Libby's cynical defense

Next up was Pincus' colleague Bob Woodward, who explained that then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had told him about Plame. A snippet of audiotape of their conversation, recorded by Woodward as part of his research for his book "Plan of Attack," was played. This was another attempt at exculpation by showing that it was not Libby who was the source, once again trying to cloud the accusations of perjury and obstruction. Armitage, Colin Powell's best friend, had been a source for Woodward for decades. Libby would know that however useful Woodward might be as an outlet for leaks, as he demonstrated in "Bush at War," depicting President Bush and his team as decisive, prudent and courageous, he would ultimately tilt in Powell's direction. But there was another reason for Libby not to leak Plame's identity to Woodward that was even more basic. Woodward husbanded material for his bestselling books and did not dribble out his exclusives in the daily newspaper. Leaking to Woodward was pointless if one wanted to get a story published immediately.

Armitage's leak was at best mindless, at worst the trading of national security secrets to ingratiate himself with a star reporter. On the tape, Armitage's tough-guy, obscenity-spewing persona is coached along by an eager, laughing Woodward. The more Woodward laps it up, the more Armitage spills the beans. Woodward: "But why would they send him?" Armitage: "Because his wife's a fucking analyst at the agency." Woodward: "It's still weird." Armitage: It, it's perfect. This is what she does, she is a WMD analyst out there." Woodward: "Oh she is." Armitage: "Yeah." Woodward: "Oh, I see."

Armitage had learned of Plame from reading a State Department memo that conspicuously marked an "S" next to her name, indicating that her identity was top secret. Armitage, who had years of experience at high levels of government, was more intent on impressing Woodward than on keeping the secret. The tape ends with Armitage repeating with emphasis: "But his wife is in the agency and is a WMD analyst. How about that shit?" Armitage's buffoonery about "that shit" had no bearing on the charges against Libby, but Libby's lawyers hoped it would provide a tawdry distraction, as it has for numerous Washington columnists and pundits.

Novak was the next witness. He spelled his last name and then his first: "B-O-B." He explained that his sources were Armitage and Karl Rove. "I wouldn't call him a good friend. I would call him a very good source," Novak said about Rove. "I talked to him two or three times a week at that point." Unlike Rove, Libby was not a regular source. "I had no help and no confirmation from Mr. Libby on that issue," Novak said about the Plame story. Just when it appeared that Novak was done, a juror asked a question, read by Judge Reggie Walton, about whether Novak had spoken to anyone else about the information in his notorious column exposing Plame besides the two "senior administration officials" cited in it before its publication. Novak said that he had spoken with Bill Harlow, the public affairs officer at the CIA.

The judge prodded him on whether there was anyone else. Novak revealed that he gave a copy of his column to Richard Hohlt, whom he described as one of his "closest friends," and to whom he said he spoke daily. Hohlt, Novak went on, is a "lobbyist about town." (In fact, he's a little known but influential Republican lobbyist.) And, the judge wondered, did Mr. Hohlt share the column with anyone? Novak further revealed that Hohlt showed it to people at the White House. Thus, through Novak's cutout, or go-between, the White House was informed that Novak would publish Plame's identity. None of this had any bearing on Libby's guilt or innocence, but it was a fascinating glimpse at Novak's methods.

David Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, followed Novak in the witness chair. What Sanger had to offer is that he had spoken with Libby but that Libby had not told him about Plame. Sanger was another bit player in the Libby defense of distraction. Indeed, there was no cause to leak to Sanger. He was not the type of reporter with whom that sort of delicate political information would be shared. Indeed, Libby was working the New York Times through Judith Miller, the past reliable outlet for disinformation on WMD stories. Libby could not know that Miller would be thwarted in getting permission to write a Plame story. Going to someone like Sanger would only have undermined his attempt to use the Times. But none of that was drawn from the witness.

The next day, instead of calling Cheney, Libby's team put John Hannah, a neoconservative Middle East policy analyst on the vice president's staff, on the stand. For two hours, Hannah held forth on Libby's forgetfulness and the overwhelming crush of his job. Hannah was Cheney's stand-in, but without Cheney's enormous potential liabilities that might be explored through cross-examination. Hannah's role was to be the first-person witness to buttress Libby's memory defense.

Yet, under cross-examination by Fitzgerald, Hannah was cracked apart in a matter of minutes. Fitzgerald asked him whether defending Cheney in the media was an important part of Libby's job. "It would be important to push back on those issues, yes," Hannah said. Fitzgerald then got Hannah to acknowledge that getting Libby to give up an hour's worth of his time, given his heavy load of work, would be difficult. Fitzgerald zeroed in on Libby's two long meetings in the St. Regis Hotel's dining room on June 23 and July 8, 2003. "So, during the time of all these threats if he gave someone an hour or two of his time ... it was something Mr. Libby would think was important, correct?" Fitzgerald asked. Hannah answered that it was. "Is it fair to say that what was important to the vice president was important to Mr. Libby?" Fitzgerald asked. "Yes, that's correct," Hannah replied.

But the demolition of Hannah was not done. A juror had a question, posed to the witness by the judge: Aside from Libby's difficulty with memory, did it lead him to have concerns about his effectiveness? "Never," said Hannah. The barbed question was a sharp indication of at least one juror's cynicism about Libby's defense.

On Wednesday, the next day, Judge Walton ruled that Libby's lawyers had misled the court into believing that Libby would testify in his own behalf. Walton, therefore, disallowed admission into court of questioning of Libby's CIA briefers, who would supposedly show how busy Libby was, another element of his effort to confuse the jury. Undoubtedly, Walton's displeasure at Libby's refusal to testify will shape the instructions he gives to the jurors.

Closing statements will occur on Feb. 20. Judge Walton will charge the jury, and they will decide Libby's fate. Libby must hope that the testimony presented by Fitzgerald has been obscured enough to prevent his conviction. Then the advice he rejected from his concerned mentor and other friends will have been proved to be a gamble he never needed to accept. If declared not guilty, Libby can return to his White House office, where he can resume the vice president's campaigns of disinformation.

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