Scooter Libby — patsy or
perjurer?
Blawgletter never has liked the "I forgot" defense. The "’tain’t so" defense usually works much better. The trial lawyers for Scooter Libby have come up with a combo — I forgot because ’tain’t so.
If that has set your mind to reeling, welcome aboard the Blawgletter train of wonderment and confusion. At least if Blawgletter has read press reports right (example here), Libby’s attorney said in his opening statement today that Karl Rove framed Libby — to save himself from prosecution for leaking the identity of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame. "They’re trying to set me up", Libby told Vice President Dick Cheney, according to the lawyer. "They want me to be the sacrificial lamb. I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected."
Libby principally claims that he forgot that he, too, had revealed Plame’s CIA essence to reporters instead of the other way around. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has a document more or less cinching that Libby knew (from his boss Cheney) about Plame’s cloak and dagger. Libby feared exposure, public shame, and termination if he fessed up after President Bush promised to fire anybody who leaked, giving him a motive to lie, says Fitzpatrick.
Blawgletter wonders how the I-forgot-and-am-a-patsy defense holds up.
