“He Is An Innocent Man And He Has Been Wrongly And Unfairly Accused”
by digby
Here’s Fox News’ Libby trial story on Brit Hume’s show tonight. It starts off with the right lede, but goes downhill from there:
Hume: An attorney for former white house aide Scooter Libby said Libby feared the whtie house was trying to use him as a scapegoat in the investigation into the leaking of a cia employees name. That contention was a key point during opening statements in Libby’s perjury trial. Chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle has the story:
Video:
Reporter: Ready for opening statements Mr Fitzgerald?
Angle: Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was tight lipped as he arrived for opening statements, a day that would be devoted to competing conspiracy theories. Once in the courtroom, Fitzgerald spent an hour laying out what he described as an administration effort to beat back critics of the Iraq war, in this case former ambassador Joe Wilson who wrote a New York Times op-ed accusing the administration of twisting the intelligence on Iraq to justify the war. Fitzgerald argued Scooter Libby, as part of a White House push back, sought to punish Wilson by knowingly exposing his wife Valerie Plame who worked at the CIA then lied about it as Fitzgerald charged when announcing the indictment.
Video:
Fitzgerald: We need to know the truth. And anyone who goes into a Grand Jury and lies, obstructs or impedes the investigation has committed a serious crime.
Angle: When it was his turn, Libby’s lawyer Ted Wells flatly rejected the prosecutions claims saying “Scooter Libby is innocent,he is totally innocent, he is an innocent man and he has been wrongly and unfairly accused. This is a weak, paper thin, circumstantial case,” he went on, “about he said, she said.”
Wells said “Libby had no knowledge whether Valerie Plame’s job was classified or not, no witness will take the stand and say that,” he told the jury, “and I can’t tell you whether she was or wasn’t.”
But no one is charged with that and Wells noted Libby didn’t know that one way or the other. “People do not lie for the heck of it,” he said, “Scooter Libby did not do anything wrong. He had nothing to cover up and he had no reason to lie.”
Wells also sought to paint Libby as a victim, pointing to statements from the White House about those who might be involved in any illegal activity.
Video:
Bush: If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration
Angle: But when the White House later said that Karl Rove was not responsible, Libby told the Vice President he feared he was being cast as the scapegoat. “They’re trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb,” Wells quoted Libby as saying,”I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected.”
As events unfolded, though, Fitzgerald did investigate Rove but decided not to indict him, and the official who first leaked Valerie Plame’s name, State department official Richard Armitage, came clean to Fitzgerald but he wasn’t indicted either.
Jim Angle, Fox News
Biased much? He picked out seven or so different quotes by Ted Wells, all of which were simultaneously printed on the screen, saying that Libby is innocent, innocent, innocent. And anyway, there wasn’t any real issue because Rove wasn’t indicted and Armitage “came clean” and admitted that he accidentally let it slip during a gossipy little hen party with Bob Woodward.
They acted very casual about the story, no biggie, nothing to see here and moved on immediately to Bush’s big speech about nothing.
This is good, though. Tweety had Trent Lott on:
Matthews: What do you think of the fact that Scooter Libby’s attorney today, Ted Wells, aimed directly at Karl Rove and said he had set up his client Scooter Libby to take the fall for that leak of the the CIA agents identifica… ID. back a couple years back.
What do you make of the charge of the president’s assistant, Scooter Libby, he’s also the Vice president’s assistant, blaming Karl Rove for shennanigans in the White House, aimed at leaving the blame for all that mess, that leak, on the vice president’s man?
Lott: I didn’t see it. But I had heard it, of course. And I’m frankly, uh, surprised that that would be what they’d say in the opening part of this trial. I don’t know whether that’s accurate or not, but certainly, uh, it’s a problem, in many ways.
Matthews: Do you think your party’s coming apart….?
Haha.
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