LIBBY: I FORGOT
Byron York
The Corner
Former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby has offered some new insights into his expected defense on perjury, obstruction, and false statements charges in the CIA leak case. And his defense is: I forgot. Or I misremembered. Or both. In an affidavit released today, Libby's lawyer, Ted Wells, argues that
<<< "Given the urgent national security issues that commanded Mr. Libby's attention, it is understandable that he may have forgotten or misremembered relatively less significant events. Such relatively less important events include alleged snippets of conversation about Valerie Plame Wilson's employment status." >>>
In the affidavit, Wells includes a portion of Libby's grand jury testimony from March 5, 2004:
<<< I get a lot of information during the course of a day....I tend to get between 100 and 200 pages of material a day that I'm supposed to read and understand and I -- you know, I start at 6:00 in the morning and I go to 8:00 or 8:30 at night, and most of that is meetings. So a lot of information comes through to me, and I can't possibly recall all the stuff that I think is important, let alone other stuff that I don't think is as important....I apologize if there's some stuff that I remember and some I don't, but it's -- I'm just trying to tell you what I do in fact remember. >>>
It seems likely that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will respond that Libby in fact said he quite specifically remembered the relatively less significant events about which he is accused of giving false testimony. For example, according to the indictment, during that same March 5, 2004 grand jury testimony, Libby said he had a specific memory of events that his defense now characterizes as too trivial to recall:
<<< Q. And it's your specific recollection that when you told [Time reporter Matthew] Cooper about Wilson's wife working at the CIA, you attributed that fact to what reporters --
A. Yes.
Q. -- plural, were saying. Correct?
A. I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that because in my mind I still didn't know it as a fact. I thought I was -- all I had was this information that was coming in from the reporters.
. . . .
Q. And at the same time you have a specific recollection of telling him, you don't know whether it's true or not, you're just telling him what reporters are saying?
A. Yes, that's correct, sir. And I said, reporters are telling us that, I don't know if it's true. I was careful about that because among other things, I wanted to be clear I didn't know Mr. Wilson. I don't know -- I think I said, I don't know if he has a wife, but this is what we're hearing. >>>
Now, it may turn out that a jury will decide that the case is a silly "he said/he said" exercise in which Libby was indicted, in effect, for having a different memory of events than Matthew Cooper -- an alleged crime not worth the effort spent, and the precedents set, during the investigation. But if that happens, it probably won't be because the jury believed the "I forgot" defense.
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