Bob Novak recounts the details of his meeting with Richard Armitage wherein he learned of Valerie Plame’s CIA identity in his new autobiography, The Prince of Darkness. His newspaper, The Chicago Sun-Times, has an excerpt:

It is important to note that Armitage reached out to me before Joe Wilson went public on the New York Times op-ed page and on “Meet the Press” with an account of his Niger report that he said contradicted 16 words in Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address: (”The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.”)

[...]

I then asked Armitage a question that had been puzzling me but, for the sake of my future peace of mind, would better have been left unasked. Why would the CIA send Joseph Wilson, not an expert in nuclear proliferation and with no intelligence experience, on the mission to Niger?

“Well,” Armitage replied, “you know his wife works at CIA, and she suggested that he be sent to Niger.” “His wife works at CIA?” I asked. “Yeah, in counterproliferation.”

He mentioned her first name, Valerie. Armitage smiled and said: “That’s real Evans and Novak, isn’t it?” I believe he meant that was the kind of inside information that my late partner, Rowland Evans, and I had featured in our column for so long. I interpreted that as meaning Armitage expected to see the item published in my column.

It’s noteworthy, too, that Armitage asked for the meeting after having rebuffed previous requests. Rather clearly, then, leaking Plame’s role in sending her husband to Niger was the primary purpose of the meeting rather than an off-the-cuff revelation.

UPDATE: Commenter Spencer thinks I’m reading too much into this and, upon re-reading the column, I think he’s right.
Novak’s account makes it seem that Armitage was eager to get the information out and was pleased with himself for doing so. Still, Novak writes, “the last week of June 2003, Armitage’s office called to agree unexpectedly to my request and set up the appointment for July 8.” The Wilson op-ed that triggered the controversy was published July 6. So, while Armitage may well have gone into the meeting with a plan to push the Plame-Wilson connection to Novak, it’s unlikely that that’s why he agreed to it in the first place in late June.

UPDATE: Then again, as an emailer reminds me, “the genesis of the Plame affair wasn’t Wilson’s July 6 op-ed. It was a Nick Kristof column in May and a Walter Pincus story in June, both of which relied on Wilson as an anonymous source.” Indeed, the timeline (forgive the bias of the source; it’s the most complete one I can find) makes clear that there was much scrambling within at least the Vice President’s office that started in very early June.

There’s less concrete evidence as to the timing within the State Department. Then again, Armitage was never put on trial.

As one would expect, last evening’s news that President Bush has commuted Scooter Libby’s jail sentence has spawned a huge amount of controversy in the blogosphere, with some decrying it as the greatest outrage since Watergate and others complaining it didn’t go far enough.

From the Left:

• Nancy Pelosi: “The President’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people.”
• Marcy Wheeler: “This amounts to nothing less than obstruction of justice.”
• Jane Hamsher: “This president’s contempt for the rule of law is thorough and complete.”
• Jeralyn Merritt: “President Bush’s commutation of I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby’s sentence is simply stunning, both in its hypocrisy and its arrogance.”
• Reid Stott: “[T]he Bush administration simply no longer gives a damn, about public opinion or the rule of law.”
• Doug Berman: “It will be interesting to see if, after the President has made clear that he views the guidelines are “excessive” for one of his pals, others with sentencing power begin to give less respect to the guidelines when the fates of less connected defendants are in the balance.”
• Anonymous Liberal: “Libby, apparently, doesn’t deserve to be treated the way the law demands that others be treated. He’s special. And what makes him special? Clearly nothing other than the fact that he is a well-connected Republican.”
• Bob Cesca: “If Scooter Libby had been some unfortunate nobody who was either black or poor or retarded . . . “
• Digby: “This is a very, very depressing day, even though we knew it would happen in one way or another. It’s just a continuation of this administration’s complete disregard for the law and their belief that they are entitled to special treatment because, well, they are just, so special.”
• Duncan Black: “President Bush engages in ongoing obstruction of justice by commuting Scooter Libby’s sentence.”
• Taylor Marsh: “George W. Bush today proved that the rule of law doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican. It’s all about the rule of politics.”

