The Libby trial from firedoglake

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The first opening statement was given today by the prosecution, with Patrick Fitzgerald leading off for the government. His opening was concise, very tightly constructed, and left no doubt that he was very clear about the reasons for which he sought an indictment for I. Lewis Libby from the federal grand jury for the five count indictment returned last October. Fitzgerald's style presents as someone who puts together the pieces of the puzzle until they fit together as a tight whole — and he certainly tried to do that with his opening this morning.

The stage was set from the start of the opening with regard to pushback against Amb. Joseph Wilson, whose op-ed in the New York Times (and his earlier unattributed quotes to other journalists) went to the heart of the credibility of the Bush Administration's foundation — or lack thereof — for starting the war in Iraq. Fitzgerald walked the jury back to the "sixteen words" in the President's State of the Union address on January 28, 2003 — and the fact that Amb. Joseph Wilson's allegations brought the possiblity that the President lied to the American public in that speech right into the living rooms of average Americans.

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Fitzgerald walked the jurors through the five felony charges — obstruction of justice, two counts of false statements, and two counts of perjury — and the elements of each of these charges that the government is required to prove. Fitzgerald then went through the expected evidence and testimony from various government witnesses by placing each into context on a timeline that very methodically, and effectively, laid out the government case against Libby.

There was a very interesting new tidbit about the July 12, 2003, flight on Air Force II, on which Scooter Libby and Cathie Martin (Cheney's then press secretary), seated at the back of the plane, discussed some questions that Matt Cooper of Time had for the Vice President about issues of credibility on Iraq. Libby then went to the front of the plane and discussed these issues privately with Cheney, and returned to talk with Cathie Martin with Cheney's handwritten notes on how the Vice President wanted Libby — not Martin — to respond to the press inquiries. That Cheney was directly involved in crafting specific messaging that he then directed his Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor to disseminate to the press is, to say the least, quite unusual and interesting. (And the mechanics in how the discussion occurred are very specific and new details.)

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Ted Wells provided the opening statement for the defense today. Wells is a very skilled trial attorney, who had an effective opening line for the jurors from the start: "I am Ted Wells. And I speak for Scooter Libby." That set the tone from the start for Wells, who proceeded through a very lengthy opening statement which took several hours today — going through a number of issues and highlighting specific weak points for witnesses that will likely be key to the prosecution's case.

Wells began with a fairly well used defense attorney strategy in cases where the primary evidence will be via witness testimony and not through a lot of physical evidence (for example, forensic evidence, contemporaneous documents, and things like that). The "he said, she said" argument gets to the question of who the jurors will find most credible — and can be very convincing in terms of argument when you have few witnesses, most of whom are far from credible.

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http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/23/libby-trial-openings-and-on-to-witnesse