{"id":9708,"date":"2007-01-23T14:50:03","date_gmt":"2007-01-23T19:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9708.html"},"modified":"2007-01-23T14:50:03","modified_gmt":"2007-01-23T19:50:03","slug":"libby-trial-starts-with-a-bang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/libby-trial-starts-with-a-bang\/","title":{"rendered":"Libby trial starts with a bang"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like Kevin Drum<\/a>, I wasn’t expecting too many fireworks from Scooter Libby’s criminal trial. These showdowns are often anti-climatic, at least as far as dramatic you-can’t-handle-the-truth moments go, and while the evidence presented was sure to be fascinating, day-to-day developments would likely be fascinating only to the lawyers.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought. With jury selection finally having wrapped up, the trial began in earnest this morning with opening statements. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald described a White House plot<\/a> to beat back Joe Wilson, leading Libby to cover up and lie about his role in leaking Valerie Plame’s identity. Libby’s attorney, meanwhile, also said there was a White House plot, just a different kind<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Defense lawyer Ted Wells] told the jury that the White House went all out to defend [Karl] Rove against accusations he revealed Mrs. Wilson’s identity, but did not protect Libby in the same way, leading Libby to suspect that he was being singled out for blame in the matter. “[Mr. Libby] was concerned about being the scapegoat,” Wells said. “Mr. Libby said to the vice president, ‘People in the White House are trying to set me up, people in the White House are trying to make me a scapegoat.’ People in the White House are trying to protect a man named Karl Rove, the president’s right-hand man<\/i>,” Wells said.<\/p>\n

Wells said he will present a note written by Dick Cheney himself about a conversation with Libby. In part, the note says, “not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.” Wells continued: “The person to be protected was Karl Rove…Karl Rove was President Bush’s right-hand person. His fate was important to the Republican party if they were going to stay in office. He had to be protected…the person to be sacrificed was Scooter Libby.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Get the sense this trial could make matters even worse for the Bush White House?<\/p>\n

Wait, it gets better (or worse from the White House’s perspective).
\n
\nMSNBC’s David Schuster, who has been covering the Plame scandal very closely for quite a while, said prosecutors have “astounding” evidence that should raise eyebrows throughout the political establishment, even among “those who have been following this case.” Among the new claims<\/a>:<\/p>\n

* “Vice President Cheney himself directed Scooter Libby to essentially go around protocol<\/b> and deal with the press and handle press himself\u2026to try to beat back the criticism of administration critic Joe Wilson.”<\/p>\n

* Cheney personally “wrote out for Scooter Libby what Libby should say<\/b> in a conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper.”<\/p>\n

* “Scooter Libby destroyed a note from Vice President Cheney<\/b> about their conversations and about how Vice President Cheney wanted the Wilson matter handled.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t want to get my hopes up, but outside of Libby, who’s facing possible jail time, it sounds as if Dick Cheney has quite a bit on the line with this trial.<\/p>\n

FDL<\/a> is live-blogging the proceedings, Slate’s John Dickerson<\/a> is in the courtroom, and MSNBC’s Shuster<\/a> is offering extensive coverage as well.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like Kevin Drum, I wasn’t expecting too many fireworks from Scooter Libby’s criminal trial. These showdowns are often anti-climatic, at least as far as dramatic you-can’t-handle-the-truth moments go, and while the evidence presented was sure to be fascinating, day-to-day developments would likely be fascinating only to the lawyers. Or so I thought. With jury selection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}