Libby's team continue to saying things the Bush administration can't want to hear:
In a court filing late Wednesday, the lawyers said the criminal case against Libby stemming from the leak of a CIA officer's identity is much broader and no longer deals solely with Cheney's former chief of staff, as Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald contends. Meaning they intend to pursue a defense that escalates, rather than isolates, the Plame leak into and throughout the administration.
Not good news. What the Libby people want:
Fitzgerald and Libby's lawyers are fighting over a defense request for a wide assortment of documents that may be at the White House, State Department and the CIA. Libby's lawyers said Fitzgerald has collected hundreds of thousands of documents but given the defense only about six boxes, or 14,000 pages of records.
The defense attorneys want records related to Wilson's trip to Niger because they said they may call him as a hostile witness.
Libby's lawyers also want documents that may explain how Bush decided to declassify portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iraq had tried to obtain uranium for a nuclear weapon from African nations. And who's next to be dragged into the court case? Witnesses Libby's people say will go to the heart of a credibility contest between Libby, members of the media, and his former bosses:
The defense attorneys said the Libby's defense will center on whose memory is accurate and whose versions of conversations can be trusted _ Libby's, or those of reporters and other government officials.
In Wednesday's filing, Libby's lawyers focused on three potential witnesses: State Department official Marc Grossman; former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer; and White House senior adviser Karl Rove. The idea that Fleischer may have been the (or one of the) leaker(s) has been raised before, particularly since so many of the damning events happened in the lead-up to his departure fromthe White House. He is thought to have seen a top secret memo circulated on board Air Force One that contained Valerie Plame's name and identity, and he is known to have received at least one phonecall from Robert Novak before his piece outing Plame was published.
According to Fitzgerald, Libby at some point told Fleischer who Plame was, and that the fact was not well known. Since it was Ari's job to talk to reporters every day, it's thought that he might have been Novak's original source, or one of the two, and that that knowledge may have made its way around via his big mouth.
My guess: If Fleischer is called into the grand jury, he'll sing like a bird, and perhaps implicate others.
Stay tuned...
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Tags: Plamegate, Karl Rove, Valerie Plame, Politics, Libby, Bush, Cheney, Rove, Ari Fleischer, Patrick Fitzgerald, Fitzmas,
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