Marcy Wheeler:Libby Trial

This weekend, RAW STORY interviewed Marcy Wheeler, one of the blogosphere’s most tireless observers and analysts of the CIA leak investigation and the I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Trial.

In the interview, she revealed that she believes that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will press forward with his investigation, and that his ultimate target is Vice President Dick Cheney: "I’m not entirely convinced that Fitzgerald’s done. I used to be conservative on that, believing that he was done. But there are little snippets of hints that he’s not."


Wheeler is omnipresent in the new media, most notably at the blog Firedoglake, while also appearing on her own blog, The Next Hurrah, and also at Daily Kos and the Huffington Post. Her book on the CIA leak scandal, Anatomy of Deceit, has been released in paperback. Because of a marathon effort parsing public documents, she managed to beat the traditional media to major stories by months.

“We figured out that Armitage was the Novak/Woodward source in March,” Wheeler said in an implicit critique of mainstream coverage of the Plame story, “and we were able to do that because we were able to do things that journalists wouldn’t do.”

Fitzgerald became famous for using organized crime-fighting tactics to root his way through an immensely corrupt government in the state of Illinois, culminating his years-long investigation with over 60 indictments and the conviction of former Republican Governor George Ryan.
Wheeler believes that Fitzgerald will bring that indefatigable nature to this trial: "I think Fitzgerald clearly wants Cheney and he’s not the kind of person who rests on his laurels after getting one conviction. One thing I can say is I don’t understand why Eric Edelman wasn’t called and that may be something he kept in reserve. I don’t understand why Jenny Mayfield wasn’t called, that may be something he kept in reserve."

A transcription of the interview appears below.

BB: I didn’t realize how serious the loophole in Fitzgerald’s strategy was and how profoundly it affected the course of the investigation. But at the same time he probably couldn’t have moved forward without promising to limit the investigation to only known leakers. Talk about that, if you can.

MW: Armitage is the perfect example because people on the right always say how dare Patrick Fitzgerald didn’t find the Bob Woodward/Armitage’s connection. But had he done what he needed to do to find that, he would have needed to subpoena every single journalist who spoke to Libby, Rove, Armitage, Fleischer, Bartlett, Hadley, Condi. And you’re beginning to get into the range of things. They were all potential leakers and probably to some degree were involved. There’s no way you would’ve been able to subpoena all of that.

BB: How disappointed were you when Cheney was excused.

MW: I wasn’t surprised. But you know Cheney can’t keep his cool. He may be very intelligent, but if you look at what happened with Leahy he can’t keep his cool when somebody challenges him and he’s never been challenged by journalists in the way he would have been challenged by Fitzgerald. But I just think there was no way they could have scoped the testimony narrowly enough to avoid Cheney opening himself up to charges. If you read Sid Blumenthal’s piece from last week where people were telling Libby not to take the fall for Cheney. It’s pretty clear that everyone agrees that’s what he’s in the process of doing. It would defy the point of him taking the fall if Dick Cheney took the stand and exposed himself to a perjury charge. Plus the fact that—I don’t even think that Cheney could have successfully reinforced Libby’s testimony. John Hannah was a huge bust for the defense. They had a great witness, John Hannah, saying if Libby took 2 hrs on July 8 to meet with Judith Miller there’d be no way he’d forget it.

BB: So predictions? Verdict?

MW: I think Wells is going to make a very concerted effort at jury nullification. In his closing statement he’s going to harp on: Rove leaked, Ari [Fleischer] leaked, Armitage leaked and they’re not doing time, they’re not even charged. But what Fitzgerald isn’t quite able to say although he might get there is that whoever leaked it all came out. Armitage only found out about Plame because of the INR memo [which was part of the leak process to begin with]. Ari found out from Libby and Rove probably found out from Libby. I think Wells, it goes back to his opening statement when he said, “the only way my client doesn’t get off is if you violate your oath.” And it’s very wrong. And I think he could be disbarred if it was perceived that he did it intentionally. But what he wants them to think about the leak and not this narrow perjury charge.

BB: Do you buy the reports that Ari Fleischer came forth because he was worried about being
imprisoned or executed?

MW: There was nothing in the testimony to support that. You asked about predictions. If Wells is unsuccessful at jury nullification then I think that Libby will get off on the two Cooper charges but be found guilty on obstruction and the two Russert charges.

BB: Do you think that the Intelligence Identities Act is a law that will ever be successfully adjudicated?

