Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Scooter Libby puts the MSM in a bind

Via Blogs for Bush comes this story: “Lawyers for a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal judge Friday they want to subpoena journalists and news organizations for documents they may have related to the leak of a CIA operative's name.”

As Mark Noonan notes: “From what I understand, Libby was indicted for lying to the Grand Jury because his version of events didn't match up with the version related by reporters - given this, it is only fair that Libby get to look at all the reporters' notes, recordings, e mails, etc related to the matter.”

Interesting: if certain journalists refuse to reveal their notes and sources, it could be the basis for a mistrial. I think I need to hear the Minuteman’s take on this one.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The story also reveals the shocker that "The defense attorneys also told (Judge) Walton that a significant disagreement is brewing between Libby's team and Fitzgerald's prosecutors over whether reporters heard Plame's name from government sources other than Libby." No!

The key words here about the subpoena: "they want to." And this would be different from a fishing expedition because...? Oh well, as long as it delays Libby's trial until December 1, 2006 or later.

Very doubtful any single reporter's emails are going to reveal the Get Out of Jail Free card. If Fitzgerald had been indicting on binary he-said/he-said discrepancies, Karl Rove's lawyers would be making an identical request.

Anonymous said...

"Karl Rove's lawyers would be making an identical request."

And they might if Rove gets indicted.