Obstruction of Justice: Libby trial

What is obstruction of justice? Generally, obstruction charges are laid when it is discovered that a person questioned in an investigation, who is not a suspect, has lied to the investigating officers.

For example, Martha Stewart was convicted of obstruction of justice, as well as other charges, for falsifying her trading records after learning her friend Sam Waksal, the CEO of Imclone, the company whose stock she sold, was being investigated for insider trading. It appears that Ms. Stewart's own trading activities did not meet the strict definition of insider trading, and the falsification of documents was intended merely to create an explanation for what was a suspicious trade.

Another example, President Richard Nixon was being investigated for obstruction of justice for his alleged role in the cover-up of the break-in at the Watergate hotel during his 1972 re-election campaign. Although it is widely believed that Nixon had no foreknowledge of his re-election committee's "dirty tricks" campaign against Democrat presidential candidates that led to the break-in, it appears he was aware of it after the fact and planned to pay money to keep the participants quiet.

From the blogger Emptywheel:

In general, the evidence relating to the obstruction charge overlaps significantly with the evidence relating to the Russert charge. Surely, to explain an obstruction charge, Fitzgerald will explain how Libby and OVP deliberately collected information on Joe Wilson and (perhaps not as deliberately) his wife. Just as a reminder, here is the list of actions Libby took to collect data on Wilson:

May 29: Libby asks Marc Grossman for more information on Wilson's trip

Before June 9: OVP asks CIA for documents relating to Wilson's trip

June 11: Libby asks Roger Grenier about the trip

The Content of the Russert Conversation

Libby is alleged to have lied about what transpired in the conversation between him and Russert. Here's what

Libby claimed to have transpired during his FBI interviews:

During a conversation with Tim Russert of NBC News on July 10 or 11, 2003, Russert asked LIBBY if LIBBY was aware that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. LIBBY responded to Russert that he did not know that, and Russert replied that all the reporters knew it. LIBBY was surprised by this statement because, while speaking with Russert, LIBBY did not recall that he previously had learned about Wilson’s wife’s employment from the Vice President.

But Fitzgerald will argue that Russert did not ask whether Libby knew about Plame:

Russert did not ask LIBBY if LIBBY knew that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, nor did he tell LIBBY that all the reporters knew it;

June 12 or before: Dick Cheney discusses the trip with someone from CIA and learns Plame works in CPD; he passes this information on to Libby

shortly after June 19: Eric Edelman discusses leaking info to the press about Wilson's trip (remember, it was still classified for the government) to defend OVP; Libby tells him he can't discuss such things on an unsecure line

sometime in this period: Cathie Martin has a conversation with an official who tells her of Plame's identity; she passes this on to Libby

sometime after July 6, perhaps on July 8: Libby asks David Addington for more information relating to Wilson's trip and a judgment supporting Presidential authorization to leak something to Judy

Seemingly everyone in OVP was doing oppo research on Joe Wilson. And it continued right up until July 8, two days before Libby learned of Plame's identity again "as if it were new." We also know that OVP had at least two meetings in which it strategized how to respond to Wilson: on June 12 and on July 12.

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/01/the_scooter_lib_1.html

A quote from Fitzgerald's October 28, 2005 press conference:

"And to be frank, Mr. Libby gave the FBI a compelling story. What he told the FBI is the essentially he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to a 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. 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 Mathew Cooper of Time Magazine and reporter Judith Miller of The New Times. And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on, on July 12th of 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. And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on to reporters, he made clear that he did not 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 of that. "