Reading Judy, Part Two

by emptywheel

In my last post, I took a close look at what Judy said she said to the grand jury. I also explained a little theory (with the supporting narratological definitions) about how Judy wrote her story. Go back and read it if you like tedious academic discussion, but here's the short version:

• Judy doesn't rely primarily on either of the narrative voices you'd expect, omniscient third person narration (the most common newspaper voice) or first person narration (what you'd expect of someone writing their own story).
• She uses direct discourse (quoted speech or language using quotation marks) to describe things that Libby told her to write as disinformation.
• She uses indirect discourse (quoted speech or language without the quotation marks) to describe things she wants Libby to know she said, but which aren't necessary true.

Using these guidelines, I'll look at what she said about the July 8 and July 12 meetings and Libby's letter.

July 8 Meeting

Before we look at what Judy said she said about the July 8 meeting, let's look at what Libby seems to have wanted her to say and what Fitzgerald thinks Judy said. First, Libby (from this post):

Judy should pretend that her first conversation about the Plame came on July 8, at the two-hour breakfast meeting at the St. Regis. Also, Judy should say that they met to discuss WMDs, not Joe Wilson. Judy should say Joe Wilson came up in conversation--but Judy brought him up, not Libby. Judy can admit that Libby was looking for more information. But she should pretend Libby didn't say--and hadn't yet said--anything about Plame's CIA employ.

And here's (PDF) showing how Fitzgerald understands Judy to have testified:

On or about the morning of July 8, 2003, LIBBY met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. When the conversation turned to the subject of Joseph Wilson, LIBBY asked that the information LIBBY provided on the topic of Wilson be attributed to a “former Hill staffer” rather than to a “senior administration official,” as had been the understanding with respect to other information that LIBBY provided to Miller during this meeting. LIBBY thereafter discussed with Miller Wilson’s trip and criticized the CIA reporting concerning Wilson’s trip. During this discussion, LIBBY advised Miller of his belief that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA.

Now keep in mind, we can't really tell how Judy testified on September 30 and how she amended that testimony on October 12, after her earlier reticence had put her in a compromised position. I'm sure that's why she held off on explaining how she testified before October 16--because she wanted to be sure that Fitzgerald would buy her story before she repeated that story in print. But I think it safe to assume that, in her first appearance befor the grand jury, she did pretend the July 8 meeting was the first at which she and Libby discussed Wilson.

Curiously, Judy chose not to testify that she and Libby were meeting about WMDs (she said as much about her June 23 meeting), opting instead to testify the way Libby seems to have wanted her to testify (that is, by saying she brought up Wilson). So the meeting didn't start with a discussion about WMD, it started with Judy asking about Joe Wilson.

I almost certainly began this interview by asking about Mr. Wilson's essay

Only later does she claim to be talking about WMDs. This statement is tricky though.

Although I was interested primarily in my area of expertise - chemical and biological weapons - my notes show that Mr. Libby consistently steered our conversation back to the administration's nuclear claims.

As I've argued to the point of delirium, Judy was on some kind of disciplinary status from May or June of 2003 until July 20. She was not allowed to solo-byline stories and she was supposed to be working exclusively on explaining why her pre-Iraq and Iraq stories were so damned wrong. But she has to admit she was working on some kind of WMD story, or else her First Amendment claims melt. Which is why, I think, she said what she said. She's giving herself cover. Her July 20 article (which Jill Abramson says she was working during all three Libby conversations) has almost nothing on nuclear weapons. So she includes this detail to solidify her specious claim that 1) she was working on a story and 2) she was working on the story that appeared on July 20 but that 3) she had very little control over whether her conversation with Libby focused almost exclusively on claims about uranium.