MW: Well the problem in this case, I’m not entirely convinced that Fitzgerald’s done. I used to be conservative on that, believing that he was done. But there are little snippets of hints that he’s not.

BB: What are those? Talk about those.

MW: I don’t think I should say. It’s court personnel stuff. If nothing else, there may be another charge for Libby that he’s lying about the NIE. But I think Fitzgerald clearly wants Cheney and he’s not the kind of person who rests on his laurels after getting one conviction. One thing I can say is I don’t understand why Eric Edelman wasn’t called and that may be something he kept in reserve. I don’t understand why Jenny Mayfield wasn’t called, that may be something he kept in reserve. I think I understand why the defense didn’t call her. So he may or may not be done, but, in this case, if he’s not done, I say this in the book, there are two Constitutional issues you run up against. Because I’ve long believed that if Fitzgerald gets to the point where he can prove that it wasn’t the NIE they were declassifying but it was Plame’s identity, then you’re in the Constitutional issue of whether Navy vs. Egan, which is what Addington was using to justify it, whether its true that it can supersede all the procedures that executive orders lay out for declassification. That you can instantly declassify something. And whether you can declassify Plame’s identity without telling her. And I’m still not convinced that you can indict a sitting vice president for something he did as a sitting vice president. Agnew was indicted for something he did before.

BB: What would you say are the differences between blog ethics or citizen journalist ethics and regular journalist ethics? And how much of what you do is in the old style, calling and cultivating sources?

MW: In the book I very deliberately avoided that, partly because my big sources were Joe and people who know Joe and I didn’t want the book to be Joe’s side of the story. I wanted it to be able to stand on its own. I did that deliberately. I wanted this to be public record stuff. That’s what I do well. I’m as good a close reader as I think there are out there. And reading through the filings and that kind of thing I’m sure I read them as intelligently as anybody. So for me that’s what I do. I don’t particularly like the phone and I don’t live in DC. I think one of the bigger differences between what I do and what journalists do has to do with genre more than anything else. And I’ve said this before. I wouldn’t want to give up the ability to say, ‘I’m going to speculate wildly. It is speculation, but here’s my basis for it.’ And I mean, we figured out that Armitage was the Novak/Woodward source in March and we were able to do that because we were able to do things that journalists wouldn’t do. And I’ve been harping since October since it became crystal clear that Libby had met with Novak and probably was hiding those meetings and I’ve just been saying “Novak meetings, why the hell isn’t anybody reporting this.” But to some degree I understand that journalists can’t say, “everyone said Richard Armitage is the source but we just discovered that Scooter Libby actually had meetings with Robert Novak that neither of them has revealed until now and we therefore can’t say with certainty that Richard Armitage was the first source until we understand what this is,” and that’s the conversation that should be happening.

BB: How do you stay accurate?

MW: I definitely do corrections on anything that I asserted definitively. A lot of what I do is present evidence. The book was different. I had to put it to bed. Where a lot of what I do on the blog is say, “here’s something we don’t know about the January 24 document." I can say with certainty based on OVP’s own documents that it is post dated to the time they were told to take the Niger reference out of the State of the Union. And maybe there are documents I don’t know. What I do is say, “here’s what the evidence shows.” If new evidence comes to light then I say, “new evidence comes to light and here’s what we now know.”

BB: Have there been any recriminations, intimidation or defamation or anything like that?

MW: So far there haven’t been any ill side-effects.

BB: Do you see yourself — when all this is said and don e— continuing to blog or transferring into a media position or bridging the two? What’s the plan?

MW: I don’t know. I don’t want to do traditional media. It’s the genre issue. We need to expand the genre of traditional media—everything from pseudo-objectivity to the size of articles to the kinds of things you can say in articles because that’s not serving our purposes very well. I don’t want to do that until journalism gets a lot more vibrant

BB: Is blogging a sustainable medium? Can they be profitable, or provide people a living?

MW: That’s one of my questions because right now I’m a consultant so I can work 20 hrs a
week and pay the bills and that’s what I did when I left academic work. I spend a lot of time blogging now and I like doing it but there is something to be said for having people who aren’t full time bloggers doing it. I kind of want to retain at least the principle of that because you get a lot of different viewpoints that you wouldn’t otherwise necessarily get. I think that’s a good thing.

BB: What’s your readership like these days?

MW: I’m not sure we’re sustainably at 4000 we’re normally at 3000 unique hits a day. That was before Thursday’s New York Times article, though.

....and the truth shall set us free.