OVP. Ari Fleischer's testimony in the prosecution of Scooter Libby rightly grabbed the headlines, but for my money the most intriguing moment in yesterday's proceedings came during the prosecution's questioning of Cathie Martin, Vice President Cheney's press flack, on redirect. The prosecution elicited testimony that Martin was not made aware by Cheney and Libby of three key conversations Libby had with the New York Times's Judith Miller, at least one of which was conducted at the directive of Cheney. Martin also was not told of the highly unusual, secret declassification of parts of the October 2002 NIE on Iraq that Libby and Cheney testified was carried out by President Bush and conveyed to Libby by Vice President Cheney so that Libby could leak the NIE to Miller on July 8.
The specific point of this line of questioning was to rebut the defense suggestion that the fact that the information about Plame nowhere figured in the talking points the OVP used to push back against Joe Wilson, and the fact that Martin didn't consider Plame part of the story, meant that for Libby the information was trivial and therefore eminently the sort of thing Libby might innocently forget or become confused about when questioned under oath.
The unmistakable implication, however, is of larger significance: the alternative explanation the prosecution is providing is that while OVP overall did not use the Plame information, the vice president of the United States and his right hand man were carrying out a separate, compartmentalized effort using sensitive information about Plame and targeting neoconservatives' favorite MSM reporter with it.
This raises a question emerging about the trial: Is it possible to read the testimony and documentary evidence introduced by the prosecution as something like the closest equivalent we will get to a final report, at least with regard to the conduct of the OVP, of the sort we used to get from independent counsels -- which Fitzgerald has expressly declared himself unauthorized to produce?
As for why, if I am giving an accurate summary of the prosecution's theory of Libby's conduct, Fitzgerald did not bring charges on Cheney and Libby's underlying conduct, we are likely to see one of the several reasons in action today as Judith Miller takes the stand. She was at best a minimally cooperative witness, essentially offering the grand jury only what she had to while remaining consistent with the notes of her three conversations with Libby in June-July 2003 that she was compelled to turn over to the investigation.
--Jeff Lomonaco
