Andrew Cohen sums up today’s Libby testimony and then gets to the point.
So far, Libby’s lawyers have not exactly blown away court observers with their first witnesses– and of course you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Pincus told the panel that it was former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer who first told him about Valerie Plame Wilson, the CIA agent and wife of Joseph Wilson, the administration critic. Last week, you may recall, Fleischer testified that he was told about Plame Wilson by Libby. Meanwhile, Bob Woodward told jurors that he learned about Plame Wilson from Richard Armitage, now known to the world as THE original (and repentent and unindicted and official) leaker to the media of Wilson’s identity. And Novak confirms Armitage as the leaker and says that Karl Rove confirmed the leak.
Interesting, sure. With gusts up to fascinating. But, you may resonably ask, what does any of this have to do with whether Libby lied to federal investigators and to jurors when questioned about Plame Wilson? And, so far, the answer is easy: not much.
Nope. Not a thing, actually. The only interesting thing to happen to today was that we learned that Ari Fleischer leaked Plame’s name to Walter Pincus on July 12th. That was the day after Novak wrote his column and two days before it appeared in the papers. Fleischer never told the grand jury about telling Pincus. Do they want to prosecute for that? Kinda doubtful, but we’ll see. It doesn’t do a thing for Libby. He’s the one that told Ari in the first place, and then lied about it.
