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Scooter Libby's Media Records Request Considered
A lawyer for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a federal judge Tuesday that the former White House aide's right to a fair trial outweighs any special protection claimed by media organizations touched by the CIA leak investigation. "We are in a case that for better or worse, the press is right in the middle of," said William Jeffress, one of Libby's lawyers. During a three-hour hearing in U.S. District Court, Jeffress debated lawyers for NBC News, The New York Times and Time magazine over subpoenas seeking access to e-mails, drafts of news articles and reporters' notes that he said are essential to Libby's defense. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton was skeptical of many of the defense's requests, saying he respects "the important role the press plays in society." He did not rule immediately.
Instead, the judge said he will privately review some of the media materials Libby wants before deciding whether to order that they be turned over.
Story Continues Below Jeffress wants to use the records during Libby's trial early next year to cast doubt on the prosecutor's claims that Libby lied about outing a CIA officer to punish her husband for criticizing the Bush administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq. The materials include: uncensored portions of two notebooks that former New York Times reporter Judith Miller kept during the period in which she talked to Libby in 2003, a transcript of a tape-recorded interview Times reporters did with Miller for an article the paper published in October 2005 about her role in the case and a document that Time magazine has that refers to Valerie Plame but not to her CIA affiliation. Libby, 55, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned about Plame and what he subsequently told reporters about her. Syndicated columnist Robert Novak named Plame in a column on July 14, 2003, eight days after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war. The CIA sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Saddam Hussein's government had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the reports. But the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. Libby's indictment grew out of conversations he had with Miller, NBC's Tim Russert and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper in June and July 2003, a two-month period in which the White House, according to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, was mounting a campaign to undermine Wilson's charges about the Iraq war. The key to Libby's defense is whose memory is correct - Libby's or the three reporters. The media lawyers dismissed the defense's subpoenas as "a fishing expedition" and told Walton that Jeffress had failed to prove the relevancy of his requests. "My duty is not to prove anything," Jeffress said, referring to the requirement that the government must prove a defendant's guilt. Jeffress said his duty is to raise reasonable doubt with the jury. For Libby, that means raising questions about whether Miller, Russert and Cooper could have learned about Plame and her CIA connection from other reporters at their respective news organizations or government officials besides Libby. Jeffress also wanted one page of undated notes kept by NBC's Andrea Mitchell that seemed to be of a conversation she had with Libby. He said the notes would bolster Libby's contention that he talked with several reporters and never mentioned Plame or her CIA status. Jeffress said the defense will call six or seven reporters who will say Libby never brought up Plame in their conversations with him. Walton seemed to accept an NBC lawyer's argument that Mitchell's notes wouldn't help Libby. The judge also indicated the defense will be limited in attacking Wilson, if Libby calls him as a witness at trial as his lawyers vow they will. Walton said it is irrelevant whether Wilson was right or wrong in his criticism of the administration. What matters is that Libby and the White House were determined to respond to Wilson's accusations, Walton said.
© 2006 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
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