From the Right:

• Patrick Frey: “You do the crime, you do the time. The jury said Scooter Libby did the crime. He should do the time.”
• Steven Taylor: “One cannot lie to a grand jury and since he was a public servant at the time, that would seem to make the lying all the more problematic.”
• Ed Morrissey: “It strikes a balance that few will appreciate now, but later will accept as wise, as far as it goes.”
• Jay Currie: “Justice would have been served by a full pardon; but Bush rarely gets stuff right.”
• Rob Bluey: “Libby still has to pay a $250,000 fine and will be left scarred permanently, a penalty that’s harsh enough.”
• Andrew Sullivan: “When there are no normal channels of governance in this White House, it means the fusion of Cheney-Bush acting as extra-legal agents of their own power. We really no longer have the rule of law operating. We have the privileges and lies and policies of two men. The law is no competitor. And shamelessness is their ally.”
• Orin Kerr: “I find Bush’s action very troubling because of the obvious special treatment Libby received.”

The claims that this is somehow and “obstruction of justice” or outside the “rule of law” are simply bizarre. This power is expressly granted to the president in the Constitution. Indeed, it’s in the first sentence of the part of the Constitution which delineates the powers of the president (Article II, Section 2):

The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

It’s listed before the enumeration of his foreign policy duties, for goodness sakes. The issuance of a pardon or commutation isn’t a sidestepping of the process: It is expressly a part of the process.

Further, this power is plenary. He doesn’t need anyone’s permission to exercise it nor does he need to jump through any hoops. Yes, there are long-established bureaucratic processes whereby the Justice Department vets petitions. They were put in place because presidents seldom know anything about the cases in question and don’t have time to read petitions that come pouring in. That obviously doesn’t apply in this case. As Bill Dyer observes,

Critics see it as cronyism, but in fact, no one is better qualified to judge the value of Libby’s public service than President Bush. Huge, huge portions of what Scooter Libby did as a key inside figure in implementing the Administration’s response to 9/11 and global terrorism is still highly classified. But the President knows on a first-hand basis what the man contributed, what its value has been, and under what critical and pressure-filled circumstances he served. And as it happens, George W. Bush is the one person in whom the Constitution entrusts the power to weigh that public service against the serious crimes of which Libby stands convicted. And he clearly thinks “this particular convicted felon” is deserving, even though there will be a political price to pay.

As to the “special treatment” issue: Of course it’s special treatment. Were Libby not a senior administration official, he’d never have been in this mess to begin with.

I heard Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this morning on NPR saying that Libby’s conviction “was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence.” That’s exactly why he should have been pardoned, in my view.

First, because there was no underlying crime in the “efforts to manipulate intelligence.” Despite spending millions of dollars and years investigating the leaks, no one was ever charged. Indeed, we quickly found out who had told Bob Novak about Valerie Plame’s CIA job — and it wasn’t Scooter Libby. Yet, Richard Armitage, the actual leaker, was never charged.

Second, and more importantly, the responsibility for “efforts to manipulate intelligence” goes to the top. To the extent that information supporting going to war was cherry picked, it wasn’t Scooter Libby’s doing. Yes, he was in a powerful position as the VP’s chief of staff. He was not, however, a decision maker. If someone is going to be “accountable” for whatever offenses Reid imagines occurred, it should be George W. Bush. He is, after all, The Decider. He, not Scooter Libby, is The Commander Guy.

If Reid and Pelosi think the administration should be held accountable for manipulating intelligence, the same Constitution that empowers President Bush to commute Scooter Libby’s sentence gives them a remedy: Begin impeachment proceedings. In my view, that would be about the dumbest thing they could do, politically. But that’s the appropriate recourse if they actually believe the administration lied to get us into a war. If, on the other hand, it’s just cheap political rhetoric, they should pipe down.

President Bush has granted clemency to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

WHEREAS Lewis Libby was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the case United States v. Libby, Crim. No. 05-394 (RBW), for which a sentence of 30 months’ imprisonment, 2 years’ supervised release, a fine of $250,000, and a special assessment of $400 was imposed on June 22, 2007;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, do hereby commute the prison terms imposed by the sentence upon the said Lewis Libby to expire immediately, leaving intact and in effect the two-year term of supervised release, with all its conditions, and all other components of the sentence.

IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Update: Gene Healy provides a partial list of people also deserving of some clemency.

• Marsha Cunningham

  Like Kemba Smith, Cunningham, who was arrested in 1997, had no prior offenses. Nor was there any evidence that she had ever participated in a drug deal.

  Yet when police found powder and crack cocaine in the Dallas apartment that Cunningham shared with her boyfriend, and her boyfriend was caught with crack while driving her car, federal mandatory minimums kicked in. Now, Cunningham is serving 15 years in prison.

• Dane Yirkovsky

  Yirkovsky is serving a 15-year sentence for possession of a single .22-caliber bullet.

