Gag Me With An Order - Not!

The Libby defense team responds to the Judge Walton's notion that he ought to impose a gag order on both sides.

Their gist - they have almost never spoken to the press, but when they do, it is in a good-faith attempt to correct egregious misinformation.

The judge seemed to be particularly irked by their quick release of Fitzgerald's correction letter (on Fitzgerald's mis-statement of Libby's NIE leak), so the defense also addresses that.

Fitzgerald also files a response which, in sum and substance, says we don't leak - never have, never will.

UPDATE:  Jeralyn Merritt links to more of the filings, has more analysis, and is, well, the More Woman. 

Comments

[Walter]

Somehow I doubt that the sarcasm will go over well. It almost seems as though they are asking for an adverse ruling in order to get a better result on appeal. Maybe I'm still smarting from the dressing-down I got from J. Limbaugh (ED Mo)(OT: great guy, but a stickler for the rules), but I'd be much more careful in response to an angry judge.

That said, I havn't looked at any cases in the area. They have, so I trust their confidence is not misplaced.

I've been wanting to bring up a question about the proposed gag order, though. IIRC it covered witnesses as well as prosecution and defense. Can you think of a few potential witnesses who have been fairly well-compensated to discuss matters at least tangentially related to this case? How about someone getting $12,500 & expenses per speech?

[Specter]

They forgot to remind the judge that giving information to the press is how Fitzy says he can be monitored and supervised. They had to give it over....

[cathyf]

Yeah, Walter, looks to me like this was the version after all the sarcasm was taken out. As Spector points out, putting in a comment about how they were just assisting the DoJ in supervising Fitzgerald would have been sarcasm. What they submitted wasn't.

I gotta say it's a damn good thing Libby doesn't have somebody like me on the team. I wouldn't be able to resist the many many MANY temptations to snark.

cathy :-)

[NIBystander]

Wow. This filing appears to this layman, non-lawyer, as setting up a strong argument that Fitz's sloppy and/or perhaps intentionally misleading 'filings' are repeatedly causing 'false' front page 'reports' that are contaminating the juror pool and will prevent a fair trial.

And, 'Oh, by the way, we do not want a gag order because then we would be prevented in the future from protecting our client from even more sloppy/misleading stuff from this renegade prosecutor'.

[Walter]

TM/Clarice:

I presume this is a shout-out to either/both of you:

"Similarly, dozens of print journalists from a broad array of newspapers and magazines, and even certain enterprising bloggers, have attempted to pry information about the case loose from defense counsel."

[Dwilkers]

Fascinating.

When we received the letter...we swiftly disseminated it to correct innacurate statements in a publicly filed brief...We sent the letter to print, broadcast and electronic media outlets on Tuesday evening.

So it wasn't that NRO's Byron York has some inside track with the Libby defense team that got him his 'scoop' as I've seen posted here. He was just the only one that published. The rest of the media sat on the letter.

Despit the fact that it rendered a week of their mini-scandal reporting false.

[Patton]

One big problem with the Libby response, he makes the ridiculous claim that reporter mis-understand or wrongly intepret goverment filings....THE FACT IS THE REPORTERS, INTENTIONALLY MISCONSTRUE THE FILINGS IN ORDER TO ATTACK BUSH.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT REPORTERS WHO CAN WALK AND TALK COULDN'T HAVE MANAGED TO WRITE AN OBJECTIVE STORY IF THEY OR THEIR EDITORS WANTED THEM TO; THEY ALWAYS SEEM TO MISCONSTRUE THINGS IN A BAD WAY FOR REPUBLICANS....HMMMMM.

[Patton]

"""So it wasn't that NRO's Byron York has some inside track with the Libby defense team that got him his 'scoop' as I've seen posted here"""

That was just the rantings of Multiple Miggs (Jeffrey) here in the next cell. Pay no attention, he actually believed the Fitz filings in the first place.

[Cecil Turner]

Interesting response by Libby's team, and I think they hit Fitz's major misstatements in court papers very appropriately. In particular, I had missed the "and/or" in this statement, which fundamentally misstates the case:

The government, however, mischaracterized the issue as whether “the controversy about Mr. Wilson and/or his wife was a trifle.” (Gov’t Br. at 20 (emphasis added).)

The conflation of Wilson/Wilson's wife as a minor issue got quite a bit of play in the press, but I'd missed the (mistaken) reference that supported it. This bit was no surprise:

“Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.” (Responsive Brief at 23 (emphasis added).) This sentence materially misstated portions of Mr. Libby’s grand jury testimony, which testimony had not previously been publicly disclosed.

Though I tend to agree with Bob Somerby on this one . . . the problems with the report are just as much the fault of over-hyping, as the misstatement itself:

That in mind, note one more distortion in Shuster’s report. He gives the impression that he’s quoting what Libby said to Miller; in fact, he’s quoting Patrick Fitzgerald’s paraphrase of what Libby supposedly said. There’s no tape of transcript of what Libby told Miller; for that reason, we think it’s hard to say just how “wrong” his statements to Miller actually were. And no, we don’t think it’s all that clear that his characterizations of the NIE were wrong.

I'm a bit surprised they didn't hone in on Fitz's presser, which left the lasting imression that Libby was the source of the leak that outed Plame. I also found this bit from Fitz more than a little ironic:

no attorney or agent of the Special Counsel’s office has made any substantive extrajudicial statements regarding this case since the announcement of the indictment in October 2005 . . .

Left out was the point that, having already gotten there "firstest with the mostest," they really didn't need to.

[Patton]

Remember when GAG had a whole different meaning in the Clinton adminstration?

[JM Hanes]

Patton

I sense a certain blue dress obsession on your part.

[TM]

I presume this is a shout-out to either/both of you

Credit Clarice, then - I have lacked enterprise on this.

Or at least, getting on their mailing list might be a bit too cozy, although others might wonder, how much more in the tank could I be?

[JM Hanes]

TM - LOL! Made my day (per usual).

[MJW]

Topsecretk9 pointed out two occassions in which a Fitzgerald spokesman supposedly gave out information that wasn't in the indictment. One was the the naming of Edelman as Libby's "principle aid," and the other was the naming of Grossman as the "Undersecretary." I don't think either TSK9 or I can vouch for the reliability of the claim that the information came from a Fitz spokesman, but it is interesting.