Simon W. Moon said:
He said that reporters were his only source, not merely his first source.
Yes and we'll wait to see what he says in court. If you read the indictment he is telling reporters that this is new information to him and he doesn't know if it is true. If in fact, as it appears he did know it and it wasn't new to him, that would not be a crime. I want to see in more detail exactly what he told the FBI.
"
What he told the FBI is that essentially he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter Tim Russert, and during the conversation Mr. Russert told him that, "Hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Mr. Wilson's wife works at the CIA?""
His word against Russerts on whether they discussed it and it was not against to law to feed Russert a phoney story if that's what he did.
"And he told the FBI that he learned that information as if it were new, and it struck him. So he took this information from Mr. Russert and later on he passed it on to other reporters, including reporter Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, reporter Judith Miller of The New York Times."
"as if" that's a key, he may have known but pretended "as if" he didn't to the reporters. Not against the law. I want to see more about this.
"And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on on July 12th, 2003, two days before Mr. Novak's column, that he passed it on understanding that this was information he had gotten from a reporter, that he didn't even know if it was true."
Understanding with whom, the reporter? Nothing illegal there either.
"And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on to the reporters he made clear that he did know if this were true. This was something that all the reporters were saying and, in fact, he just didn't know and he wanted to be clear about it."
Fine, make them go out and prove the story so that when they write they back it up with facts they have uncovered. Nothing wrong with that.
"Later, Mr. Libby went before the grand jury on two occasions in March of 2004. He took an oath and he testified. And he essentially said the same thing."
THAT is where he might have a problem and until we see all the testimony............
He remembered part of more than one conversation that is not remmbered by the other participants in the conversations.
Which is not evidence he did not hear what he claims.
The conflicting reports from Libby began three MONTHS after, not three years.
Actaully about 5 months June to October.
He had a converstaion about it at least twice a week for a month, and requested documents be faxed to him at the Office of the VP from the CIA regarding the matter. A mere three months after this month long period, he forgot and 'mis-remembered' it.
The prosecutor will have to prove otherwise. I'm not defending him in the least. The indictment still leaves a lot to be answered and a lot to prove beyond doubt. If he purposely lied to obstruct justice he deserves to be punished. Can Fitzgerald prove that, why did it do it since it served no purpose, what was the justice he was obstructing, we'll see. Look how hard it was to prove Hillary lied about her various "gates".
But the interesting point that is being overlooked is that Wilson is being lauded for lying and Libby is being presecuted for getting the truth out. As far as the core issue that is.