As we ruminate over Larry Johnson’s analysis- and fact-rich post here last night (“Mambo Italiano and Plame Gate“) … as we read USA Today‘s piece today on Fitz (“Investigator of CIA leak seen as relentless,” via Salon‘s Daou Report) … and as we wish we were quiet little flies on the walls of Fitz’s office (shhh, stop the buzzin’, Catnip!) as he talks to Judith Miller today* — here’s a list of journalists called before the CIA Leak grand jury, as of 2004, from Newsday (article not available any longer) via JustOneMinute blog:
- Robert Novak, “Crossfire,” “Capital Gang” and the Chicago Sun-Times
- Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps, Newsday
- Walter Pincus, Richard Leiby, Mike Allen, Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
- Matthew Cooper, John Dickerson, Massimo Calabresi, Michael Duffy and James Carney, Time magazine
- Evan Thomas, Newsweek
- Andrea Mitchell, “Meet the Press,” NBC
- Chris Matthews, “Hardball,” MSNBC
- Tim Russert, Campbell Brown, NBC
- Nicholas D. Kristof, David E. Sanger and Judith Miller, The New York Times
- Greg Hitt and Paul Gigot, The Wall Street Journal
- John Solomon, The Associated Press
- Jeff Gannon, Talon News
Also tantalizing is a partial list of documents subpoenaed:
- “[R]ecords of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer’s name was published in a column in July
- “[R]ecords created in July by the White House Iraq Group, a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.”
- “[A] transcript of a White House spokesman’s press briefing in Nigeria”
- “[A] list of those attending a birthday reception for a former president”
- “[R]ecords of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets”
- “[A] complete transcript of a July 12 press “gaggle,” or informal briefing, by then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer while at the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria. That transcript is missing from the White House Web site containing transcripts of other press briefings. In a transcript the White House released at the time to Federal News Service, Fleischer discusses Wilson and his CIA report.”
More at the JustOneMinute blog.
See also: ThinkProgress’s list of the 21 administration officials involved in the CIA leak case.
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*The Last Hurrah‘s emptywheel is speculating about today’s twosome of Judy and Fitzie: “The Theory of the Two Notebooks.” See below:
[There’s a large section above that painstakingly details various news accounts of Judith Miller’s notes. All emphases below are mine.]
This one seems to support Jane Hamsher’s point–if the NYT is only admitting now that there were earlier conversations between Libby and Judy, then either it or Judy was not entirely forthcoming beforehand. This is a new story we’re getting.
I’m curious about the way the NYT describes these notes: newly discovered notes compiled by Ms. Miller. Sounds like she’s cherry picking. Maybe Fitz is still concentrating on the Plame leak and allowing her to redact information on Iraqi acquisition of uranium.
The date change is significant. According to Wilson, the UK’s Independent ran a story coming close to naming him on June 22. (I’m still trying ot get a copy of that story.) Was Libby out shopping this story around June 21?
[More detail, and quotation from the Newsweek article to which JPol referred in his piece, “Is Rove the Scapegoat?“.]
Finally, Newsweek, the story that has everyone scratching their head. I included the Rove stuff that is the main jist of the story to show how closely Luskin’s description of Wilson matches (presumably) Bennett’s–he’s a critic, not a diplomat. We’ll be hearing a lot about Wilson’s extensive career as a White House critic in the coming weeks, I’d wager.
And to get to source. This story relies on “lawyers close to the case,” which almost certainly includes Luskin (who wouldn’t be left out of a leak-fest if he could help it). Probably a lawyer from Fitz’ shop. But then, down there at the end, the NYT’s lawyer. Not Judy’s lawyer. The NYT’s lawyer.
At this point, that detail is one of the most compelling reasons I think there are two notebooks. Isikoff, presumably, has a better understanding of what this notebook is than he’s letting on. …
So it was not, presumably, discovered in Judy’s desk. If I were a journalist fighting hard to keep my sources confidential, I wouldn’t store the records of those sources somewhere where I didn’t own the key.
I also think Isikoff uses the passive here very deliberately. Isikoff may have his limitations as a journalist, but basic grammar is not one of them. A professional writer knows the weakness (and the strength) of the passive construction quite well–it obscures who is completing an action.
The NYT is trying very hard to hide their complicity and possible implication in this conspiracy. Which is why, I think, Isikoff uses the passive here.
So what? Why does it matter if there are Judy notes and NYT notes being handed to Fitz?
For starters, it suggests the NYT may be ready to jettison their beloved martyr. If she has gotten them into some legal hot water, their willingness to hand over additional materials suggests they’re now trying to protect themselves, perhaps at Judy’s cost.
But it also suggests a possible scenario whereby Judy came to discover some notes she forgot about. It may be that Fitzgerald caught her in a perjury trap
[editor’s note, by susanhu] Added embedded link.(or she just perjured herself believing the subpoena’s terms protected her). But the involvement of the NYT in this directly (if that’s what it is) could suggest Fitzgerald has demonstrated to Pinch that his best interests lay in providing materials from June (and note–if this notebook references story assignments without source, this bypasses any First Amendment issue).
In which case, Judy may now be in a similar situation as Cooper was, where it was futile to hide her materials any longer because those provided by her employer already exposed the bulk of what she might have hidden.— From the “The Theory of the Two Notebooks” by emptywheel.
As I noted in “Judith’s Attorneys Don’t Agree,” the NYT attorney (Abrams) and Judy’s criminal attorney (Bennett) seemed to be operating completely separately of each other, including in their communications with Scooter Libby’s attorney.