There's one more bit Fitzgerald includes in his testimony--which Libby appears to have wanted Judy to avoid. Judy's notes include a second reference to Plame working at CIA, this time a direct discourse quote, "wife works at winpac." Following my general theory about how the narrative voice Judy uses relates to the veracity of the statement, I'm going to guess Libby wanted her to say WINPAC so he could scare the CIA, Wilson, and Plame, but not obviously out Plame. It's clear though he knew he was committing a security violation in any case, though, since he asked her to attribute this statement to a "former Hill staffer," not a "senior administration official," as he normally asked her to attribute background statements from him. But once again, Fitzgerald doesn't appear to trust Judy's testimony, because he doesn't use that factoid for anything more than one data point in the obstruction charge; he does not base an espionage charge on it.

Which is not to say Fitzgerald won't end up using this grand jury testimony to support an espionage charge. There's a pretty juicy revelation--or non-revelation--about the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi WMD) in Judy's story. Here's what Judy said about it.

As I told Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Libby also cited a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, produced by American intelligence agencies in October 2002, which he said had firmly concluded that Iraq was seeking uranium.

An unclassified version of that estimate had been made public before my interviews with Mr. Libby. I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I had pressed Mr. Libby to discuss additional information that was in the more detailed, classified version of the estimate.

[snip]

According to my interview notes, though, it appears that Mr. Libby said little more than that the assessments of the classified estimate were even stronger than those in the unclassified version.

Now, the rest of my speculation in these two pieces on Judy's story, they're just that. Speculation. But this passage is necessarily either a stupid error or misinformation. Why?

Because the NIE had not yet been declassified when Judy had these conversations with Libby--any of them. From a recent Isikoff article:

With no weapons of mass destruction having been found in Iraq and new questions being raised about the case for war, Libby assured Miller that day that the still-classified document, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), contained even stronger evidence that would support the White House's conclusions about Iraq's weapons programs, according to Miller's account.

In fact, a declassified version of the NIE was publicly released just 10 days later, and it showed almost precisely the opposite. The NIE, it turned out, contained caveats and qualifiers that had never been publicly acknowledged by the administration prior to the invasion of Iraq. It also included key dissents by State Department intelligence analysts, Energy Department scientists and Air Force technical experts about some important aspects of the administration's case.

Sometimes Isikoff proves a little too credulous about Luskin's anonymous leaks. But in this case, he's right. The NIE was not declassified until July 18 (PDF) well after Judy's meeting with Libby. Now, true, this could simply be an error. Administration officials were openly talking about the content of the NIE, even if they hadn't yet declassified the NIE. David Sanger referenced leaked details of it on July 8 (although the leak appears to have come from INR). Condi gave extensive details of it at a July 11 gaggle. And George Tenet gave extensive details in his statement that week. (Of course, these last two came after Judy's July 8 meeting with Libby, and she depicts this conversation about the NIE as relating to the July 8 conversation.) But Judy implies she had already seen details of the NIE relating to the trip. Which is probably why Fitzgerald shows her a copy of the NIE (although it's unclear whether this is the declassified or classified version ... and conveniently, Judy doesn't tell us).

Mr. Fitzgerald asked me to examine a series of documents. Though I could not identify them with certainty, I said that some seemed familiar, and that they might be excerpts from the National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's weapons. Mr. Fitzgerald asked whether Mr. Libby had shown any of the documents to me. I said no, I didn't think so. I thought I remembered him at one point reading from a piece of paper he pulled from his pocket.

And this whole question concerning declassified or classified NIEs is probably the reason Fitzgerald asked her so many questions about her mysterious security clearance.

In my grand jury testimony, Mr. Fitzgerald repeatedly turned to the subject of how Mr. Libby handled classified information with me. He asked, for example, whether I had discussed my security status with Mr. Libby. During the Iraq war, the Pentagon had given me clearance to see secret information as part of my assignment "embedded" with a special military unit hunting for unconventional weapons.

Mr. Fitzgerald asked if I had discussed classified information with Mr. Libby. I said I believed so, but could not be sure. He asked how Mr. Libby treated classified information. I said, Very carefully.

[snip]

I told Mr. Fitzgerald that Mr. Libby might have thought I still had security clearance, given my special embedded status in Iraq. At the same time, I told the grand jury I thought that at our July 8 meeting I might have expressed frustration to Mr. Libby that I was not permitted to discuss with editors some of the more sensitive information about Iraq.

