Sweet Judy Blew Lies

by emptywheel

By now you've all heard that Judy discovered some forgotten notes from June 2003. It seems she and Fitzgerald are going to have a lot to talk about the next time they get together.

It's looking increasingly likely that the outtamyarse speculations I made in July and expounded on in my explain-it-all Plame narrative are at least in the close proximity of the money. So I'd like to take this moment to expand on the thoughts I had in July about what I think happened and what I think it means.

I'll start with a fictional reenactment of what might have happened to get us to this spot. All of this assumes that my outtamyarse speculation that Judy was going to write an article identifying Wilson, but that David Shipley found out, and that the NYT decided instead to have Wilson tell his own story rather than let Libby Bolton Cheney Judy do it for him. So here's my little fictional reenactment:

Fitz knew all along that somebody had tried to write a story identifying Joe Wilson in late June 2003. Where did he find that out? Wilson probably told him about it. Or, Fitz, like me, read Wilson's book. In any case, well before Judy's testimony, Fitz probably asked Wilson who he got the tip from in June that someone was writing a story on him. Wilson said, "Kristof" or "Shipley." And Fitz, being the thorough guy he is just made a quick call to get some details. Like who was going to write that story. And how the NYT convinced that person not to write it.

Then, in Judy's interview last Thursday (which was sworn testimony, so Judy couldn't change her mind overnight, so Fitz would know what he was getting before he let her go, and just in case Abramoff's friends got to her overnight), he asked some open-ended questions to which she should have responded with details about her earlier attempt to write a Wilson story. But she didn't. She probably, at that time, mentioned one detail that made Fitz take notice, but did not change the basic fact that she had just committed perjury.

Fitz called Wilson just to clarify the little detail. Which Wilson did easily, apparently over the phone. Fitz did it just so he made sure he had that detail straightened out before Judy's grand jury tesimony (so he was sure precisely what the outlines of her perjury were going to be).

Or, as the LA Times describes:

However, there was an additional sign that Fitzgerald continued to investigate aggressively. He phoned Wilson on Sept. 29, the same day Miller, the New York Times reporter jailed for refusing to divulge her confidential source, was released from jail after agreeing to testify in the case.

The next day, just as Fitz expected, Judy committed perjury by burying details of her earlier reporting. Fitz likely asked her a question specifically tailored around Wilson's answer the previous night. Like, "Did you have any conversations with Nicholas Kristof that might have told you about Joe Wilson?" "Nicholas Kristof," Judy said, "Isn't he that screaming liberal who pisses off Safire so much?"

Just long enough after Judy finished, after she had gone home, made a martini, gloated with Sulzberger about how many concessions she had gotten, hugged her dog, Fitz contacted Judy and said, "Um, there's one little detail you seem to have forgotten. Well, let's make that one gigantic detail. Oh, and is Art there? Can I talk to him? Because that little--I mean gigantic--detail affects the testimony he gave us as well. What's that? You'd like to add some to your testimony. Well, do you have anything concrete to give me? Such as your notes from June. Yeah, that's right, your notes detailing ALL of your sources. Yeah, I understand we agreed you could limit your testimony to your conversations with Libby about Plame. But you promised you would tell the truth, remember? And ... well ... you didn't do that."

"Hey!!!" Judy says. "Wouldn't you know it, I just remembered about some notes I've got shoved into an old suitcase upstairs!!"

So Judy is now going to share notes from the reporting she did on Wilson in June 2003. I suspect those notes already reflect information gleaned from the INR memo. And I suspect Judy will be forced to identify a tidy network of sources on Wilson, including Libby and Bolton, but maybe Hadley and others.

What does this mean for our hopes that Karl will soon lead a frogmarch parade in the near future?

Well, as Reuters says, this makes it a lot more likely Fitz will be able to sew up his neat little conspiracy case.

One source involved in the investigation said Miller's notes could help Fitzgerald show a long-running and orchestrated campaign to discredit Wilson, which could help form the basis for a conspiracy charge.

Poor little Judy was so proud that she had gotten concessions from Fitzgerald. Concessions from the guy who was about to present her with the evidence she had committed perjury. Poor little Judy, who will now have to expose a whole network of sources in a pathetic attempt to get in Fitz' good graces. I think the book deal and the martyrdom will have to wait for a while.

But my favorite indication of what this means is the chorus of silence depicted in this Observer article.

Robert Bennett, a lawyer for Miller, declined to comment. Joseph Tate, the lawyer representing Libby, did not return calls seeking comment. Times lawyer George Freeman would not comment.

The presence of the undisclosed set of notes comes as the Times is seeking to quell internal and external criticism over a lack of transparency in the Miller case. In today's Times, executive editor Bill Keller said Miller’s potential return trip to meet with Fitzgerald could further delay the Times' plans to publish an account of the Miller saga. Deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman, who has been tapped to edit the report, declined to discuss the state of the paper's Miller reporting.

