"Libby trial may embarrass Bush by focusing on manipulation of intel"

[Bluebear]

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide are suggesting they may delve deeply at his criminal trial into infighting among the White House, the CIA and the State Department over pre-Iraq war intelligence failures.

New legal documents raise the potential that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's trial could turn into a political embarrassment for the Bush administration by focusing on whether the White House manipulated intelligence to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

In a court filing late Friday night, Libby's legal team said that in June and July 2003, the status of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame was at most a peripheral issue to "the finger-pointing that went on within the executive branch about who was to blame" for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.

"If the jury learns this background information" about finger-pointing, "and also understands Mr. Libby's additional focus on urgent national security matters, the jury will more easily appreciate how Mr. Libby may have forgotten or misremembered ... snippets of conversation" about Plame's status, the defense lawyers said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/18/AR2006031800587.html

:popcorn:

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Well it should

And what evidence is introduced to that end should be kept in a file for war crimes charges against other ranking members of the Regime.

[gratuitous]

2. Interesting defense

"You know, we were so involved in so many illegal activities that I couldn't for the life of me remember if I was really outing a spy during wartime. There was just so much corruption that, you know, I just lost track."

I remember seeing John Dean in the 1970s talking about the Watergate break-in. He talked about how Liddy and his pals even put a bug on the phone of some low-level underling. Why did they bother tapping that phone? Simple. They had one more bug to plant, and there was one more phone to plant it on. Criminal enterprises, whether it's the Nixon White House, the Bush White House, or the Mafia, aren't necessarily intricate, well thought out operations. Sometimes, the criminality is just so rampant it spills over.

[tulsakatz]

5. that reminds me of a line from All the President's Men

When Deep Throat said, 'the truth is these are not very bright guys'.

[BuyingThyme]

3. I see. Treason is an "embarrassment" now. Fantastic.

[Spinzonner]

4. Trying to blackmail the WH into a pardon ?