  In December 1998 he found this bullet while doing remodeling work for a friend who was giving him a place to stay in exchange for the work. Yirkovsky put the bullet in a box in his bedroom. Later that month, the police found the bullet while searching Yirkovsky’s room after a call from his former girlfriend, who claimed he had some of her possessions. Because of Yirkovsky’s prior convictions for burglary, federal prosecutors charged him under the Armed Career Criminal Act, although he had not threatened anyone and did not have a gun.

• Weldon Angelos

  A year ago this week, 24-year-old Angelos was sentenced to 55 years in prison for selling two small bags of marijuana to a police informant. During the transaction, Angelos was carrying a pistol in an ankle holster, although he did not threaten anyone with the weapon. Nonetheless, the law imposed a severe mandatory minimum for gun possession during a drug deal.

  In sentencing Angelos, U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell of Utah, a conservative Republican appointed by President Bush, also ran through the maximum penalties for hijacking an airplane (25 years), a terrorist bombing intending to kill a bystander (20 years), and kidnapping (13 years). The judge noted that just two hours earlier, he had imposed a sentence of 22 years in a case where a man beat a senior citizen to death with a log.

  “Is there a rational basis,” Cassell asked, “for giving Mr. Angelos more time than the hijacker, the murderer, the rapist?” Cassell called the 55-year sentence “unjust, cruel, and even irrational” but said that the law left him “no choice.”

  Of course, President Bush need not free Angelos immediately—a crime was committed—but he has the power to reduce Angelos’ sentence. Surely one mistake is a poor justification for taking away most of a young father’s life.

• Robert Blandford, Diane Huang, David McNab, and Abner Schoenwetter

  Three American seafood dealers and one Honduran lobster-fleet owner are currently doing hard time for importing lobster tails that were the wrong size and that were packaged in clear plastic bags rather than in cardboard boxes. They ran afoul of the Lacey Act, a federal statute that makes it a crime to import fish or wildlife taken “in violation of any foreign law.”

  The U.S. government argued that they had broken Honduran law because some of the lobster tails—3 percent, to be exact—were less than five and a half inches long, and because a Honduran regulation required that the lobster tails be packed in boxes. Yet Honduran officials testified that no laws had been violated.

  Nonetheless, Blandford, McNab (the Honduran national), and Schoenwetter, three small-business men with no previous criminal records, were sentenced in 2001 to eight-year terms. Their “partner in crime,” Huang, got off easy: two years’ incarceration for the mother of two young children.

55 years for selling pot to an undercover police officer while carrying a pistol in an ankel holster? Geez is that over the top. Kill a man you go to jail for less time. Rape a woman and you go to jail for less time. Commit a terrorist act and you’ll go to jail for less time. But sell some dope while carrying a pistol, why lock ‘em up and throw away the key!

Update II: More from President Bush here.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

Okay, but what about 55 years for selling pot while carrying a pistol? Is that a crime worse than murder or kidnapping? And what about the lobster crime, eight years? Based on the lobster crime punishment Libby should be executed by firing squad. And the single .22 calibre bullet in a box (with no gun)? Talk about ridiculous.

Barring a presidential pardon, it appears that Scooter Libby is headed to jail soon.

A federal appeals court Monday rejected former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s request to remain free on appeal after his March conviction on federal charges stemming from the leak of a CIA agent’s identity. Libby, once Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, faces a 30-month prison term after being convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal agents probing the 2003 exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose husband had become a critic of the war in Iraq.

A three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals found Libby has not raised a question for judges “that is ‘close’ or that ‘could very well be decided the other way’” — the standard for remaining free on appeal.

Barring further appeals, Libby’s term will start when the U.S. Bureau of Prisons decides where he will serve his time and sets a date for him to surrender. But his lawyers may appeal Monday’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rarely intervenes in these kinds of cases.

Not particularly surprising. As noted previously, the norm is for convicted felons to go to jail given that the burden of proof has shifted to them to prove that there were errors at the trial level that swayed the verdict.

This will increase pressure on President Bush to issue a pardon or at least commute the sentence. All indications, however, is that he is not inclined to do that.

Big Tent Democrat notes that, contrary to what most of us presume, convicted criminals almost always go to jail immediately after sentencing rather than being permitted to stay out on appeal until they’ve exhausted their appeals.

While I’m not sure that should be the case, at least in cases like Scooter Libby’s where there is essentially zero danger of recidivism, it actually makes perfect sense. The presumption of innocence, at the heart of our system of criminal law, ends upon conviction. Appeal is merely to ensure that due process was observed in the trial.

