The Armitage effect

Misrecollected facts
Barcella does not feel that Armitage finally admitting he was the primary source of Plame to Novak and Woodward will have any legal effect in the Libby trial.  Libby has asked Judge Reggie Walton to allow him to use UCLA psychologist Dr. Robert Bjork as an expert witness on memory.

Libby's attorneys write that their reason to explain to the jury what their client and other witnesses were doing in June and July of 2003, responding to Wilson's damaging New York Times op-ed, is for a jury to "understand that Mr. Libby may have been confused or may have misrecollected facts in good faith, and did not act with a specific intent to give false testimony."  They write that only with such context will the jury appreciate that "Mr. Libby did not need to attack Mr. Wilson personally to rebut his allegations, because the administration had clear factual support for its position that Mr. Wilson's criticisms were wrong."

Also, Libby's attorney's have signaled that they may delve deeply into interagency infighting, what they call, "finger-pointing" among the White House, the CIA and the State Department over pre-Iraq war intelligence failures.

Weisenberg further says, Libby attorney Ted Well's can also exploit to a jury how the "hatred between government agencies, the finger-pointing on who was to blame for the 16 words in the State of the Union address," could also have been ample motivation for Armitage to reveal Plame's role in sending her husband to Africa. This, an attempt to debunk the argument made by Fitzgerald that only within the executive branch was there an orchestrated effort to discredit Joe Wilson which included outing his wife to reporters.

Political embarassment
The Libby defense team has stated that in June and July 2003, Plame's CIA status was at most a peripheral issue to "the finger-pointing that went on within the executive branch about who was to blame" for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Court papers filed by Libby's lawyers distinctly raise the possibility a trial could become politically embarrassing for the Bush administration by focusing on the debate within the administration about whether the White House manipulated intelligence to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Judge Walton has said in court that he does not intend for the Libby trial to become a forum for debating the justification for the Iraq war.

"If the jury learns this background information" about finger-pointing, Libby's lawyers write, "and also understands Libby's focus on urgent national security matters, the jury will more easily appreciate how Mr. Libby may have forgotten or misremembered ... snippets of conversation" about Plame's CIA status.

Evidence hurdles
Later this month Judge Walton has ordered a series of closed hearings to determine if Libby can use certain classified information as a defense during his trial in the CIA/Leak case.

Libby's attorneys have requested and have been given in recent weeks two batches of summaries and redacted versions of classified morning intelligence briefings which Libby attended with Cheney in 2003 in order to prepare his defense.

So there remains a series of legal hurdles for Libby's attorney's before they can use excerpts of classified briefings to illustrate at trial the tumultuous atmosphere in the administration during that crucial period in the summer of 2003 when Valerie Plame Wilson's name emerged to become a household word.

MORE FROM POLITICS

Politics Section Front

Obama's trip: sign of new era in diplomacy?   Idea of gas-tax holiday dies quick death NYT: Rivals McCain, Romney make up Iraq pact could complicate campaigns McCain raises more than $21 million in June Obama going abroad with world watching Poll:  Acceptance of gays in military grows Newsweek: Obama's global leadership challenge McCain adviser Gramm leaves campaign Todd: Comfort vs. convention in veep search Politics Section Front   Add Politics headlines to your news reader: