Libby: Don't Release Grand Jury Tapes:The Washington Post reports: "Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is fighting to keep his grand jury testimony about the leak of a CIA operative's name from being released and broadcast in the media.
Libby's grand jury testimony _ the sworn statements he gave to investigators about his conversations with Vice President Dick Cheney and journalists _ is at the heart of his perjury trial. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald plans to play hours of recordings of that testimony in court next week to bolster his case that Libby lied and obstructed the investigation.
Trial evidence is normally public and all exhibits in Libby's case have been made public so far. Even though Fitzgerald successfully fought to get Libby's full grand jury testimony admitted into evidence, Libby's attorneys say the audiotapes should not be released outside the courtroom...."
Brent Budowsky: The Cheney Trial, Within The Libby Trial: "Note: for six years I was one of the original writers of the CIA Identities Law working for its orignal sponsor, Senator Lloyd Bentsen.
For the judge and jury, it is the Libby trial.
For America and American politics, it is the Dick Cheney trial and the stakes are far higher than reported in the media.
What has emerged in evidence so far, is not surprising, but it is astonishing. Vice-President Cheney was so deeply involved and obsessed with discrediting Joe Wilson that the impact and implications are enormous and underestimated....
[...]
My theory, with substantial evidence to back it up, is that the danger of Joe Wilson was not the damage that Wilson's view did to the Administration policy. It was the danger that Wilson's work would unravel a long term, well planned, highly deceptive campaign that preceded Joe's involvement to deceive the country to drive us to war.
Prediction: major plea bargaining either has begun, or will begin, before the verdict and watch out if Libby sings in a plea deal.
Prediction: the original defense argument that Libby was a fall guy for others, would only anger and inflame the judge and jury. It is no defense to say that others might have committed similar or related crimes and that is the impression this argument created.
Watch this: the sequence of events that could be explosive includes a) the original Cheney deposition to Fitzgerald, then b) testimony on the record of extensive and absurd involvement by the Vice President to the micro-level on the attack against Wilson, leading to c) Cheney's testimony in the trial if it happens.
The prosecutor and jury will compare what Cheney said in the deposition, what facts emerged in the trial, and Cheney's testimony at trial. Do not be surprised if the word pardon appears in the press, though the reaction would be as strong as the Saturday Night Massacre in the Nixon years.
The Surprise: what will shock people will be when the Senate Intelligence Committee releases its report on pre-war intelligence, which was covered up by the Republican Committee before the elections.
The Senate report will, I predict, show major deceptions that well preceded the events in the Wilson case. This will put the whole case in context. It will turn the spotlight on the misrepresentations prior to Wilson, that will explain the obsessive attack of Cheney and Libby against Wilson.
Fasten your seat belts...."
Libby: Don't Release Grand Jury Tapes:
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