Even though I was highly dubious about the circumstances that led to prosecuting Libby, I’m confident that Judge Walton was extremely fair in his handling of the case, bending over backwards to accommodate the shenanigans of a defense team for which he rightly developed obvious contempt. The only issue of which I’m aware that strikes me as even plausible is the constitutionality of the independent prosecutor’s office itself. Given that the constitutionality of federal law ought be accepted on face value until ruled otherwise and that freeing Libby on those grounds would be the very definition of “getting off on a technicality,” I’m not persuaded that he should be released while it gets sorted out.

Carol Leonnig, who covers the federal courts for WaPo and with whom I had the pleasure of sitting during my brief stint covering the Libby trail, shoots down “5 Myths About Scooter and the Slammer.”

Her column will irritate both Libby’s strongest supporters and most vehement critics.

It’s now rather clear that Libby lied to the grand jury about how he found out about Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment with the CIA. At the same time, there is no evidence that he, Karl Rove, or anyone else committed a crime aside from lying to cover up their leaks to the press.

Jay Rosen has a long homage to those who blogged the Scooter Libby trial, most notably the Firedoglake gang.

As a critic who follows the fortunes of the American press, and writes about its collapse under Bush, I found it extremely painful to sit on the sidelines for this event. But as compensation I had the pleasure of watching Firedoglake, a group blog, emerge as the best site for primary, tell-me-what-happened-today coverage of the trial.

The political press supplemented FDL quite well, I thought.

If I had time, I went to Memeorandum and sampled all of it. If I didn’t have time, I read Firedoglake and the Washington Post’s team of Amy Goldstein and Carol D. Leonnig. It wasn’t a secret. Maybe 200,000 readers knew. If you wanted to keep up with the trial, and needed something approaching a live transcript, with analytical nuance, legal expertise, courthouse color, and recognizably human voices, Firedoglake was your best bet.

Now, if you wanted neutral reporting, FDL wasn’t for you. Then again, neither were any of the blogs. On balance, though, Marcy Wheeler, Christy Hardin Smith, and the others on the FDL team simultaneously provided a great public service and demonstrated what bloggers can add to news coverage.

Thanks to Robert Cox’s efforts, several of us from the Media Bloggers Association provided coverage and analysis of the trial. On balance, I think, we added something worthwhile: real-time commentary, different points of view, and some good old fashioned snark.

Rosen is right, though, that the FDL gang provided something unique. Wheeler and Smith, especially, provided in-depth expertise about the trial. Wheeler wrote a book about the case and Hardin is a former attorney and prosecutor, so she knows more about the legal end of this than almost any journalist or blogger. Further, there was probably no website or media organization more obsessed with the Valerie Plame affair than FDL, which meant they brought an encyclopedic knowledge of the trivia of the case to bear.

When the blogosphere broke open RatherGate, it was through a combination of two things that the mainstream press seldom has: obsession and expertise. There are people out there who simply care more about things like Dan Rather, Scooter Libby, Valerie Plame, or just about any other topic that you can think up than anyone working for any press venue. Similarly, there are people out there who know a whole lot more about the nuances of 1960s era typefaces, perjury law, FISA, or what have you than any working journalist could possibly be expected to know. The combination of these things give citizen journalists a powerful advantage.

Because bloggers don’t have to even pretend to be unbiased or interested in “all the news that’s fit to print,” I wouldn’t want to rely on any one blog for my news, or even my commentary. Collectively, though, blogs add an enormous amount of information and insight to the process.

Scooter Libby juror Denis Collins explains the thought process of the jury. It confirms and expands on some quotes highlighted yesterday at the Drudge Report.

Jurors in I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s perjury trial were certain of the former vice presidential aide’s guilt, but they also harbored sympathy for him as a “fall guy,” one of them said Tuesday after the verdict. Denis Collins, a Washington resident and self-described registered Democrat, said he and fellow jurors found that passing judgment on Libby was “unpleasant.” But in the final analysis, he said jurors found Libby’s story just too hard to believe.

“It was just very hard to believe how he could remember it on a Tuesday and forget it on a Thursday and then remember it two days later,” Collins told reporters outside U.S. District Court. “Having said that, I will say that there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury.”

“It was said a number of times, ‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s [Karl] Rove … where are these other guys?’ “We’re not saying we didn’t think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of, but it seemed like … he was the fall guy.”

Collins said the jury believed Libby was “tasked by the vice president to go and talk to reporters.” “We never even discussed whether Cheney would have told him what exactly to say,” Collins said.

That Libby was “tasked by the vice president to go and talk to reporters” was not in dispute. Still, the fact that the jurors apparently wanted the scalps of Rove and “these other guys” is rather revealing, since the only crime being alleged was lying to the FBI and the grand jury about where Libby learned about Valerie Wilson’s role in sending Joe Wilson to Niger.

