‘Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?’

Russert conversation key to decision
The jury acquitted Libby of one count of lying to the FBI about his conversation with Matthew Cooper, then a reporter for Time magazine. Testimony conflicted too much, Collins said, and there was enough reasonable doubt because it came down Libby’s word against Cooper’s word.

But the jury convicted Libby of lying to the FBI about his conversation with Tim Russert, NBC’s Washington bureau chief and the host of “Meet the Press.” The jury found Russert to be “very credible,” Collins said.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald contended that Libby learned of Plame’s identity from Cheney and falsely told the FBI that he learned it from Russert, instead, to hide the vice president’s involvement. Libby’s attorneys said he learned about Plame from Cheney, forgot about it and then learned it again a month later from Russert.

The jurors believed Fitzgerald. Collins said they did not believe Libby could possibly have forgotten that the vice president had told him something that important.

“We were told he had a bad memory, and we believed he did,” Collins said. But “even if he forgot who had told him about Mrs. Wilson [Plame’s married name], it seemed very unlikely that he would not have remembered that about Mrs. Wilson.”

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