First, let me say that I find it interesting that Card and Scottie are on the list. Remember, they both resigned about the same time. Card was involved in the slow-walking of evidence requests, giving time for the disappearance of 250 emails.

No one has Duberstein on their lists? The guy who set up the Novak/Armitage meeting?

Any spec on what Thompson will be called to testify about? And Thompson, but no Ashcroft, even though Ashcroft was running the show through all the initial reports of FBI concerns.

Interesting list.

Witnesses, and names that may be mentioned. We still haven’t seen a list of witnesses, except it’s pretty certain that Libby and Cheney will be on the defense, and Russert, Cooper and Miller for the prosecution.

Paul Valleley is on the list because Libby wants to raise the point that Wilson mentioned Plame, in other words, that Wilson himself may have been (probably was, IMO) a leaker.

Is the entire questionnaire available?

Toronto Star has an article. Is the VP going to be subpeoned and have to testify in a criminal trial and what does that mean legally. Congressmen are banned for five years after being served by Plame.

Important detail for scheduling, emptywheel, if we can trust this AP account today, as follows:

â€Walton expects jury selection to take two to three days and has scheduled opening arguments to begin next Monday. The trial is expected to last four to six weeks.â€

Found that in Christy’s link to MSNBC’s AP photo of Libby that was in Pachacutec’s first live-blogging thread today at FDL. Wanted you and looseheadprop to see it since your schedules are tight with regard to opening statements day. [I thought Walton might just go ahead and declare Monday the earliest date for opening, and this seems to confirm that he did in fact do so at some point recently.]

Isn’t this the list to see if potential jurors have any relationship to people involved or potentially involved in the case to screen them out? That is standard practice.

I didn’t much like that question 17 in the voir dire, seemed like it was demanding that the jurors accept the defense theories of memory. But I’m no lawyer.

Tough voir dire question: the Cheney one.
I could honestly answer genewrally that I could give a member of the Bush administration a fair trial. But how do you answer the Cheney question? He’s been in the news for 7 years. If you pay any attention to the news one would have questions about his honesty – ie: variance between his pronouncements on anything and reported facts.
What would constitute a jury who has no opinion on the man?

I believe I am an open-minded person and would listen carefully. But I’d be blown off a jury so fast on this question. I could say I’d have an open mind but would have to say he has a history of at least saying things other than what other people are saying and that I would have questions…….

– I didn’t much like that question 17 in the voir dire, seemed like it was demanding that the jurors accept the defense theories of memory. –

Those questions are phrased in such absolute terms that I doubt anybody would disagree with them.

In the general sense, any one of us has probably switched sides, mistaken attribution, and otherwise have flaws in memory. That’s one reason why humans take written notes or otherwise reduce material to tangible form.

The trial, on the other hand, is quite fact specific. What was the defendant presented with, how important was â€Mrs. Wilson works at the CIA†to him, and do you believe him when he says he forgot?

Carolyn,

I’d go down on the news question. I mean really, no access to TNH, etc?

Perhaps a stupid question, but is the POTUS not going to be mentioned at all during the trial (or is it just assumed that any potential juror has an opinion on the president)?

Pretty sure Dickerson will not be a witness, and is probably on the list for key communications with Matt Cooper. Also, he will probably come up in the defense’s cross-examination of Fleischer, I’d imagine.

I am really curious about Richard Hohlt. He is a Republican lobbyist. What connection to the case does he have?

WO

There are several people who might be on the list whose identity I don’t know: the other 4 people who were willing to testify that Joe outed Valerie. And Joe’s friend, to whom Novak blabbed Plame’s identity.

I thought we did know that Sanger hadn’t been subpoenaed. Of course, I’d love if he had been.

1X2X6 may be a new angle on the early stuff, given the mention of Scottie and Andy Card (and Bartlett and Levine). In other words, there may be some detailed description of the early investigation. Imagine, if you will, that DOJ said â€Investigate Novak leak,†and then 1X2X6 came out, and then investigation switched to â€Investigate all 6 potential leaks.†I could see this whole line of questioning being part of Libby’s apparent effort to declare the false statements immaterial. And that may be why Thompson is on there.

Here are some interesting quotes from a Sanger-Risen July 12 article.

