I Love A Surprise!

Neil Lewis and Scott Shane give us a laugh with their Libby trial daydreaming:

A surprise revelation came when Mr. Pincus, who writes about national security and intelligence [for the Washington Post], disclosed that he was first told on July 12, 2003, about Ms. Wilson by Ari Fleischer, then the White House spokesman, and not Mr. Libby.

Surprise to whom?  Did these two intrepid reporters really think that Walter Pincus had received a Plame leak from Libby?

A significant hint that Libby had not leaked to Pincus might have been the fact that the prosecution did not call him as a witness - could Pincus really have been worse than Matt Cooper and Judy Miller?

Or a check of the Times archives might have turned up this attempt to pry into the Pincus puzzle:

Mr. Pincus has not identified his source to the public. But a review of Mr. Pincus's own accounts and those of other people with detailed knowledge of the case strongly suggest that his source was neither Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, nor I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and was in fact a third administration official whose identity has not yet been publicly disclosed.

Or, in a moment of immodesty, let me suggest another idea - here is a Google search on the JustOneMinute archives, with search words "Libby Pincus source".

Just looking at the Google result and reading the excerpts, I see little hints, such as this, from the first line of the first hit:

Pincus also has said his source was not Libby.

Or from the third hit:

MORE: The Walter Pincus story is interesting - here, he tells us that Lewis Libby was not his source, but that his source had identified himself to...

Follow the links, look around, and you will find articles such as this, where Pincus specifically states that his source was not Libby.

Surprise!

In live action, Professor Kim has coverage of the Andrea Mitchell dispute, Jill Abramson, and John Hannah.

Comments

[Jeff]

Where did you concoct this little fantasy? There is no evidence that fitz believes this.

You should start with Fitzgerald's 5-12-06 and especially 5-24-06 filings regarding the articles Fitzgerald wanted to put in and Libby's grand jury testimony regarding what Cheney told him after July 6. Have you read them? Then you should also pay attention to Fitzgerald's questioning of Cathie Martin on redirect, with special attention to what Fitzgerald asks her regarding Cheney's comments about wanting the whole story, all the facts, out - and the fact that Martin was not present for discussions between Libby and Cheney about talking with Judith Miller. You might also look back at what Fitzgerald said at the 5-5-06 pretrial hearing about the note Libby took with Cheney's instruction to talk to Miller, and what Libby went on to talk to Miller about (hint: it's not just the NIE!).

[MJW]

Jeff: It makes a difference whether Russert told him or not because Libby's entire story hinged on the notion that he learned from Russert about Plame as though for the first time, and thereby only gained knowledge of Plame as reportial rumor or gossip, of which he did not know the truth, and conveyed it as such.

Disregarding Rove's conveyance of what Novak told him. But if we don't disregard that, his entire story could convincingly be based on an uncontested fact.

[Syl]

Jeff

Fitz is looking for signs of a coverup, it's what he does. He hasn't even got enough circumstantial evidence to do anything with it. In the trial he's attempting to imply a motive for Libby to lie.

If there are any CDS sufferers on the jury, they may have picked up on it. Or not. Fitz doesn't have much to work with, does he?

Did you read the filing in which fitz was angry at the defense for its attempts to separate the wife from the rest of the Wilson issue?

Fitz is happy to conflate pushback against Wilson's story with pushback against Wilson.

ISTM the State department did a much better job of the latter.

[Jeff]

Fitz is looking for signs of a coverup, it's what he does.

I'll take that as a concession of the point I was making; you just don't like that Fitzgerald has the belief I attributed to him.

Did you read the filing in which fitz was angry at the defense for its attempts to separate the wife from the rest of the Wilson issue?

Could you be a little more specific? I believe I've read every single filing in the case, and I certainly have seen Fitzgerald contest the claim that the issue of Wilson's wife could be just artificially cut off from the pushback against Wilson, insofar as the latter would make the former less easily forgotten. But I don't recall any expressions of anger. Care to give an actual citation?

ISTM the State department did a much better job of the latter.

No question Team Powell were much more competent than OVP. But an incompetent leak out of OVP was still a leak. Just because they couldn't carry it through any more effectively than they've been able to carry through much else doesn't mean it wasn't what they were doing.

[Cecil Turner]

The rule is, if the person works for the CIA in ANY shape or form, ask if it's okay to divulge the fact they are employed by CIA.

Not any rule I'm aware of. The rule is to ensure someone has clearance and access (need to know) for any particular piece of information before it's shared with them. And to mark classified information clearly. As the testimony from Martin, Grenier, Armitage, Fleischer, et al points out, NOBODY thought her status was classified. The "should have checked" meme is apparently a lawyerly reading of the NDA, but the bottom line is that nobody who got that information the way Libby did should've concluded it was anything but unclassified.

Now, Fleischer and Armitage are a slightly different story, as they got the info from a classified source. If the paragraph is marked "Secret," you probably ought to check. Still, there's nothing in that memo that'd indicate her status was classified, and Armitage was correct in saying it'd be completely inappropriate for a covert agent to be so identified, so the logical assumption is that she wasn't. Further, the truly sensitive stuff in the memo was about INR's disagreement with CIA on the uranium issue (the stuff Wilson wrote the OpEd about). In short, there was lots of leaking going on, but Libby had no great part in it.

I'll take that as a concession of the point I was making; you just don't like that Fitzgerald has the belief I attributed to him.

Oh, I believe he believes (believed?) it. It's just that he has no evidence to support it. (And it doesn't make any sense, and the leak actually came from Armitage, and he didn't bother checking. If it weren't for Woodward's tape . . .)