"I’m not going to talk about it," he said.

Slightly tempered for the family audience (don't know why I believe comments are appropriate for cursing but not posts...?), here's what I think is going on:

Robert Bennett, a lawyer for Miller, declined to comment.

Bennett probably convinced his client that she was going to avoid jail time with her testimony last week. Now he realizes she's got perjury hanging over her head. "Declined to comment."

Joseph Tate, the lawyer representing Libby, did not return calls seeking comment.

Tate probably has already realized Libby wasn't getting off scot-free. But he was probably figuring on a little conspiracy. Just Libby and Rove and, well, not the whole rest of the Administration. Besides, he's been worried all week that Libby's little love letter to Judy would get him an osbtruction charge tacked on. But this--this opens a whole can of worms. Worms he's going to have to think about. "Did not return calls seeking comment."

Times lawyer George Freeman would not comment.

George is wondering whether Art's big steak dinner he bought Judy last Thursday was really worth the investment. Because, well, the NYT's hopes to avoid losing all credibility--or worse? They seem to be disappearing rapidly."Would not comment."

In today's Times, executive editor Bill Keller said Miller’s potential return trip to meet with Fitzgerald could further delay the Times' plans to publish an account of the Miller saga. Deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman, who has been tapped to edit the report, declined to discuss the state of the paper's Miller reporting.

"I’m not going to talk about it," he said.

And meanwhile, every day the NYT goes without telling some version of the story they take a further hit to their claim to have been protecting the principles of journalism. How can you claim to be protecting journalism if you're actively and demonstrably trying to bury a story? How can you claim to have been protecting the right to expose the full truth when you're cowering from that truth now? Unfortunately, the NYT can't tell the story to the public until they figure out precisely what their story to Fitz is going to be, finally. And it would help if Saint Judy would finally figure out her story. But that may take a bit of time yet. "Not going to talk about it."

And this chorus of silence? I suspect it's being echoed by many Bush Administration lawyers right now.

About the only one with anything left to say is Rove's lawyer Luskin. Who, at this point, seems to little left to lose.

Update: Laura Rozen asks a very good question.

Who's leaking Miller's discovery of more notes? Probably not Miller's attorneys. Libby's? That doesn't seem right either. Fitzgerald's office?

I've got two theories. The first (one I don't like that much) is that the NYT, whose lawyers should henceforth be distinguished from Judy's lawyers, leaked this because they're finally realizing they need to come clean.

My more interesting theory? I've suspected for a while that Bennett may be defending "Judy" in the sense that "Judy" is really a little girl with her finger in the hole of the dike. Now, if Bennett were representing all of the nice Neocons standing behind that girl with her finger in the dike, he'd do whatever he could to telegraph to them that the dike had just broken.

In short, the easiest, obstruction of justice-free way he could tell Libby and Rove and Hadley and Cheney and Bolton and Bush and so on and so on that they should get to high ground is to leak the news that Judy had submitted a second set of notes.

Update 2: Yeah, I'm betting it was Bennett. Check out the way Reuters describes the note release:

A New York Times reporter has given investigators notes from a conversation she had with a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney weeks earlier than was previously known, suggesting White House involvement started well before the outing of a CIA operative, legal sources said.

Times reporter Judith Miller discovered the notes -- about a June 2003 conversation she had with Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- after her testimony before the grand jury last week, the sources said on Friday. She turned the notes over to federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and is expected to meet him again next Tuesday, the sources said.

Miller's notes could help Fitzgerald establish that Libby had started talking to reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, weeks before Wilson publicly criticized the administration's Iraq policy in a Times opinion piece, the sources said. [emphasis mine]

This passage tells the Neocon thugs precisely what is in those notes. This not only tells them to run like hell for higher ground. But it gives them survival advice in case they make it to higher ground.

ReddHedd? When do lawyers get to be charged with obstruction of justice?

Comments

[John Forde]

If the cover story is in free fall, as it seems to be, who will not flip?

Who will provide the structural information to bridge from the outing of plame to confirming that Bush KNEW AT THE TIME that the Niger docs are forgeries?

[marky]

Would Judy's notes have something about the niger forgeries? Doesn't seem out of the question.

[emptywheel]

Niger forgeries.

Hmm. Frankly, I think there's a better chance that the July 8 meeting with Libby includes notes about Niger forgeries (or other uranium forgeries). There's a reason Judy met with Libby in person. It was either so she could look at the NSA talking points document about Plame in person. Or it was so they could figure out how to bury the forgery she had planted in Iraq so it wouldn't cause still more trouble.