Collins said none of the jurors appeared to hold any animosity toward Libby, and some expressed a distaste for passing judgment on him at all. “I had conversations with a couple of jurors who said, ‘Wow this part is not fun,’ ” said Collins. “It’s just a question of not wanting to pass judgment on anyone. And I felt the same way.” But he said the jury’s sympathy didn’t interfere with the verdict, “it was just the unpleasantness of doing it.”

Libby was a rather sympathetic figure in the case, I think, because it was clear that he was usually a policy wonk who was tasked with damage control on the Wilson matter. Ironically, the charge he was defending his boss from was almost certainly untrue. By all indications, the Office of the Vice President did not in fact send Joe Wilson to Niger and had never seen his report until the Nick Kristoff column in the NYT.

Collins also opened up about the nuts and bolts of the decision-making process. He said at one point jurors were using 35 Post-It pages that measured 2½ feet by 2 feet to help them break down the testimony. “We took about a week just to get all the building blocks there,” Collins said. “There were some incredibly good managerial-type people who just took everything apart in to the smallest piece, put it in the right places, and it got to the point where opinion had very little to do with it,” said Collins. “You just came to this conclusion that, ‘wow here it is, right before us.’”

That’s a DC jury for you. About the only people who can’t legitimately claim that it would be a financial hardship for them to miss weeks and weeks of work are employees of the federal government, who continue to receive their paychecks during jury service.

Collins said among their key points of deliberation were: motivation to tell the truth, motivation to lie, believability and state of mind. “So we didn’t do a straw vote right away,” he said. “It was too big. It was too much. It was too important. We just didn’t do that. So that’s why it took so long.”

The primary testimony that convinced the jury on most of the counts, Collins said, was Libby’s alleged conversation with NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Tim Russert. “Some of us believed it never happened,” he said. “We were told he had a bad memory and we actually believed he did.” But that testimony was contradicted by testimony that he had an incredible grasp of details.

That’s fair enough, I think. I’d like to hear more, though, about their thoughts on the “motivation to tell the truth, motivation to lie” issues. Given that Libby was not the source of the leak to Novak that was the object of the investigation, and that no charges were ultimately brought on that matter, it has never been clear why Libby would be motivated to lie about his role.

Scooter Libby has been found guilty, report AP’s Michael Sniffen and Matt Apuzzo.

Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s identity.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity to reporters.

He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI.

Despite a jury pool that was ideologically stacked against him, I though Libby had a legitimate chance of getting acquitted on either the so-called “memory defense” or through jury nullification on the basis that he was charged with lying about a non-crime.

After watching the trial live during the first week of the prosecution’s case, it looked like Team Libby was way ahead on points. I haven’t paid nearly as much attention since, however, and can’t weigh the remaining evidence, though, for how it may have swayed the jury.

I’ll have more on this once more detailed reports come in. The above blockquote is the entirety of the AP report at the moment.

UPDATE: CNN:

Libby, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of $1 million. CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said, “He is virtually certain to go to prison if this conviction is upheld.”

After the verdict was read, Libby was fingerprinted and released on his own recognizance.

Ted Wells, Libby’s defense attorney, said he will file a motion for a new trial, or appeal the conviction if that motion is denied. “We intend to keep fighting to establish his innocence,” Wells said outside the courthouse.

An update to the AP story above adds, “The trial’s outcome may have been a repudiation of the strategy that Libby’s attorneys chose by not calling either Libby or Vice President Cheney, his former boss, as a witness.” That could well be. Indeed, by relying on the “memory defense” in the opening remarks, they implicitly promised the jury they would hear directly from Libby.

UPDATE: PJM has a good roundup of the blog reactions thus far.

I agree with Tim @ Balloon Juice that a pardon will be forthcoming. That’s par for the course for political crimes, after all.

Ian Schwartz has videos of statements from Libby’s attorneys and the reaction of the Wilsons.

Steven Taylor observes, “[G]iven that it is, to this day, unclear as to whether any laws were broken regarding Plame’s status, the whole thing seems like a waste on numerous levels.”

See the Media Bloggers Association Scooter Libby Trial feed for a myriad of reactions.

UPDATE: Intrade Prediction Markets has “now listed a contract on Scooter Libby being pardoned by the end of this year.” Were I a betting man, I would pass on the contract, since I think it unlikely the pardon will happen this year. Between the 2008 election and the end of Bush’s term of office, however, it’ll almost certainly happen.