Mr. Fitzgerald asked me if I knew whether I was cleared to discuss classified information at the time of my meetings with Mr. Libby. I said I did not know.

Now, it's still not clear whether Judy had a security clearance or not. Neither the NYT nor the Pentagon have really offered any satisfactory answer to that question. But this whole passage seems to imply that Judy had knowledge of the NIE beyond that which she should have known if she didn't have a security clearance. And she testified in such a way that she didn't deny Libby had given her classified information, but implied he might have reason to believe she had clearance to see it. To make this weasly defense more airtight, Judy even pretends to be ignorant whether she had clearance or not at the time.

If I had to guess, I'd say Libby showed Judy a copy of the classified NIE (and that Fitzgerald knows it, somehow). But that Judy gave him the cover of his and her own ignorance.

There's one more aspect of this July 8 meeting that is remarkable--the version of the Joe Wilson to Niger story Judy says Libby tells. Either Libby was totally screwy, or they were really trying to pull a fast one.

As I told Mr. Fitzgerald and the grand jury, Mr. Libby alluded to the existence of two intelligence reports about Iraq's uranium procurement efforts. One report dated from February 2002. The other indicated that Iraq was seeking a broad trade relationship with Niger in 1999, a relationship that he said Niger officials had interpreted as an effort by Iraq to obtain uranium.

My notes indicate that Mr. Libby told me the report on the 1999 delegation had been attributed to Joe Wilson.

Mr. Libby also told me that on the basis of these two reports and other intelligence, his office had asked the C.I.A. for more analysis and investigation of Iraq's dealings with Niger. According to my interview notes, Mr. Libby told me that the resulting cable - based on Mr. Wilson's fact-finding mission, as it turned out - barely made it out of the bowels of the C.I.A.

Now, we know from the SSCI report that there were three reports of uranium deals between Iraq and Niger before Wilson went to Niger. First, an October 15, 2001 report asserted that Niger planned to ship several tons of uranium to Iraq. Then, a February 5, 2002 report claimed Niger and Iraq had signed a deal in July 2000--this was the report that sparked Dick's interest and eventually led to WIlson's trip. Then, there was unrelated intelligence that Iraq's Ambassador to the Vatican, Wissam al-Zahawi, visited Niger (and three other African nations) in 1999 in an effort to establish trade relations.

But according to Judy's notes, at least, Libby was claiming that Wilson was responsible for the 1999 report, which we know to relate to al-Zahawi. Now, keep in mind, by the end of that week, Ari would be claiming (either intentionally or accidentally) that Wilson was acting as a go-between for Iraq and Niger in 1999 based on his report of something former Prime Minister Mayaki said during Wilson's 2002 trip. But only a time machine could make it possible for a piece of intelligence deriving from Wilson's trip in 2002 to be the reason for him to take that trip in the first place. They wouldn't have tried to claim that Wilson's trip was a response to an offhand comment former Prime Minister Mayaki made in 2002--would they? Which means Libby has to be claiming that Wilson was somehow involved in the Wissam al-Zahawi intelligence. But that intelligence either came from a February 1999 letter from the Nigerien embassy in Rome or from the Feburary 2002 intelligence from SISMI. That is, it pretty clearly didn't come from Wilson (although Wilson had gone on a trip to Niger for the CIA in 1999). This bit of information will come up in the final Libby meeting. But for now, its clear that Libby was alleging Wilson was involved in reports he had good evidence to know Wilson wasn't involved in.

Intermission

A lot of things happen in the four days between Judy and Libby's July 8 meeting and their July 12 phone calls. One thing that happens--following on the July 8 meeting--is that Judy asks and Libby agrees to do more research on Wilson. It seems that Libby didn't give Judy enough on July 8 to allow Ms. Run-Amok to convince an editor to release her from her disciplinary status and let her write an article. As Judy explains,

I said I had told Mr. Libby that if The Times was going to do an article, the newspaper needed more than a recap of the administration's weapons arguments.