It's worth noting that the Duelfer report says that was found in mid-May by the ISG. That's impossible on two counts (ISG wasn't up and running yet, really, and we know Judy's XFT "found it"). So who convinced Charles Duelfer (who, I might add, visited Judy in jail) to change the story?

Otherwise, we're not there yet. I don't think we'll get there yet, not until someone does a Larry Franklin and agrees to a plea bargain in exchange for further testimony. And frankly, I think that person'd have to be Bolton. Judy doesn't know enough about the Niger forgeries (as opposed to the one I think she planted in Iraq). The one other person who could break open the whole Niger forgery story who might have anything to do with the Plame affair would be Harold Rhode. Or I guess Libby himself.

But honestly, I think we're likely to hit the Niger forgeries through the Larry Franklin investigation quicker than we will here.

[emptywheel]

One caveat though.

Fitz is apparently going after SOTU information. He will likely prove they did try to sneak Niger into SOTU and the reference in there was really about Niger.

[mamayaga]

empywheel--

Your little drama fits what we know about the personalities involved so well, it's hard to maintain a temtative frame of mind while reading it. I'm convinced the drama played out in a way very similar to what you describe. It all comes back to neocon hubris, doesn't it? Even as recently a few days ago, they really believed they were going to outwit Fitzgerald.

[Steve]

I'm sure there are some good theories in this post, but I couldn't focus on them cause I kept getting stuck on the totally awesome title. I wish you could put up a tip jar just for that.

[kid oakland]

Emptywheel,

Just came home from long days work and...right away...went here and firedoglake.

Thank you both for covering this story so well.

The overall impression you leave...that there is just some....goshdangit...unbelievable stuff going on in Washington right now is utterly convincing. "Oops, I found some notes"...whoa.

(The NYT is in some deep, deep doo doo.)

Wh

[obsessed]

It's amazing how you've stitched this together - with each new revelation the almost surreal saga of "What Judy Did" and its preceding chapters inches closer to its grand denouement.

[David Wyles]

Great stuff! Keep it up!

[obsessed]

If your fictionalized reenactment is close to the truth, I would argue that it's the best thing that could happen to our beleaguered heroine.

As I've always seen it, her credibility as an investigative journalist and her career with the Times have been shot to hell for a long time, the only question being whether she would be a laughing stock in a designer dress or a laughing stock in an orange jumpsuit.

As I see it, the only out she ever had was to turn on the neocons, make a fortune selling books, and re-invent herself as a controversial commentator/personality like G. Gordon Liddy or Oliver North or like Kato Kaelin and Monica Lewinsky could have if they'd had any talent. To be an investigative journalist, you need credibility and integrity, but to be a filthy rich, household name personality, you only need fame, fame and more fame -- or infamy -- it doesn't matter which, but the more of it the better.

Thus, I thought Judy was a fool to take the 1.2 million and the limited testimony agreement which left her, to the public at large, looking like an inscrutable minor player in an inscrutable minor (so far) political brújaja. But if she ratted out the whole mob -- right down to the gory details of the fabrication of the evidence for the war -- and the general public perceived her as having brought down Bush & Cheney, she'd be so insanely famous and that her book deal would jump to 8 figures - maybe the high 8 figures and her ratings potential on the cable news stations would go through the roof.

Of course, as you say, maybe she doesn't have the goods on the Niger forgeries, but I bet her first-person uncensored version of "What Judy Did" would yield a hellacious enough cluster of bombshells to put BushCo out of its misery before she even got to Part 5.

[emptywheel]

I don't think so, obsessed.

Let's compare Judy to, say, Ollie North. Ollie North is still a hero today (well, to a bunch of dumbshits who hate their country) because he maintained his stance. He never admitted the crimes he committed were wrong.

But not Judy. Once this comes out, it will be crystal clear that all of her posturing was just that--posturing.

However, I think she believed it. I think she really believed she was serving US interests. (Dumb as Ollie, she is, and probably a lot worse at organizing things logistically.)

And she doesn't have a big enough potential consituency elsewhere. Your average Maury watcher doesn't care about journalism. And, sadly, your average American still believes the President is owed some deference.

[emptywheel]

Oh, and Steve, thanks. My only regret is that I didn't adapt the whole what is it, a 20-minute song, to telling the sad saga of Sweet Judy Blew Lies. I will say I was humming away while I fell asleep. (Da Da da da dadeda)

[emptywheel]

One more thing that Meteor Blades just made me think of.

Does Judy get to redact this new set of notes? I doubt it. She doesn't have much wiggle room now that she's been caught in perjury and possibly obstruction.

But an even more delicious question (all due respect to MB).

Does Fitz now get an unredacted set of the first set of notes??? Call me crazy. But I'm betting good money that Judy liberally redacted any evidence of their earlier meeting.