UPDATE: Michael Demmons passes on some preliminary comments from the jurors seen on Drudge Report.

JUROR: WE HAD SYMPATHY FOR LIBBY, HE WAS THE FALL-GUY, WHERE WAS ROVE, WHERE WERE THE OTHERS…? SOME JURORS SAID ‘THIS SUCKS, WE WISH WE WEREN’T JUDGING LIBBY’

Says Michael, “[I]t seems odd to me that a jury would convict a ‘Fall Guy.’ Wouldn’t that be acknowledging that they knew he wasn’t the one who committed a crime, but convicted him anyway???”

Well, maybe they just meant they would have rather had a bigger fish to convict. Libby has been convicted of the crime of lying about his involvement in something that wasn’t a crime and that he wasn’t involved with. Had there been something with which to charge Rove or some other more prominent official, there’s no doubt Fitgerald would have charged them.

Alternatively, perhaps the jurors thought Libby looked a lot like Lee Majors.

UPDATE: Judith Weiss has an interesting roundup of reactions from conservative attorneys. Perhaps most noteworthy is Andrew McCarthy’s take. He explains why multiple counts are used and how they tend to interact in the minds of juries.

Let’s take a drug case. If the whole case is about a single transaction — say, one cocaine deal that happens in a fleeting instant on a street corner. If that’s all there is, and the government has only witness who said he saw it or participated in it, but it has no other proof (e.g., the drugs, photos, bank records, etc.), that is a flimsy count indeed — although the jury is free to convict if they believe the witness beyond a reasonable doubt. But if there are five counts, one saying the defendant was involved in a drug conspiracy of some duration and four other ones charging individual drug sales within the conspiracy, then it’s not so flimsy anymore. As the saying goes, pieces of evidence are not looked at in isolation; the case is considered as a whole. If you believe there was a drug conspiracy, it becomes a lot more likely that the guy did the individual drug deals, even if the evidence supporting any single one of them is not overwhelming.

That strikes me as reasonable enough. Then again, theoretically at least, the state is obligated to prove each charge beyond reasonable doubt. By indicting on multiple counts, especially ones that are rather confusing and technical, it’s not hard to think that jurors are likely to come away figuring that “well, the guy was probably up to something.” I’m not sure that’s within the spirit of the high burden placed on the state.

The Scooter Libby jury is entering Week 3 of deliberations with some interesting questions for Judge Walton. Most notably, they’ve asked, “We would like clarification of the term ‘reasonable doubt.’ Specifically, is it necessary for the Government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Jerralyn Merritt has Walton’s response in PDF format. Basically, he tells them to go re-read the instructions he already gave them. Marcy Wheeler provides a blow-by-blow of the wrangling over that.

I can’t figure out if the jury is just generally confused about what the “reasonable” part of “reasonable doubt” means–which ain’t good news for Libby–or if they’re trying to come up with some sort of compromise among themselves.

A New York Times profile of bloggers at the Scooter Libby trial, especially the FireDogLake gang, includes a discussion of the Media Bloggers Association’s role and the larger implications for blogger-mainstream media relations:

For blogs, the Libby trial marks a courthouse coming of age. It is the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media, said Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. Mr. Cox negotiated access for the bloggers. “My goal is to get judges to think of bloggers as citizen journalists who should get the same protections as other journalists get,” Mr. Cox said.

[...]

Sheldon L. Snook, the court official in charge of the news media, said the decision to admit bloggers — 5 to 10 of about 100 reporters present on busy trial days — has worked out well. “It seems they can provide legal analysis and a level of detail that might not be of interest to the general public but certainly has an audience,” Mr. Snook said.

Even as they exploit the newest technologies, the Libby trial bloggers are a throwback to a journalistic style of decades ago, when many reporters made no pretense of political neutrality. Compared with the sober, neutral drudges of the establishment press, the bloggers are class clowns and crusaders, satirists and scolds.
“They’re putting in a lot more opinion and a lot more color than the traditional reporters,” said Mr. Cox, adding that the bloggers were challenging “the theory of objective journalism.”

[...]

In the courthouse, the old- and new-media groups have mixed warily at times. Mainstream reporters have shushed the bloggers when their sarcastic comments on the testimony drowned out the audio feed. But traditional reporters have also called on the bloggers on occasion to check a quote or an obscure detail from the investigation.

Some bloggers at the trial have seen their skepticism about mainstream reporting confirmed. “It’s shown me the degree to which journalists work together to define the story,” said Marcy Wheeler, author of a book on the case, “Anatomy of Deceit,” and the woman usually in the Firedoglake live-blogger seat. Ms. Wheeler, a business consultant from Michigan who writes under the nom-de-blog “emptywheel,” believes that some trial revelations have been underplayed in the conventional media because “once the narrative is set on a story, there’s no deviating from it.”

