Libby Defends Releasing Fitzgerald Letter

[sabra]

http://www.localnewsleader.com/elytimes/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=179703

Libby Defends Releasing Fitzgerald Letter

WASHINGTON - Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney ‘s indicted former chief of staff on Friday defended their decision to release a letter to the news media before it was filed in federal court, and they urged the judge in the CIA leak case not to react by issuing a gag order.

Libby‘s lawyers rushed out the letter to the news media because it was advantageous to their client. In it, Fitzgerald acknowledged making a mistake in one of his earlier court filings.

Libby‘s legal team expressed concern that such restrictions "would embroil the court and the parties in First Amendment litigation with news organizations that would distract us from the important issues" in the case.

Despite angering the judge with the letter‘s release, Libby‘s legal team called the disclosure "appropriate." The Libby team sent the letter to reporters the night of April 11. The letter appeared on the court docket the next afternoon.

[mike_c]

1. this demonstrates that the Libby defense is willfully attempting...

...to conduct a trial by press release and influence the court by influencing public opinion. That justifies a gag order, IMO.

[Robb]

3. Bingo. n/t

[coffeenap]

4. Maybe they want a gag order and as many other "issues" as poss. nt

[rzemanfl]

5. A gag order is exactly what they want! It would keep everything

quiet until after the November elections. Libby is still a Bushco tool.

[H2O Man]

6. No it wouldn't.

Their court filings would still be public, except a few that are sealed. It would only stop Team Libby from trying to spin things on the sly.

[rzemanfl]

13. I was expecting the press to be included in the gag order, which

can be done in "exceptional circumstances" in a criminal case one that applied only to the parties would be okay.

[WhiteTara]

10. oh, and it's going to backfire

he can try, but he is going to go down. Grand juries aren't stupid people. To be there, they become dedicated because why waste their time on something trivial. Burn Libby Burn.

[napi21]

2. Now, now guys, you know you shouldn't pi** off the judge, don't ya?

If you didn't know that, I'm thinkin you're about to be educated!

[truthisfreedom]

7. *yawn*

[Orangepeel]

8. obvious statement of the year

"Libby‘s lawyers rushed out the letter to the news media because it was advantageous to their client."

Well, duh.

[Peace Patriot]

9. What was the mistake that Fizgerald acknowledged in his earlier filings?

It sounds rather routine. Lawyers make filing mistakes, and do typos, and forget to put on cover sheets, and this and that, all the time. Then they file corrections. It's no big deal. Then they are somewhat at the mercy of the judge, is all--and the judge certainly doesn't want to issue rulings on uncorrected docs or faulty secretarial-type, or even faulty legal-type, information--ESPECIALLY with an accused's freedom at risk. Courts usually have some flexibility in this regard. And I doubt--extremely--that Fitzgerald is the type to abuse such flexibility.

But the substance of the mistake might tell us something about Mr. Fall Guy's intentions.

[Kagemusha]

11. About the exact category stuff from the NIE that Libby leaked was

Like, stuff being part of the body of the text as opposed to the summary of claims. The summary of claims was declassified at the urging of Hadley later, IIRC. This would make what Libby leaked sound more benign.

I could be wrong but, that's the minutiae the mistake concerned.

Note that it's not probable Fitzgerald has the entire NIE. When you don't have the source document, it's easy to make mistakes about representations people have made to you in testimony.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

12. I doubt seriously that Fitz doesn't have the entire NIE.