So Libby went to get more information. As the indictment explains, Libby started researching more information (presumably on Wilson's 1999 trip) that same day.

Also on or about July 8, 2003, LIBBY met with the Counsel to the Vice President in an anteroom outside the Vice President’s Office. During their brief conversation, LIBBY asked the Counsel to the Vice President, in sum and substance, what paperwork there would be at the CIA if an employee’s spouse undertook an overseas trip.

Murray Waas provides more details.

When Libby returned to the White House, he immediately sought out David Addington, the vice president's counsel, according to court records and interviews. During their breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel, Libby had promised Miller he would try to find out more about Wilson, and Wilson's wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame. As the former general counsel to the CIA and counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, Addington was the right man for Libby to see.

Waas continues:

Four days after the Libby-Miller breakfast and Libby's discussion with Addington, Libby gave Miller additional information on Wilson and Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Miller's testimony.

Phone records reviewed by the grand jury in the CIA leak investigation appear to confirm that Libby and Miller had a three-minute conversation on July 12 while Miller was apparently in a taxicab returning home. When the reporter got home, she and Libby spoke for a 37 minutes, according to the phone records.

So one thing that happens in the interim four days is, in response to a request from Judy, Libby gets more dirt on Wilson.

The other important detail of the interim four days is Cheney's involvement. As the indictment notes,

On or about July 12, 2003, LIBBY flew with the Vice President and others to and from Norfolk, Virginia, on Air Force Two. On his return trip, LIBBY discussed with other officials aboard the plane what LIBBY should say in response to certain pending media inquiries, including questions from Time reporter Matthew Cooper.

This David Johnston article provides more details.

Mr. Libby said he told Mr. Cheney that reporters had been pressing the vice president's office for more details about who sent Mr. Wilson to Africa. The two men spoke when Mr. Cheney was on a trip to Norfolk, Va., for the commissioning of the carrier Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Libby said Mr. Cheney directed him to refer reporters to Mr. Tenet's statement, which said that the C.I.A. had been behind Mr. Wilson's selection for the trip.

Cheney was directly involved in strategizing this leak on the day that Libby called Judy back with more information.  Now, Fitzgerald apparently asked about Cheney (as Judy indicated in her introduction). But at least according to Judy, he did not ask in front of the grand jury.

Before the grand jury, Mr. Fitzgerald asked me questions about Mr. Cheney. He asked, for example, if Mr. Libby ever indicated whether Mr. Cheney had approved of his interviews with me or was aware of them. The answer was no.

I'm guessing Fitzgerald asked her on September 29, when taking her statement. But held off on asking her on in front of the grand jury. Then, when he brought her back on October 12, Judy had the opportunity to answer in a way that exonerated Cheney, by noting Libby's instructions that Cheney hadn't been involved.

I don't buy that story, and I bet Fitzgerald doesn't either.

There's one last detail on the Cheney involvement. The NYT story was the story reporting her September 30 testimony. That is, the NYT received a leak regarding Libby's notes on Cheney on the same day Judy responded to questions about Cheney the first time. And the leak of Libby's notes probably came from his lawyer, Joseph Tate. What a remarkable conincidence!  Why, would you imagine, would Joseph Tate leak the contents of that note immediately after Judy testified? Now, I can imagine that if someone had told him that Judy had been asked about Cheney's role in this, then he  might leak the contents of the notes as a way to warn Cheney that Fitzgerald was on to him. But I can't imagine Judy would tell Tate--that'd be a quick way back back to jail, this time for obstruction. Is it possible someone else leaked the contents of Judy's testimony to Tate? We know, after all, that Tate had asked Abrams a year earlier how she would testify.

According to Ms. Miller, this was what Mr. Abrams told her about his conversation with Mr. Tate: "He was pressing about what you would say. When I wouldn't give him an assurance that you would exonerate Libby, if you were to cooperate, he then immediately gave me this, 'Don't go there, or, we don't want you there.' "

Mr. Abrams said: "On more than one occasion, Mr. Tate asked me for a recitation of what Ms. Miller would say. I did not provide one."