Marcy was there throughout the trial, while the MBA delegates were only there a few days each. Like her, though, I found the exercise shed a lot of light on how the mainstream press operates and the day-to-day grind of reporting. For the most part, I was impressed with their work ethic and diligence in verifying seemingly minor facts. But, yes, as with any reporting on events I’ve attended live, the reporting occasionally varied wildly from my own observations.

And, not to be too defensive, plenty of the regular reporters were chatterboxes, too. People who cover these things day in and day out are quite naturally going to form opinions and, in the ease of a press room, going to spout off. The difference is that the bloggers and other opinion journalists have the freedom to express their views openly whereas mainstream reporters have to pretend to be objective even while their own interpretation naturally colors their writing.

Judge Reggie Walton castigated the Libby defense team yesterday for closing the case without calling their client, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, to the stand.

Judge Walton said he “believed all along in the process that Mr. Libby was going to testify” and that his lawyers were now “playing games with the process.” He made his remarks out with the jury out of the courtroom as he ruled that the defense would no longer be able to use some evidence, including something the jury had already heard: a statement the government agreed to saying Mr. Libby, as chief of staff and national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, “worked long hours, received daily intelligence briefings and attended many meetings concerning important matters of national security.”

[...]

Judge Walton said his ruling meant that the chief defense lawyer, Theodore V. Wells Jr., would not be able to make that argument to the jury. Mr. Wells will be permitted to tell the jury that Mr. Libby had “a lot on his plate,” Judge Walton said. But because Mr. Libby is not testifying, Mr. Wells cannot argue that those issues were of greater importance in Mr. Libby’s mind “as compared to the issue of Valerie Plame and Ambassador Wilson.”

[...]

Judge Walton said he would be shocked if he were reversed on appeal over his rulings about Mr. Libby’s not testifying. If that happens, he said, “I’ll hang up my spurs.”

I don’t know the rules of evidence on these matters but Judge Walton made it quite clear before the trial started that “the memory defense” was only permissible if the defendant testified. He made it seem that this was a matter of legal precedent, not his own whim. The defense team did not protest that, giving me the impression they agreed that this was in fact the way it usually worked.

Wells and company–while never directly saying Libby would testify–certainly gave every impression that they were going to call their client to the stand. As a result, Walton made several key early rulings on evidence, the preliminary jury charge, and overruling objections to memory defense-related cross examination of prosecution witnesses. He’s right to be steamed.

UPDATE: Marcy Wheeler live-blogged the exchange and the defense at least offered a plausible explanation that, while they intended to bring Libby to the stand, they think they’ve made their point with other witnesses. Further, Walton comes across as much less peeved than Neil Lewis’ NYT report suggests:

[Wells:] We thought there was a high likelihood Libby would testify. In December 20, 22, we for the first time received Jencks, before that time, we had no access, we did not know that witnesses like Grenier and Schmall had an utter lack of recollection. Once we got Jencks, our perception of case began to change, nonetheless we continued to think high probability that Libby would testify. We had no idea that that GJ material showed us. Nor did we know until cross Miller that it would be dismissed. Nor did we know until we examined Cooper where we think evidence shows that it’s in the notes. We’ve proceeded at all times in good faith. To the extent there’s concern on your honors part that counsel was playing fast and loose, that’s not so. We spent hours working on preparing Vice President. We spent hours preparing to put Libby on the stand. We had to make decision based on our confidence that govt had proven their case beyond reasonable doubt. There’s no box that says innocent or did you tell full story. I’m the one that makes the call, my recommendation along with Jeffress. I had the VP on hold right up until the last minute. We had him ready to testify on Thursday. He had his schedule open. I want to make clear we’ve been upfront at all time. We’ve got to make decisions that are in clients best interest. Once we saw Jencks, our view radically changed, based on what we felt was performance of witnesses.

Walton I assume these are based on AP article entitled Judge: Libby misleads Judge. I did not intend to suggest there had been intentional misleading on that matter. It was indicated by Cline that there was a qualification. I assume based on what you’re saying now, that it was not an indication. I accept that as an accurate statement. To extent that changes can be made in newspaper articles that have already been out.

Wells: Thank you.

