Obstruction of Justice?
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Libby Did Not Tell Grand Jury About Key Conversation
In two appearances before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative’s name, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, did not disclose a crucial conversation that he had with New York Times reporter Judith Miller in June 2003 about the operative, Valerie Plame, according to sources with firsthand knowledge of his sworn testimony.
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Libby forgot a conversation he had with Judy Miller specifically about Plame, and all the sudden this is a minor detail? Please. You should be ashamed.
Explanation? “Forgot.”
The article cited in the post has a serious mistake:
blockquote>Wilson had returned only recently from a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was covertly attempting to buy enriched uranium from the African nation to build a nuclear weapon. Wilson reported back that the allegations were most likely the result of a hoax. But President Bush still cited the Niger allegations during his 2003 State of the Union address…
Wilson did not claim anything about documents being forged when he returned. Wilson had never even seen the documents, and they weren’t determined to be forgeries until months after the State of the Union Address.
Why would the author make such a mistake?
Yes, just like Cap Weinberger, the point is to ask so many questions with so much detail that the minute someone does not mention a meeting or a detail they forgot, off to the slammer! No matter if the individual had zilch to do with the alleged crime. This whole thing is a witchhunt -crock and I say that knowing Fitzgerald is an R.
Dugger
Witchhunt. Is that the new TP?
The article cited in the post has a serious mistake:
Wilson did not claim anything about documents being forged when he returned. Wilson had never even seen the documents, and they weren’t determined to be forgeries until months after the State of the Union Address.
Why would the author make such a mistake?
Wasn’t saying Cap was in the slammer (the point re Weinberger was his forgetting to mention some notes that were already in the Library of Congress) , but he was indicted and could have been sent there if not for pardon.
Dugger
JWG : Reporting it accurately might not make the story quite as sexy for those that wish to continue to run with it.
Cap? In the slammer?
When?
Trust me.
When you are called to give testimony in traffic court, much less Federal. You have gone over every detail in your head a hundred different ways until you have your thought outline, and prepared text. Your recollections crsytallize when your butt is potentially on the line. Your sphincter twitch compels you to create the most plausible escape routes for any question which might be asked that seems to contradict your testimony.
In short; you don’t forget what shoes you were wearing on the third Thursday in May, three years ago.
Lawyers ask micro questions because they are necessary to root out prevarication. There are a lot of lawyers who have, or have not passed the bar. They all know the game of evasion; ” I don’t recall……I have no knowledge……..
It’s a game of persistence, which, just like Casinos, favors the house when the game goes long.
Wasn t saying Cap was in the slammer (the point re Weinberger was his forgetting to mention some notes that were already in the Library of Congress)
Phew….it’s a good thing that case has absolutely nothing to do with this case. Otherwise, you might have accidentally had a point that needed to be addressed!
Thanks for saving us the time, Dugger!
In addition; I believe Weinberger was pardoned by Bush I (Bandar-Bush–there’s that sequence agian,)
Besides, Dugger, I thought you were one of those who thinks lying to a federal investigator is a serious crime.
Please refer back to my first comment:
Explanation? “Forgot.”
The indictment against Weinberger asserted that he did more than just “forget.” The indictment claims he actively concealed his voluminous daily notes about meetings where arms-for-hostages trades were discussed. The indictment also says those notes didn’t make it to the Library of Congress until after Cap left office.
At any rate, those notes aren’t the only thing Weinberger “forgot.” He also seemed to forget that he had been told about Prince Bandar bin Sultan (yes, the same Bandar) providing $25 million to the Contras. He forgot that he knew all about the Israeli proposal to send HAWK missles to Iran in exchange for American hostages. He forgot that there were high level discussions within the White House that the Israelis expected replacements for the missles they gave to Iran in exchange for those hostages.
Of course, one can see why he would have forgotten all this. The details were in those 1,700 pages of daily notes that he told the FBI he clearly remembered not taking.
At least, that’s what the indictment says. We’ll never know for sure, now, will we?
Quaker,
Besides, Dugger, I thought you were one of those who thinks lying to a federal investigator is a serious crime.
Not when it comes to Republicans…then it’s a ‘Witch hunt”. Remember Dugger spelled backwards is IOKIYAR.
