening statement that it might. He therefore denied the defense a straightforward demonstration of the fallibility of the witness whose testimony was most decisive.
Around in here, Charles Krauthammer’s logic is so faulty it’s almost laughable. He desperately wants to trivialize this case. He never mentions the fact that Scooter Libby may have actually had a reason to lie. He may have had a motive to lie. Besides just covering up for his boss, which is reason enough, there was an election coming up. President Bush was running for reelection. If Scooter Libby did not obstruct and try and deflect prosecutors off the trail, everything could have been wrap it up in January or February of 2004. A key component of the Bush administration’s argument to go to war would have been exposed as a complete and total fabrication. Once the uranium deal was completely exposed, reporters would begin to look into the other arguments. We found no weapons of mass destruction. We found that Mohamed Atta never met with any Iraqi agents in Prague. This was Saddam’s major connection to Al Qaeda which really wrapped everything up for the administration. So, going into an election if the American people understood that Saddam never sought uranium from Niger and that there was no Al Qaeda connection, the chances that President Bush will be reelected are highly doubtful.
Toensing thinks this might be the basis for overturning the verdict upon appeal. I hope so. This is a case that never should have been brought, originating in the scandal that never was, in search of a crime — violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act — that even the prosecutor never alleged. That’s the basis for a presidential pardon. It should have been granted long before this egregious case came to trial. It should be granted now without any further delay.
Finally, I look at Scooter Libby as I look at G. Gordon Liddy. These are both patriotic Americans who lost their moral compass. They’re loyal to a fault. Scooter Libby was tried and convicted for lying and obstruction of justice. He didn’t lie about sex. He didn’t lie about national security papers. Instead, he lied to throw off prosecutors from the person who knew the Niger story was false. It is my personal opinion, that Scooter Libby remembers more than he has let on. There are several conversations with Vice President Cheney that he simply does not “recall.” I’m sure that he recalls the exact details of those conversations. He could easily point the finger at Cheney and say that he concocted a scheme to out Valerie Wilson. He directed me to do this. As I said before, he is loyal to a fault.