That seems quite reasonable. I noted during my live-blogging in the first week of the trial that the first several prosecution witnesses indeed displayed a REMARKABLE lack of memory about almost everything and that this would surely play into the defense’s hands. I don’t know the law here but defense closing arguments should surely be allowed to argue that, if the government witnesses–who presumably had less “on their plates” than the VP’s chief of staff/national security advisor–couldn’t remember those details that it’s fair to conclude Libby could be excused for mixing up the sequence of events in his own head.

Kevin Drum finds it interesting that Ari Fleischer today testified that Scooter Libby told him, four days before Bob Novak’s story was filed, about Valerie Plame’s role in sending her husband, Joe Wilson, to Niger.

Not “Valerie Wilson,” the name she used socially, but “Valerie Plame,” her maiden name and one that she used only on agency business. . . . Novak’s use of the name “Plame” has always been one of my pet obsessions in this story, and I continue to think it’s the key to something. Maybe eventually we’ll find out what. Maybe even today.

There are two problems with this.

First, we already know that Richard Armitage was Bob Novak’s source, not Scooter Libby. Not only does Armitage admit this and Novak confirm it, but prosecutor Patrick Fitgerald made a point of emphasizing it during opening arguments.

Second, none of the testimony thus far about the timeline provides any evidence that Libby knew “the wife” as anything other than “Valerie Wilson” or “Mrs. Wilson.” That’s the name in the file Marc Grossman got from INR and that Craig Schmall had written in the margin of his notes.

So, either Fleischer’s “I believe” is simply wrong–likely swayed by press accounts which have referred to her as “Plame” all these years–or there is some missing piece in the prosecution timeline.

Christy Hardin Smith believes some legal maneuvering by Scooter Libby’s army of lawyers that occurred outside the view of the jury will ultimately undermine Libby’s credibility. Essentially, they are using every trick in the book to introduce the “memory defense” despite months of pre-trial wrangling and rulings from Judge Reggie Walton precluding them doing so unless and until their client took the stand.

While I think Smith overestimates the impact this will have on the team’s reputation–frankly, few people think trial lawyers are particularly ethical to begin with–I agree with her assessment of the tactics. Their proffered explanations for why they need to introduce the originals of certain documents that Walton had already ruled would be admissible only in redacted form and under very limited guidelines was, to say the least, strained. Even from the perspective of one who is inclined to give Libby the benefit of the doubt, it was quite obvious that the “memory defense” was indeed what they were after.

I wrote a post more than a year ago decrying the “memory defense.” After watching the first three days of testimony, though, it looks much less sketchy. None of the government witnesses thus far have given any indication that the topic of “the wife” was more than casually mentioned to Libby and none have much memory of their own of those discussions.

The Libby team, though, is being far too heavy-handed in my estimation. When cross-examining Marc Grossman (see here and here), for example, it seemed to me that he had, quite amiably, given them exactly the answers they wanted in the first five minutes. They continued to belabor the point for another two hours, spread over two days, and challenged his integrity. Ultimately, they scored a few points but they may have done so at the cost of alienating the jury.

The government’s case is going to be very difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. That’s just the nature of the charges, which will require proving Libby’s state of mind. The defense team, though, is taking no chances, challenging the motives and competency of even obvious Libby allies. They appear to be employing a “spaghetti strategy” of throwing every charge and twist they can think of up against the wall in the hopes that something sticks. It’s a take-no-prisoners approach that will make them seem sleazy but it may confuse the jury enough to enhance their sense of doubt about the charges.

That may work. I think their client would be better served, though, if they kept things short, came across as genial and humorous, and thus built rapport with the jury.

OTB’s stint live-blogging the Scooter Libby trial has ended. The reins have been passed to Wizbang’s Kevin Aylward and Rory O’Connor of Media is a Plural. You can follow their coverage and all the other MBA bloggers here.

It was a worthwhile experience but confirmed my suspicions that a reporter’s job is often quite tedious. Sitting there after after hour, day after day, hoping that someone says something interesting would get old, fast.

People like Matt Apuzzo and Mike Sniffen of the AP and Amy Goldstein and Carol Leonnig at WaPo manage to do a pretty faithful job of transcribing events while simultaneously cranking out several pieces a day. The bloggers covering the trial were doing much the same but at least had the luxury of being able to give our opinions as things transpired.

At the same time, the rush to find “news” when there is little to be had sometimes leads reporters astray, as MSNBC’s David Schuster demonstrated with his “scoop” on destroyed evidence. More frequently, sloppy writing or editing puts events out of sequence and gives false impressions.

From time to time, when the opportunity presents itself, I’ll likely cover other events that interest me again. On a daily basis, though, I prefer analysis and opinion journalism to straight reporting.