Now, Abrams found the request unseemly. But perhaps someone else "familiar with Judy's testimony" wouldn't, someone brought onto her team in the interim period, was willing to share details of how she did testify. You never know. The coincidence is pretty remarkable, though, if you ask me.

July 12 Meeting

Once again, let's begin the examination of the July 12 meeting with what we think Libby wanted Judy to testify to and what we know Fitzgerald trusts about Judy's testimony. Here's what Libby seems to have wanted Judy to testify.

Judy can say that Libby "had learned" of Plame's CIA employ. But she is supposed to testify that Libby didn't know (note--not just didn't say, but didn't know) of Plame's covert name or covert status.

Pretty bland stuff. The indictment doesn't offer anything much more exciting.

On or about July 12, 2003, in the late afternoon, LIBBY spoke by telephone with Judith Miller of the New York Times and discussed Wilson’s wife, and that she worked at the CIA.

The only important detail here is that Libby spoke with Judy in the "late afternoon," that is, after he got back from his Air Force Two strategy session with Dick. So what does Judy say Libby said after he talked to Dick about what he should say? Did he, as Dick had directed, point Judy toward Tenet's statement?

Not exactly It appears all Libby did was clean up the story. This time, he gave Judy yet another name for Plame, Victoria Wilson. And he told her the "16 words" were just a misunderstanding.

And what of the research Libby did for Judy? It's possible that Addington gave Judy, through Libby, the Victoria Wilson name (maybe he was providing all Plame's allibi just to really ruin her cover but good). And Addington either told Libby that Libby's understand of the 1999 trip was wrong, or Libby figured it out from hearing Ari mess it up. In any case, Libby told Judy to back off that story.

My notes of this phone call show that Mr. Libby quickly turned to criticizing Mr. Wilson's report on his mission to Niger. He said it was unclear whether Mr. Wilson had spoken with any Niger officials who had dealt with Iraq's trade representatives.

This is remarkable for two reasons. First, Libby was being completely honest. The report is unclear and it certainly doesn't clarify the conversation between Mayaki and Wilson.Perhaps most remarkably, Judy did some due diligence on a story, and she got one of her prolific leakers to back off the shitty story he had told her.

Hey Judy, keep that up, and you might yet turn into a reporter! Whatever kind of restriction Joseph Lelyveld had put her on was working!! Pity they had to bring in Keller, who let her slip back into crappy stenography again.

Speaking of journalism, Judy's account provides a non-denial denial that she was working on this story. First, Judy admits she's talked to other sources about this story--something that, by most accounts, constitutes working on a story for a journalist.

Mr. Fitzgerald asked if I could recall discussing the Wilson-Plame connection with other sources. I said I had, though I could not recall any by name or when those conversations occurred.

But when he asked her directly, she says she didn't work on the story.

Mr. Fitzgerald asked whether I ever pursued an article about Mr. Wilson and his wife. I told him I had not, though I considered her connection to the C.I.A. potentially newsworthy. I testified that I recalled recommending to editors that we pursue a story.

Mr. Fitzgerald asked my reaction to Mr. Novak's column. I told the grand jury I was annoyed at having been beaten on a story. I said I felt that since The Times had run Mr. Wilson's original essay, it had an obligation to explore any allegation that undercut his credibility. At the same time, I added, I also believed that the newspaper needed to pursue the possibility that the White House was unfairly attacking a critic of the administration.

Hmm. Illogical answers like this are probably one thing that tip a smart guy like Fitzgerald off that Judy is an unreliable witness. No wonder he didn't include more of her testimony in his indictment.

My Conclusion

So what do I make of this? What do I think Libby was trying to do with Judy, one of his most trustworthy mouthpieces?

If I had to guess, I'd say that, by the time Novak wrote his column, they were already backpedaling off some of the leak. It appears that Libby gave Judy a script in June that included some real doozies--that Wilson "clandestine guy" was a spy, that his wife was a spy. As well as the hackneyed claim that neither Cheney nor Bush heard of Wilson's trip (this one, interestingly, seems to have been widely accepted). But Judy, being on disciplinary status, couldn't write the article.