[manyoso]

emptywheel, allow me to tell you what is about to happen.

They are all going down and they will all do so based upon these notes that Judy has just handed over.

I think you are correct in everything you said in this post. Fitz caught Judy in a perjury trap and Judy is going to wiggle out of it by turning over these notes and then feigning a bad memory. She'll say she can't recall the substance of the conversations, but here's the newly discovered notes. Here you go....

This way she'll try and keep her job and sell Libby and the rest down the river. I don't think we can underestimate how big it is that she is turning over these notes at the eleventh hour.

I think it is more likely than ever they are all going down. Oh, how I hope and pray for a few unindicted co-conspirator lines....

[dj moonbat]

Does Judy get to redact this new set of notes? I doubt it.

Unfortunately, I think you are mistaken. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that she was, once again, allowed to redact them herself before handing them over. That would infuriate me, except that now she must be intensely concerned about getting caught lying again, so she has a strong motivation to play it straight.

[dj moonbat]

Oh, shit. While looking around for that bit that said she had redacted the new notes, I came across this (from CNN today):

Miller's meeting with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will occur Tuesday in Washington, Abrams said, but it will not be conducted in front of the grand jury looking into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative.

However, Abrams said, Fitzgerald could decide after the interview to have Miller make another grand jury appearance.

[emptywheel]

dj moonbat

Does that mean she's trying for a plea agreement? She needs to meet, with Bennett at her side, to see if she can arrange a deal with Fitz. Then, if he is happy with the deal she's willing to give, she will be paraded before the GJ again to sing, this time in a much higher pitch.

[emptywheel]

Oh, and that CNN report--I'm still standing by my "Bennett leaked the Judy notes" story"

Abrams would not comment on a Reuters report that Miller has given notes from a conversation she had with Libby weeks earlier than was previously known.

Well, hell, it could be Abrams. No lawyer would want to go on the record about those notes. Since leaking details of the notes could get him into hot water. But Bennett? He's just that sleazy.

[Donna]

I hope Judy sees more prison time. I'm wondering if she is the one giving cover to the others. My understanding is that many of these neocons said they got their information about Wilson and Plame through a reporter, not someone in the Bush administration spreading classified information. It's not illegal if they are only repeating what a reporter told them. And the reporter can always use the excuse that she can't reveal her sources. So everyone is covered. Judy wasn't protecting her sources since she is a source and smack dab in the middle of the conspiracy. She was protecting herself.

If the NY Times is smart they will cut her loose and come clean, get some reporters on her bullshit reporting leading up to the Iraq war and her involvement in the Plame outting. I doubt they will do it though, they have been covering their asses along with Judy.

[manyoso]

Donna:

I think Fitz would charge old Judy with obstruction of justice then. This theory of the immaculate leak where a reporter was the one who told the government about a CIA officers covert status does not hold water. And if it were true, then the national security concern would be so huge that I think Fitz would _have_ to throw her ass in jail until she told who in government told _her_.

[dj moonbat]

Does that mean she's trying for a plea agreement? She needs to meet, with Bennett at her side, to see if she can arrange a deal with Fitz.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what that means. But it would have been nice to have him lean on her in front of the grand jury first, and let the prospect of the gallows concentrate her mind. She hasn't exactly impressed me thus far with her sense of the gravity of the situation.

[emptywheel]

Oh, dj, I'm certain that whatever it is that he told her he knows has demonstrated the gravity of the moment.

Consider some implications of this though (and where's ReddHedd when we need her??). First, this means he definitely is talking about charges for Judy, presumably perjury. Second, it means that her notes aren't going to be forged, as some people worry they might, because Fitz isn't going to deal with her unless he gets something worthwhile. Third, I think it definitely means everything is on the table, including an un-redacted copy of her first notes as well as no redactions on this.

[dj moonbat]

I think it definitely means everything is on the table, including an un-redacted copy of her first notes as well as no redactions on this.

I have to disagree. I think that Judy can make a pretty compelling case that she should be allowed redaction of any sections unrelated to her Plame source(s). I think her case for making the redactions herself is much less compelling. She should, if allowed to redact, be forced to do so under some kind of court scrutiny. She has demonstrated that she can't be trusted, after all.

[emptywheel]

Well, maybe.

But Fitz does hold the cards right now. After all, he knew enough about those notes already to embarrass Judy, badly. Judy's testimony to the earlier conspiracy would be nice, but Fitz obviously has a lot of that already. What he's looking for is 1) Hadley's head, 2) Cheney's head, 3) Bush's head, and 4) the much much larger conspiracy.

[dj moonbat]

It does occur to me that, just like his deal to confine himself to conversations with Libby, the deal allowing Judy to do her own redactions (not a normal deal) may have been made specifically to tempt her to do something dumb.