Dugger –
It’s unbelievable. You have a magical ability to simply forget about who it is you’re talking about. What is it about a meeting between the Chief of Staff to the vice president and a senior reporter with the New York Times that strikes you as a minor detail, an obscure incident, a forgetable thing? You’re talking about two seasoned professionals who, by the very nature of their work, live and die by their contacts and the information they exchange with them. People in these positions don’t just forget a meeting here or there. Meetings and contacts are their professional life blood, they record each encounter, they take notes, they make a record. Now maybe Libby has a loose management style, maybe he doesn’t record every meeting or note every phone call. He isn’t a Hollywood agent, afterall, just the Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States. Of course, as such, Libby probably has a lot of meetings with people that then become subjects of grand juries, right? He can’t be expected to remember every meeting with every reporter that comes under investigation, can he? Semantic is right. I don’t care who you are, when you’re going into a grand jury or even a deposition you and your counsel sit down and go over everything that might come up. You prepare yourself, you bring in your secretary to go over your calendar, you reconstruct a timeline. In short, you get your story straight. If you forget something along the way, it’s because you decided it was in your best interest to forget something and then you hope to God no one asks you about it under oath. We all may find that, as per Quaker, your Weinberger comparison is more apt than even you think.
Quaker, An indictment can say anything. The first indictment was thrown out. The second was rushed through to be announced on the eve of an election. I guess you don’t find that suspicious. The notes were in the Library of Congress. Why would he try and lie if they were so available? Makes no sense and you know it. Nobody in a serious frame of mind claims Weinberger had anything to do with Iran Contra. At some point he got rattled, confusd or forgot. Lots and lots of testimoney. Two indictments and the guy had nothing to do with the crime. What good did that do anybody except partisans? And where did I say lying to a prosecutor is not serious? Be careful, no wishful interpreting.
frame,
You still believe that crap from the other post about how since a prosecutor from the same party, he won’t givw his targets hard time. Walsh?
Anyway. You simply state this because you wish it were true: “People in these positions don t just forget a meeting here or there.”
BS. Those guys have thousands of meetings. Now brilliant internet posters can look back after the fact and say nmeeting # 932 was very important and should have been remembered, but it doesn’t work that way for people with jobs like Libby etc. One might foget the context of a meeting or thew meeting itself. Your mere outside assertion won’t hack it.
Dugger
Just two sentences back:
Remember, Dugger–it’s not the dealing arms to terrorist regimes, it’s the lying.
Quaker,
That didn’t make sense. Those two sentences of mine are not counter intuititive. You surely acknowledge something can be wrong, serioulsy so,a nd and not a crime? Right?
Dugger
Of course I do.
You, however, seem to have some problems of consistency in this regard. You remind the habitues of this forum with some regularity that Mr. Clinton did not “forget” the ways in which a tubby intern demonstrated her affection and industriousness. Instead, you describe that oversight in the most unflattering terms, giving it names like “lying” or “perjury.”
Why not extend Mr. Clinton the same generosity of spirit you bestow upon brother Weinberger? Isn’t it possible that the former President just forgot about a few friendly encounters the same way Mr. Weinberger seems to have “forgotten” $25 million dollars?
Nor, according to the indictment, did Weinberger.
Quakie,
You havn’t been paying attention to my BS lately. I have in fact said several times that what Clinton did was not all that bad, in terms of harming real people (except PJ). But you understand that, different from Cap, Clinton was the focus of the investigation, not a mere sidelines participant. I don’t like these investigations to begin with, but they are doubly bad when they require observers etc to give reams of testimone and then indict them for some gaffe. And to my knowledge, Clinton hasn’t claimed forgetfulness. However, after listening to some Bozo spout off endlessly about the Bushitler etc and how Bubba’s misfortune was just getting a bravo juniper, I see nothing wrong with correcting the record re Judge Wright’s finding.
Dugger
Which, as I recall, was contempt, not perjury.
Let me acquaint you with a modest aphorism that has recently gained currency among us portsiders: It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup. Even the indictment against Weinberger allows that he advised against any arm-for-hostages exchanges. However, that indictment also alleges that Weinberger actively engaged in concealing those activities by others. Far from being a simple case of forgetfulness, Weinberger was accused of making statements that were materially false. Writing it off as forgetfulness is putting the best possible face on it.
I’ll admit that I have trouble remembering what my wife asked me to pick up at the supermarket just 15 minutes ago. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a long list of things that happened in the past several years.
But then, I’m rarely party to discussions of violations of federal law. That, I think I’d remember.
Quaker,
If you think the cover up is # 1 and the crime #2, I’d say you have it bass ackwards. What was being investigated was Iran Contra. That was the target crime. Not Weinberger’s memory. How do you explain, if he was this villainous cover up artist, he had his notes in the library of Congress. Weinberger’s lawyer told them whre they were.
Dugger
You’re fixated on one count of the five-count indictment.
Besides, the notes, although in the LoC, were still under the personal control of Weinberger, so allegeth the indictment.
Arguing blowjobs vs. lying again?
According to the indictment, Weinberger didn’t just “forget” 1,700 pages of notes, he said he specifically recalled not taking any notes. Plus the forgotten $25 million to Bandar bin Sultan.