Then they tried again on July 8--Judy even made a special trip down to DC to get the details right and possibly to look at the still-classified NIE. By this point, Libby was CYAing much better than he had been in July. He gave Judy the ridiculous attribution of former House staffer. And he gave her the name Valerie Flame, a transparent pseudonym but perhaps a legally protective one. But again, Judy wasn't able to convince an editor to let her write the story. In fact, Judy demanded more details, which eventually forced Libby to retract his then-operative smear.

By July 12, Libby already knew (and probably told Judy) that Novak was willing to write the story. I think Judy was still struggling to turn this into a story that Joseph Lelyveld or Jill Abramson would print. Bernie Calame notwithstanding, I firmly believe she tried to get this story published in June. And after July 12, the story began to take on a more respectable form.

But it was not going to happen. For once, her editors managed to control Ms. Run Amok. So not only did she miss out on the pleasure of writing a story, but she'd end up doing time to try to hide her involvement in it.

I think in the end, Judy tried to give the testimony Libby wanted her to, within the limits dictated by the notes Fitzgerald was looking at. But he had her notes, which meant she had to interpret things for Fitzgerald in such a way as to be minimially incriminating to Libby. Judy managed to deny he passed on Plame's name and covert status--although there is good evidence he passed on at least the covert status. And, at least thus far, Judy managed to deflect Fitzgerald's investigation into Dick's role and Libby's leaks of classified documents.

But in the end, Judy proves that Libby knew of and disseminated Plame's identity well before Wilson's July 6 story. Her testimony is not honest enough for Fitzgerald to risk pinning an espionage charge on it. But it ends up doing significant damage to Libby's already battered lies.

Comments

[whenwego]

Bravo, you have cut through the veils of deception. Of course, proving this is next to impossible, but clearly the NYT was complicit in a crime of national security.

[The Heretik]

As I've argued to the point of delirium . . . These are fevered times. Thanks for all the insights. Very impressive.

[John Forde]

Awesome
Awesome
Awesome

[Suzanne]

Re this quote from JM's article:
"Before the grand jury, Mr. Fitzgerald asked me questions about Mr. Cheney. He asked, for example, if Mr. Libby ever indicated whether Mr. Cheney had approved of his interviews with me or was aware of them. The answer was no."

It appears you interpreted this to mean "before she gave testimony" to the grand jury. Could "before the grand jury" mean "in front of" the grand jury?

Also, was she giving some kind of heads up to her good buddies at the WH of where PF was leading the grand jury? Was this her way of replying to the Aspen note, informing her sources (multiple) at the WH that PF had Tricky Dick The Sequel in his crosshairs?

[emptywheel]

Suzanne

Yeah, good point, you may be right.

One of the main reasons I read it as I did is because the next paragraph begins, "In my grand jury testimony," suggesting a contrast between "before" and "in." But yours us just as possible.

The other reference to CHeney is in the introduction. She says,

During my testimony on Sept. 30 and Oct. 12, the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, asked me whether Mr. Libby had shared classified information with me during our several encounters before Mr. Novak's article. He also asked whether I thought Mr. Libby had tried to shape my testimony through a letter he sent to me in jail last month. And Mr. Fitzgerald asked whether Mr. Cheney had known what his chief aide was doing and saying.

Which suggests your reading is correct.

And yeah, she absolutely was giving Libby a heads up with this article. Which is part of the reason her lawyers (see part one) didn't want her to write it. Plus, if someone from Judy's team shared her testimony with Tate so Tate could do selective leaking of his own (about the July 12 AF2 trip), they went pretty far out on a limb to make sure Libby knew what she said.

[al-Fubar]

emptywheel --

Is your PhD in lit or a related field? I'm struck by the particular toolkit you're using, examining narrative voices.

I suspect, though, that there's another reason why Fitz stayed away from charging the underlying offenses - namely to keep Plame herself and her activities as much out of his case as possible. Why? Because that is a subject the CIA would much rather not talk about.