In a recent interview, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that by the time he got to a meeting that Mr. Tenet attended at the C.I.A. three nights after the president’s Jan. 28 speech, Mr. Powell’s staff had already dismissed any thought of using the Africa claim to bolster the case the secretary was to make a few days later at the United Nations.

[snip]

In recent days, the C.I.A.’s spokesman said Mr. Tenet had never personally approved Mr. Bush’s use of the African uranium example in the speech. But Dan Bartlett, one of Mr. Bush’s closest aides, who drafted parts of the address, said in an interview that the wording had been ’’cleared at the highest levels of the C.I.A.’’ which would seem to mean Mr. Tenet or his deputy, John McLaughlin.

[snip]

There is still a dispute over what exactly was said in their conversations. Mr. Foley was said to recall that before the speech, Mr. Joseph called him to ask about putting into the speech a reference to reports that Iraq was trying to buy hundreds of tons of yellowcake from Niger. Mr. Foley replied that the C.I.A. was not sure that the information was right.

Mr. Joseph then came back to Mr. Foley and pointed out that the British had already included the information in a report. Mr. Foley said yes, but noted that the C.I.A. had told the British that they were not sure that the information was correct. Mr. Joseph then asked whether it was accurate that the British reported the information. Mr. Foley said yes.

In other words, I wonder if the 16 words is going to be more of a big deal than we know.

Yes, one possibility is that Libby is going to use all of this to bolster his argument that the OVP just wanted to get the truth out on the merits while their integrity was under attack by the State Department and the CIA, witness the inaccurate coverage in the press, including Sanger and Risen’s pick-up both on Powell and on the Joseph-Foley dispute. Risen might make a convenient witness too since Sanger might make an inconvenient one, depending on how Walton rules (or has ruled, for all I know) on Libby’s motion in limine to exclude pre-July 8 NIE disclosure info.

Perhaps surprisingly, NBC News’s former president, Neal Shapiro, isn’t on the list.

is this Jeff?

GUEST STAR OF THE LIBBY TRIAL: CHENEY. Jury selection began today in the trial of I. Lewis â€Scooter†Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney, on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements. Opening statements are expected early next week. (I’ll be doing a few posts from the trial here on Tapped.) This trial is the first and, for all we know, the only fruit of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s three-year-long inquiry into how the cover of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was blown and whether anyone violated the law in doing so.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton has been emphatic in keeping the trial focused on Libby’s alleged lying about his conversations with reporters Tim Russert, Judith Miller and Matt Cooper in July 2003, which Fitzgerald has charged was part of Libby’s effort to obstruct the investigation. Despite this narrow framing of the issues at trial, however, it will be a dramatic public event for at least two reasons.

First, the events about which Libby is accused of lying involve the intersection of top government officials and elite DC reporters as they negotiated the prewar intel fiasco that turned out to be the beginning of the unraveling of the Bush administration. The trial will not be a forum for debating that fiasco; but it will be an occasion for publicly revisiting it.

Second, we are going to get unprecedented insight into the workings of the most powerful and most secretive Office of Vice President in history. As we just learned this morning, there are fifteen present or former members of the vice president’s office who are likely to be witnesses or to come up in the course of the trial. The most spectacular, of course, will be Cheney himself, whom the defense has indicated it will call as a witness. We may in fact learn more from key Cheney aides like David Addington and Cathie Martin. One of the central questions about the trial is just how Fitzgerald intends to portray Libby’s acting on behalf of Cheney. Information from pretrial motions has revealed a vice president intensively focused on responding to Joe Wilson’s incendiary July 6 op-ed accusing the Bush administration of twisting the prewar intel. Cheney took unusual steps, such as directing media strategy himself, and in that context instructed Libby to leak classified information to reporters. Is Fitzgerald going to seek to show that one of the reasons Libby lied was to cover up the fact that Cheney directed him to leak Plame’s CIA identity? Or is he going to suggest that Libby leaked information about Plame on his own — and lied in order to prevent political embarrassment to the White House and to keep his own job? Either way, we are about to learn a lot more about how the vice president’s office responded to a crisis of integrity from which it never recovered.

–Jeff Lomonaco

No Cliff May?

