You Want a Motive? Libby’s Secret Mission
Big Media Matt and Brendan Nyhan and Tom Maguire are puzzling over what motive Bush might have for commuting Libby’s sentence. Since Maguire was helpful enough to quote from Team USA, I’ll offer an explanation offered by Team Libby. (I could point to a number of Fitzgerald quotes about clouds and VicePresidents that Maguire is overlooking, but I find that Jeffress isbetter at soundbite than Fitzgerald.) In his closing argument, Bill Jeffress described the events surrounding Libby’s July 8 meeting with Judy as a "secret mission" known only to Bush, Cheney, and Libby.
The prosecution has focused on this July 8th meetingwith Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. They said, could Mr. Libby, how, if he was so busy, did he have two hours to go out and have lunch with Ms. Miller on July 8th. The reason he took two hours tohave lunch with Ms. Miller is that Mr. Libby understood that the Vice Presidentof the United States had directed him to go meet with Ms. Miller and that the President, PresidentBush was behind it too.
[snip]
I mean this is basically a secret mission that three people in the world know, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Scooter Libby. Because he goes and does what he is asked todo by the President and the Vice President and meets with her for two hours,suddenly they’re trying to find something bad in that because, in Ms. Miller’snotes at the lunch, she’s got the word WINPAC. [my emphasis]
That’s the defense lawyer speaking, mind you. That’s a pretty good start for a motive, don’t you think? After all, by lying and claiming he first learned about Plame from Tim Russert two days after his "secret mission," Libby pretended it was impossible to have leaked Plame’s identity to Judy Miller during his "secret mission." By lying and obstructing justice, Libby hid his "secret mission"–in which Cheney and Bush were participants–from any scrutiny.