The CIA has two contradictory interests here. On the one hand, they want to enforce the principle that you don't burn agents. On the other hand, they want to minimize the damage and keep more from coming out than already has. I seem to recall past cases where espionage charges were dropped to avoid presenting highly classified evidence in open court.

So, for the CIA this is the best of both worlds - sanction the leakers without making it easier for foreign intel services to walk back the cat on Plame's activities.

-- Rick

[Sebastian Dangerfield]

ew--
I think this sentence -- which pithily summarizes what you have detailed rpeviously -- definitely nails it:
"I think in the end, Judy tried to give the testimony Libby wanted her to, within the limits dictated by the notes Fitzgerald was looking at."
I have a long post that I never got around to finishing endeavoring to do in essence what you have done here -- trace Libby's letter and other acts of apprarent witness-tampering, Judy's obfuscatory account of her testimony, and the limited uses of her testimony in the indictment in an effort to see exactly how far the obstruction actually worked.
Like you, I concluded that Libby's efforts at telegraphy were mostly successful. For instance, she makes it clear that she did not give testimony that Libby revealed Plame's name or covert status.
I agree that she tried to do what she can within the space allowed by her notes (which made certain things untenable, such as continuing to conceal the June meeting). Thus, she didn't drop the dime on Libby for naming Plame or expressly revealing her covert status because (I'm sure to Libby's delight), she didn't happen to write those things down. "My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent ...."
Like you and others, I was struck by the strangely detached narrative voice Judy uses in parts of the piece (although until your piece I hadn't really realized that there is in truth a cacophony of different narrative voices -- eaach unreliable in its own way, to be sure -- as to which you offer a helpful taxonomy. But I am most interested in the one she uses when dealing with some of the most uncomfortable (for Libby and thus for her) issues or parts of the notes. In these passages, Judy sounds not like the author of notes of critical converstaions concerning a hot, hot set issues, but more like an archaeologist who has just discovered some difficult-to-decipher fragments of ancient Sumerian poetry and is attempting to translate the obscure writings from a time and place that neither she nor her reader can hope to fully understand.
My explanation, and my only real effort here to advance the discussion, is this: After she got busted trying to conceal the June meeting and then coughed up the notes, she feigned an initial lack of recollection of the June meeting in particular (by "initial" I mean, before the dramatic moment when Fitz whacked her with his knowledge of the meeting and she, I'm sure, had to duck out to talk to Bennet -- as well as change her soiled drawers). I think Judy took this tack principally as a means of trying to avoid being nailed for perjury, but the strategy also had the happy (for her) side effect of allowing her to minimize the damage that her testimony would do to Scooter.
After (in Jane's felicitous word) the "bustado" moment, she coughed up the notes -- likely per Bennett's strenuous urging -- authenticated them, and testified as to their contents with *virtually* (an important qualifier here) no exegesis, just like she did in her piece (which is, to be sure, radically incomplete). This studied detachment from the notes was purely tactical. If she offered too much interpretation and context, she would have to either (a) rat out Dear Scooter by spilling the truth (unlikely in the extreme) or (b) venture definitive lies about what was or was not said (risky in the extreme) -- and in either case she would throughly undermine the already tenuous memory-loss defense that she is hoping will get her out a perjury or obstruction charge. Her (and Bennett's) gamble is that by giving Fitz the notes, authenticating them and testifying as to what the "notes indicate" happened, she will have co-operated enough to avoid being prosecuted herself. (I don't like her odds, however; as you point out, it is clear that Fitz -- for obvious reasons -- does not want to build a perjury case on the friable foundation of Miller's testimony. And if I were him, I'd still be plenty plenty pissed at her.)
The notable exceptions to the general lack of interpretation and context on the part of Judy are her efforts -- within the geneeral context of her feigned memory-loss and the limitations provided by the notes themselves -- to hew to the key defensive points that Libby telegraphed to her. So she doesn't testify definitively that Libby gave her the "Flame" name, but she doesn't definitively deny it either. She can't. She's boxed in by her own self-protective "I don't recall" strategy. (It's very hard to prove someone's lying when they say they don't remember things.) So, as Judy relates, she she told the grand jury that she didn't *believe* that Scooter gave her that name -- but mind you, she doesn't base this surmise on her memory; instead she carefully bases that statement on the structure of her notebook.
The one place where Judy does rather drop the dime on Libby though is (partially) with the love letter. In reference to what I think is the most damning portion of Scooter's letter from an obstruction standpoint (the infamous "the public report of every other reporter's testimony" line, which is sandwiched between statements about her testimony being helpful to him), she replies that she was "surprised" at that line because (oh, dear me), "it might be perceived as an effort by Mr. Libby to suggest that I, too, would say we had not discussed Ms. Plame's identity." She didn't really have to say that, but the fact that she did, I believe, cements the notion that when that letter hit Bennett's (and Folyd's) desk(s), they blew gaskets because it was such an obvious attempt at shaping the testimony that it was like Scooter and tate lobbing a hand grenade in their laps. Bennet and Abrams made damn sure that their client put as much distance as she could from that letter (although they apparently didn't get her to actually tell the truth).

