Capital Games

Libby Trial: CIA Leak Case Ends with Guilty Verdict

By David Corn

Several minutes after noon on Tuesday, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby sat in a crowded Washington court room and somberly watched as the forewoman of the jury in his obstruction of justice trial pronounced the verdict. "Guilty," she said, regarding Count One. She moved on to the other counts and repeated that word three times. The jury had found Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff guilty on four out of five counts. Libby stared straight ahead. He showed no reaction.

Eleven Washingtonians had convicted a former senior Bush White House aide of lying. The case was narrow. It was not about who had leaked classified information outing Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA officer; it was not about whether the Bush administration had manipulated the prewar intelligence to whip up public support for the invasion of Iraq; it was not about the war. Still, Libby had been on trial for having deliberately misled government investigators to protect himself--and perhaps the vice president--from a criminal inquiry that had come about because the White House had not been straight with the public about the war. In the face of criticism that the administration had hyped the prewar intelligence, the White House in June and July 2003 went on the offensive and mounted a campaign that included passing information to the media about a high-profile critic, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Cheney's office conducted a push-back operation of its own. In this swirl of damage-control and finger-pointing, administration officials leaked Valerie Wilson's CIA identity. And that leak beget the criminal investigation that caused Libby to lie.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald charged that Libby obstructed justice, committed perjury and made false statements when he told FBI agents and the grand jury investigating the leak that he had possessed no official knowledge of Valerie Wilson and her CIA connection in the days before the leak appeared in Robert Novak's July 14, 2003 column. Libby acknowledged to the investigators that Cheney had told him weeks before the leak occurred that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. But Libby claimed that he completely forgot this and that when Meet the Press host Tim Russert told him days before the leak happened that all the reporters in town knew Wilson's wife was CIA, he believed he was learning this information "anew" as gossip. He then, Libby maintained, passed along this scuttlebutt to two reporters--Judith Miller, then of The New York Times, and Matt Cooper, then of Time--only as unconfirmed rumor.

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March 6, 2007

Libby Trial: Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty

By David Corn

The jury found Scooter Libby guilty on four of the five counts. The ruling: Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff lied to federal investigators. I'll be back with more later--after the prosecution and defense talk to the reporters at the court house.

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March 6, 2007

Libby Trial: This Just In--A Verdict!

By David Corn

At 11:30, the reporters covering the obstruction of justice trial of Scooter Libby were notified that the jury had reached a verdict and that the verdict wil be read in court at noon.

More to come--obviously.

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March 6, 2007

Libby Trial: More Waiting, More Jury Notes

By David Corn

The jurors in the obstruction of justice trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby left early on Friday. But they do appear still to be diligently working through their review of the case. Before knocking off for the weekend, the jurors sent two notes to Judge Reggie Walton. The first note referred to one of the allegedly false statements Libby made to the FBI and grand jury investigating the CIA leak. This statement is part of the overall obstruction of justice count. "Are we supposed to evaluate the entire Libby transcripts (testimony) or would the court direct us to specific pages/line," it read. "Thank you."

The other note dealt with an overarching issue:

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.

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March 2, 2007

Libby Trial: Still Waiting--An Update

By David Corn

The below dispatch was filed on Thursday morning. On Thursday afternoon, Judge Reggie Walton called the attorneys for the government and the defense in the Libby trial into court. Why? The jury had sent him two requests. The jurors asked if they could cut out early on Friday at 2:00 pm. They also asked for a dictionary. The judge said yes to the Friday escape. He said no to the dictionary, explaining to the jury that if they had any questions about the definition of any word used in the instructions or the evidence they should consult with him, not a dictionary.

The meaning of all this? The jury is plowing ahead. And the jurors seem to be presuming they will not be done on Friday. As the judge said to the lawyers, "I assume they will not have a verdict tomorrow." But they are not yet stuck. Most of the jurors actually looked happy when they appeared in court. They did not appear frustrated, fed-up or upset. So the bottom-line hunch: they have a plan for reviewing the evidence and rendering a verdict--and there will be no resolution until next week.

Now for the earlier dispatch:

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March 1, 2007

Libby Trial: Waiting for the Verdict

By David Corn

I'm still at the federal district courthouse waiting for the verdict in the obstruction of justice tral of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. But this just in: on Wednesday at 3:45 pm, the jurors sent a note to Judge Reggie Walton. It read in its entirety:

We would like another big Post-it pad. The large one for the easel.

The previous day, the jury had sent a question to the judge regarding Count Three of the indictment (which accuses Scooter Libby of lying to the FBI about statements he made to reporter Matt Cooper about former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife). But by the time the judge was able to respond to the note on Wednesday morning, the jurors had already resolved the issue. "After further discussion," the jury foreperson wrote the judge, "we are clear on what we had to do. No further clarification needed. Thank you. We apologize."

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March 1, 2007

Libby Trial: Final Arguments about Scooter, Cheney & Truth

By David Corn

Cover-up or scapegoating.

Nine conversations or two.

Scooter Libby the liar, or Karl Rove the liar.

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February 20, 2007

Libby Trial: Defense Rests on a Thin Case

By David Corn

Swing and a miss. Swing and a miss. Swing and a miss. As the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury trial headed toward a finale, Libby's attorneys on Wednesday made several last-minute stabs to bolster its defense--and federal district Judge Reggie Walton shot each down.

The defense wanted to bring Tim Russert, the Meet the Press star, back to the witness stand. Russert had appeared as a key witness for the prosecution. When Libby, then chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, was questioned in 2003 and 2004 by FBI agents and a grand jury investigating the leak that outed Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer, he claimed that at the time of the leak he possessed no official information about Valerie Wilson and her CIA employment and that he had only heard gossip from Russert about her. In his indictment of Libby, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald claimed this was a lie, and Russert testified that he had told Libby nothing about Valerie Wilson because he knew nothing about her.

So Libby's lawyers were hoping to get another chance to attack Russert's credibility. As a prosecution witness, Russert had testified for twelve minutes before Wells cross-examined him for five hours, nicking but not truly wounding the newsman. That was not good enough for the defense. Libby's lawyers argued to Judge Walton--outside the presence of the jury--that they should be allowed to call Russert back to the stand. The issue at hand was a statement Russert made during his testimony in which he said he didn't realize a grand jury witness is not allowed to have a lawyer present when testifying before a grand jury. Libby's legal team--combing print and video archives--had found NBC News clips from the days of Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater when Russert had informed viewers that a grand jury witness couldn't have a lawyer by his or her side.

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February 14, 2007