Questions re: Judith Miller

[JDPriestly]

1) If Judith Miller was not writing a story on Wilson and Plame, why was she spending so much of her time talking to Libby around the end of June through the beginning of July? Just how close were they? She claims she did not recognize him in Jackson Hole in August of that year. Did Miller usually talk to Libby as often as she did in late June and early July of 2003? Again, why was Miller talking to Libby about the Wilson/Niger matter so much right before Plame was outed?

2) How do we know Judith Miller has told the truth about what she told the Grand Jury? She has lied so much before. And, even her story about her testimony doesn't make sense because, as has been pointed out, if Libby wasn't the first to tell her about Plame, and she doesn't recall who the first person was, why didn't she just say so? Why did she go to jail to protect someone whose name she can't recall?

(Of course, Libby's having said that Wilson's wife worked for a particular department of the CIA may be enough to indict him depending on how the particular law Fitzgerald is indicting under is interpreted. In other words, whether Libby was the first to out Plame may be irrelevant if he discussed what he should have known was secret information with Miller. I just don't know.)

What if the reason Miller's statement about her testimony before the Grand Jury doesn't make sense is that it isn't true? What if there really wasn't any agreement between Miller and Fitzgerald to limit her testimony?

Have I missed some information? Does anyone know the answers to my questions? Any idea what they might be?

[H2O Man]

1. Attempted answers:

{1} She was working on a story regarding Wilson and Plame that her editors rejected. Keep in mind she admits that she had agreed with Libby to misrepresent who he was (former congressional aide).

{2} We can be 100% sure that Judith lied in in article about the grand jury testimony, as well as in her grand jury testimony. For example, she lied about "not remembering" who gave her the name of Wilson's wife. It is impossible to believe that a person with her background, at a time the vp's top dog and the national media was discussing this (due to Wilson's op-ed & Novak's slime), that she would not remember who it was.

[Karmakaze]

4. Don't fall for the name excuse!

There is nothing in the law that says the agent must be named. It says the agent must be IDENTIFIED. There are many means of identifying someone without naming them - a social security number, job title, or as in this case saying who they are related to.

Anything that allows an individual to be singled out as the person concerned is "identifying information", So "Wilson's Wife" is more than adequate to satisfy the "indentify" clause of the IAIPA.

I think Miller's article is proof that she was NOT covering for Libby when she went to prison - which of course was pretty clear because we all knew it was Libby almost from day 1. Her testimony has hung Libby out to dry, but I think that she was waiting for them to tell her to do it, and I think it means that Libby and maybe Rove have been designated to take the fall.

The person she is REALLY protecting is the person whose name she has "forgotten". But I also believe she is not protecting that person for the sake of it - I think if THAT person's name was revealed we would find that evidence of a conspiracy to commit treason would be beyond doubt.

Would Miller go to jail to protect a source? Maybe - would she go to jail to protect the entire Bush administration for going down in history as the first Administration to commit treason against the US? Without a doubt.

[JDPriestly]

5. Thanks.

To test your theory that she was working on a story her editors rejected, we would need to know when her editors rejected her story idea. There may be notes on that. Once her story idea was rejected, she should have stopped seeing Libby. If she didn't then there may have been some other reason she was seeing him.

I need no additional evidence to fully agree with your answer to number 2. She is lying and concealing.

I wonder if, in fact, Judith Miller, invoked the Fifth Amendment before the grand jury.

I quote from an article on the internet by Solomon L. Wisenberg:

One of the most delicate tasks for the practitioner representing a witness or subject in a white-collar investigation is the tactical decision of whether to invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination during the grand jury phase. This question can be even more complex in the case of grand jury subpoenas for documents. Two recent decisions by the United States Supreme Court, Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17, 121 S.Ct. 1252 (2001), and United States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27 (2000), indicate that its current members share, for the most part, an expansive view of the Self-Incrimination Clause. These decisions should be used aggressively during the grand jury stage whenever counsel needs to shield the client from having to testify or produce potentially incriminating documents.

The Fifth Amendment provides in pertinent part that "o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." A long-standing precept of Fifth Amendment jurisprudence is that the privilege applies to any statement that might tend to incriminate the witness. The statement at issue need not directly implicate the witness as long as it "furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute the claimant for a...crime." Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486-87 (1951). Another venerable precedent holds that the privilege protects the innocent as well as the guilty. Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391 (1957). Reiner strikingly reaffirmed both principles in the context of an Ohio criminal trial. Though it did not pertain to a grand jury proceeding, Reiner can easily be applied in that context.

http://library.findlaw.com/2005/Jan/19/147944.html

I have no evidence that she did invoke the Fifth, but I have wondered if, assuming it is true that she struck a deal to limit her testimony with Fitzgerald, a threat on her part to invoke it might have caused him to agree to the deal. Of course, it is more likely that Fitzgerald only needed to know about her conversations with Libby and already has enough evidence on others. It may also be that his contempt order focused on the Libby information. I don't know.

[H2O Man]

6. It's not my theory.

It's exactly what was reported in yesterday's NY Times. She was working on an article that the editors rejected.

[npincus]

2. here's another: did Judy doctor her notes?

I for one find the "Valerie Flame" and "Victoria Wilson" entries very suspicious. Looks like she threw them in there herself in such an offhand, casual manner as to belie the fact that the were a (more) significant part of her conversations w/Libby. Give me a break, too obvious. Miller says the "Flame" entry was in a "different part of her notebook" from the notes of her conversation with Libby... a very obvious scheme to throw investigators off Libby's trail and onto some "unknown" third party whom Miller "can't recall".

She is so full of shit. I hope the NYT fires her ass.

[H2O Man]

3. Interesting.

Very possible. It wouldn't surprise me. In fact, it seems more likely.

I think "Flame" may be intentional. I think it hints at Libby's anger towards her.