[emptywheel]

al-Fubar:

Yeah, it was kind of lit, journalism, politics, in a couple of different languages. But I did my share of narrative analysis, yeah.

Sebastian:

Interesting points. When I first read this letter--quickly--my first impression was that Judy decided to trade support for an obstruction charge (the "I was surprised" comment you point out) for suport for a conspiracy charge that would reach back to Dick. Also, note that she truncates the quote from Libby's letter to leave out the "or already knew of her identity." Not sure why she did that, though.

[pollyusa]

Fabulous as always EW.

I just want to note a question I have about Miller's sources.

The first from WAAS. Murray Waas has had different sources than any of the other reporters. Waas heard from his source that Miller talked to others in the administration about Plame. My guess is that someone other than Libby testified that they spoke to Miller. Waas has reported acurately on the testimony so far.

Miller had spent 85 days in jail for contempt of court for refusing to testify before the grand jury about her conversations with Libby and other Bush administration officials regarding Plame.

And this from a 6/05 LATimes story.Sorry about the link, this is the only place hosting the story I can find. This looks like Miller remembers more about her other sources than she admits. Has Fleitz been a Miller source previously?

Miller would not ask her sources to waive their anonymity. She said intelligence officials might feel coerced into admitting they had talked to a reporter.

[emptywheel]

polly

Well, she admits here that she had talked to other sources, right? I don't doubt that. I just have no idea how to figure out who they were. I'd be inclined to believe it was Bolton (and maybe then Fleitz) rather than Fleitz alone. After all, Judy is so swell she can order the VP's top deputy to research her story for her. She'd expect her leaks from the Under Secretary of State, rather than his Chief of Staff.

Also, they seemed to be trying to spin stories about Wilson's previous trips--his 1999 trip (about which we know little--he went under cover of a private business trip, I think, but the CIA did ask him to check something out), as well as his 2002 trip. So Judy may have talked to someone about that.

But yeah, I agree absolutely. She talked with several more people about this. Don't know who is witness to that, though. And I do wonder how Fitz can be so positive that Libby was the first to leak this to someone outside of the WH, to Judy.

[pollyusa]

EW

One more word on Fleitz. I'm not sure if you happened to see this story from Raw Story, in it they claim that Fleitz is the CIA official who told Libby about Plame. I'm not sure how reliable they are, but this story seems very specific so who knows.

The attorneys also said that Frederick Fleitz, Bolton's chief of staff and concurrently a senior CIA Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control official, supplied Bolton with Plame's identity. Bolton, they added, passed this to his aide, Wurmser, who in turn supplied the information to Hannah.

Upon receiving this information, Libby asked Bolton for a report on Wilson's trip to Niger, which Wilson presented orally to the CIA upon his return. Fleitz was one of a handful of officials who was in a position to know Plame's maiden name, the sources said.

Fleitz is named in the indictment as an unnamed CIA senior officer, they added.

Note the report mentioned is not the INR memo, it is Wilson's report after his trip to Niger.