Openings and Closings

According to Libby's own grand jury testimony, Libby and Cheney met in fall of 2003, just as the criminal probe of the CIA leak was getting underway, and discussed Libby's role.

Writes Waas: "The explanation that Libby offered Cheney that day was virtually identical to one that Libby later told the FBI and testified to before a federal grand jury: Libby said he had only passed along to reporters unsubstantiated gossip about Plame that he had heard from NBC bureau chief Tim Russert."

But, as Waas explains, Cheney had plenty of reason at the time to know Libby was lying. Among other things, Cheney was aware that he himself had told Libby about Plame a month before Libby's conversation with Russert. The two had also extensively discussed plans to discredit Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, before then.

So why did Cheney let Libby tell that story to the FBI and the grand jury?

Waas doesn't quite come out and say this, but a reasonable conclusion might be that Libby and Cheney were conspiring to obstruct justice.

And, attributing this to "sources familiar with still-secret grand jury testimony and evidence," Waas writes: "If Libby is found guilty, investigators are likely to probe further to determine if Libby devised what they consider a cover story in an effort to shield Cheney. They want to know whether Cheney might have known about the leaks ahead of time or had even encouraged Libby to provide information to reporters about Plame's CIA status.

So will it serve Fitzgerald's purpose to offer any hints of this today in his final words to the Libby jury? We'll just have to wait and see.

I'm not advocating a "Ken Starr" approach -- where the special prosecutor's slightest suspicion gets leaked a to a friendly reporter. But at the very least, I sure hope Fitzgerald will find some ethically acceptable way to put the transcripts of what Bush and Cheney told prosecutors into the public record -- and in that way give the American people a chance to judge the veracity of its paramount leaders in this important matter.

The Prosecution: May It Please the Court

Here is the beginning and the very end of Fitzgerald's opening statement:

May it please the Court, the defense team, the government team, members of the jury. Good morning.

It's Sunday, July 6th, 2003. It's the last day of a three-day Fourth of July weekend. It's Sunday. The fireworks are over, except a different kind of fireworks are about to begin. When people wake up, they open up the Sunday paper, the Sunday New York Times.

On the page opposite the editorial page appears a column, a column written by a man named Joseph Wilson. Wilson served his career in the State Department and rose to rank of ambassador. And in this column he made an explosive charge. Mr. Wilson claimed that he had personal knowledge that would indicate to him that the Bush administration may have twisted the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq. Mr. Wilson leveled a direct attack on White House credibility, an attack on the office of the vice president in particular. Mr. Wilson's allegations were not limited to the Sunday New York Times that day. He was interviewed for a story in the Washington Post. And he appeared on a national TV program, NBC's Meet the Press. In all three places, Mr. Wilson made the same charges about the administration twisting the intelligence to justify the war.