The Political Chase

Scooter Libby’s Media Trial

Remember Scooter Libby’s lawyers saying they would have a jury trial and not a trial in the media? My, my how Bob Woodward can change things. What do these statements look like to you?

While neither statement appears to factually change Fitzgerald’s contention that Libby lied and impeded the leak investigation, the Libby legal team plans to use Woodward’s testimony to try to show that Libby was not obsessed with unmasking Plame and to raise questions about the prosecutor’s full understanding of events. Until now, few outside of Libby’s legal team have challenged the facts and chronology of Fitzgerald’s case.

Libby’s lawyers have asked whether Fitzgerald will correct his statement that Libby was the first administration official to leak information about Plame to a reporter. Fitzgerald’s spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment. But a source close to the probe said there is no reason for the prosecutor to correct the record, because he specifically said at his news conference Oct. 28 that Libby was the "first official known" at that time to have provided such information to a reporter.

[T]he Libby legal team seized on Woodward’s testimony, calling it a "bombshell" with the potential to upend Fitzgerald’s case. After spending yesterday at the courthouse reviewing documents for the case, Libby emerged with one of this lawyers, Theodore V. Wells Jr., by his side. Wells said Libby is "very grateful to Bob Woodward for coming forward and telling the truth."

A few hours earlier Wells issued a markedly more pointed statement, saying, "Woodward’s disclosures are a bombshell to Mr. Fitzgerald’s case" that show at least one accusation to be "totally inaccurate." The Libby legal team plans to call a number of journalists to testify in part to show Libby was not determined to blow Plame’s cover.

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