NY Observer on Libby, Cheney, Fitzgerald, Bush

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/24/06 at 3:32pm

What a juicy story for Plamegate buffs.

snippet:

===

New York Observer 5/29/2006

Pardon Me, Mr. President!
Libby’s Difficult Defense

By Anna Schneider-Mayerson

Hours after I. Lewis Libby resigned from the White House last October, federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald broke the seal on an indictment charging him with five felonies.

Now, as the pre-trial jousting in Mr. Libby’s case picks up momentum, the onetime loyal West Wing confidant—Dick Cheney’s Dick Cheney—will have to choose between protecting himself and protecting the White House. Specifically, insiders say, he will have to choose between a not-guilty verdict and a Presidential pardon.

“It does put him in this difficult situation of putting the administration on trial,” said a lawyer in the case. “Things are coming out that would never have come out, solely because he’s going to fight the charges.”

As Mr. Libby’s lawyers serve demand after demand for evidence that they hope will exculpate their client, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald rallies back with briefs seeded with less-than-flattering assertions about Mr. Libby’s bosses.

Responding to Mr. Libby’s lawyers in a May 12 filing, for example, Mr. Fitzgerald included what many considered to be a shocking and revealing document: a copy of The New York Times Op-Ed column “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” written by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson and calling into question some of the Bush administration’s claims regarding Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program, annotated in Mr. Cheney’s script with the question: “[D]id his wife send him on a junket?”

On Friday, Mr. Libby’s lawyers filed a response with the court, saying their client hadn’t seen the clipping until the F.B.I. showed him a copy—an argument that served to distance himself from the Vice President, if not exactly contradicting him.

But more importantly, this exhibit painted a picture of a Vice President angered by the column, and with clear knowledge of the relationship between Mr. Wilson, his wife and the circumstances of his trip to Niger.

This is the second time that Mr. Libby’s lawyers have been slapped in the face with information that they themselves requested to aid in his defense.



In a letter in January, and then in a filing with more detail last month, Mr. Fitzgerald reported that the President allowed Mr. Cheney to authorize selective leaking of a classified National Intelligence Estimate report to counter administration critics on Iraq. The leak prompted outrage from Democrats, who saw a contradiction in Mr. Bush’s insistence that leaks were indefensible, and led Representative Jane Harman to crown him the “leaker-in-chief.”

“In defending himself, he’s already had to reveal the degree to which the Vice President, the President and others have approved and/or directed the leaking of what might be classified information,” said a defense lawyer who has handled government clients. It’s “exposed the inner workings of what they may have preferred to keep private. His defense keeps the spotlight on the workings of the White House, which have proved to be sometimes embarrassing.”

As in many discovery processes, the prosecutor wants to minimize the amount of material provided to the defense, and the defense wants to maximize their haul.

“Fitzgerald puts this stuff out to raise the cost to Libby, because he knows Libby doesn’t want this stuff out there,” suggested one lawyer familiar with the investigation. “Every time Libby punishes him on discovery, he’ll punish the guy that Libby lied to protect …. There’s certainly tension, and [Fitzgerald] obviously perceives that pushing on this stuff is going to cause [Libby] a great deal of pain.”

Others rejected that theory. “Fitzgerald is the straightest-shooting prosecutor in the country. He’s not playing any kind of game or retaliating. He’s just showing the court what he needs,” said a lawyer familiar with the case. A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, Randall Samborn, declined to respond.
Pardon Me, Mr. President!

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 5/24/06 at 3:44pm

I believe that Pat is a straight shooter and I see him going after Mayor Daley soon. He already got a conviction of the former Illinois Governor.