From a Sept 2006 Toensing piece in the WSJ:

During the investigation Mr. Fitzgerald learned that a former New York Times reporter, Cliff May, twice told the FBI that, prior to Mr. Novak’s column, he had heard in an offhand way from a nongovernment employee that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, a clear indication that her employment was known on the street. Ditto columnist Hugh Sidey, who wrote that Ms. Plame’s name was â€knocking around in the sub rosa world . . . for a long time.â€

Hugh Sidey is not on the list for other reasons, primarily, no one wants to host a seance.

I think Sanger is still an open question – just because the Times has not reported his being supoenaed does not mean it is not happening.

Excellent suggestion re Hohlt (donations) and Fierce (background).

Here is more than you want to know about Cliff May – he was at the RNC from 1997 to 2001; Fierce was at RNC from 1993-95 but stayed in touch with Rep politics afterwards (I checked the FEC database.)

Could be either or both, or neither. But I bet those two are on the list for Vallely-type reasons.

Check out picture #7, do we have a story here?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..=undefined

Another excellent article by Mr. Lomonaco can be found at The American Prospect.

â€Discovery Phaseâ€
10/13/06 Jeff Lomonaco

A few questions guys.

This is looking beyond the Libby trial.

1) Did Cheney have the authority under Bush’s Executive Order to declassify material, specifically – Plame’s cover status and portions of the National Intelligence Estimates?

2) If Cheney did not have the authority or the proper authority, did he break Federal Laws for outing Agents and/or Bush’s Executive Order? If so, what could happen next?

3) If Bush retroactively declasified the same material leaked by Cheney, which at the time was still classified, because Bush knew Cheney lacked any authority to declassify or became aware that Cheney lacked proper authority, then could Bush be named as a Co-Conspirator charged under the same Federal Law regarding outing intellenge agents?

Can a President violate his own Executive Order regarding the declassification procedure under the National Security Act when the reasoning behind the disclassification itself is not in the name of National Security?

Quick Question

I suspect we’d very quickly get into Constitutional issues. Fitz could pursue it if he made the case strongly enough in this trial that Libby was trying to hide such activity. But it would be difficult to do without really winning the PR battle in this trial. And given the makeup of SCOTUS, I’m not sure how productive this would be. Though who knows? It might be a good chance for Anthony Kennedy to restore some balance to our government.

Pow Wow,
Thanks for looking out for me. Actually, after the dismal amount of progress yesterday, I’m not sure they will even get to Opening Statements on Monday.

Walton must be pissed. Unless they make up some lost time today and tomorrow, this is a lot of slippage for so early in the trial

From Barnes & Noble-Tenet’s publisher has backed off the publishing date from January to March for his version.

Where did you get the Potential Witness (and Mention) List?

I love it when the Post does this! Speaking of a potential juror, they drop this in the middle of today’s report from the courtroom, as though it were just well-known, confirmation of something I’ve suspected:

And he had gone to parties with The Post’s Walter Pincus, another defense witness.

More on Walter’s friend from MSNBC

That’s about what I’ve been suggesting. They’ll say Woodward was Russert, Kessler was someone else, Judy was earlier and yadda yadda. That’s probably their best shot, too, assuming the June 23 Woodward conversation happened before the June 23 Judy conversation.

Pincus and Allen’s 10-4-03 WaPo article on the exposure of Brewster-Jennings

â€Leak of Agent’s Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firmâ€
WaPo 10/4/03

polly

Don’t forget our favorite reporter Cliff May, also absent from the list. I can’t imagine why. Some righties have expressed full confidence that May and his source were going to be a part of the defense’s takedown of Wilson.

Your reminder of that old 2003 article reminded me of the early coverage, which you’ve repeatedly drawn attention to, of the pursuit of the RNC in this stuff. That sort of disappeared, but I wonder if somehow that is where Hohlt and Fierce fit. I’m still curious which side will be using them, if that’s so, to tell its narrative of the early stages of the investigation.

Yeah, I saw Maguire mentioned Cliff May upthread.

On the RNC connection, Waas had this in October 2003

Of particular interest, the two sources said, were contacts between White House officials and the Republican National Committee during the burgeoning scandal. Probers are interested in how the Bush administration and party officials strategized to stymie negative press and to counter public criticism by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV of the leak of his wife’s status as a CIA officer.

Waas 10/29/03

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