Hugh Hewitt & Valerie Plame’s Counsel

Check out this interview Hugh Hewitt had with Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the lawyers representing Valerie Plame in her lawsuit, and Law Professor John Eastman:

HH: Well, I agree with that, but I just wanted to get to the fact that the special prosecutor looked very, very hard for any violation of Valerie Plame’s rights as a CIA covert operative, and found none. Erwin, was she covert in your opinion?

EC: There is no doubt whatsoever that she was a highly covert operative for the CIA. And it seems to me that these are things that none of us can disagree with, no matter what our ideology is. She was a secret agent for the CIA. In fact, look at the D.C. Circuit opinion in the Judith Miller case, where Judge Tatel talked about how for 20 years she was doing secret operations at the CIA. And we also can’t reveal that her CIA secret identity was revealed starting with Robert Novak’s column. Now we can disagree all we want about who was responsible, and whether that leads to civil or criminal liability. But I think those starting facts aren’t ones we could disagree about.

HH: Had she taken the necessary care not to allow her identity be revealed? Because as I understand it, she was listed in social registers, and that it was easily obtained knowledge by Bob Novak’s account that she was at the CIA.

EC: Now whatsoever, and that’s not what Robert Novak said. Robert Novak said that once he was told that Joseph Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent, he then, using publicly available documents, could find out who his wife was. The fact that Joseph Wilson was married to Valerie Plame Wilson wasn’t secret. The fact that Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA agent, was not known until Robert Novak published that column, destroyed her career, and also put in danger a lot of people who worked with her, who now, people will know, were working for the CIA.

HH: Now John, I want you to get a comment in, and I’ll come back with my next question.

JE: Well, my comment is this. I mean, a month or so ago, we had a great deal of go-around between the two of us about the appropriateness of the New York Times revealing ongoing covert operations of the CIA, that were clearly detrimental to our war effort, that were putting at risk that effort, and therefore, potentially, thousands of lives of civilians as well as military who are engaged in the war on terror. And yet Erwin, you took the position that that was a good thing to reveal that, because we ought to have a public debate. I suppose I could take the position here that it’s a good thing that Valerie Plame’s connection became known, because there was kind of this cabal inside the CIA of former Clinton holdovers, who were trying to undermine the administration’s efforts in the ongoing war. And it’s a good thing we have a public debate about that. That would be the same kind of argument. I’m not going to make that argument. I think it’s illegitimate. But I will say this. If somebody knowingly, knowingly outed a covert CIA operative, that person ought to be prosecuted. That’s why we had a special prosecutor looking into this. Nobody found any evidence of that whatsoever, and therefore, no charges were brought.

That my friends is a typical lawyer denying denying and denying some more on behalf of his client.  "There was no doubt she was a secret agent"…….sure thing Erwin.

All lies of course but John Eastman brought a bit of common sense back into the equation.  Check this out:

HH: All right. Next question is…the allegation is that of course, Valerie Plame sent Joe Wilson on this mission. You’ve disputed that, right, Erwin?

EC: Very strenuously. I mean, what my clients have said, both publicly and privately, is that she had absolutely nothing to do with Joe Wilson being sent to see whether Iraq was buying Uranium from Africa.

HH: Absolutely nothing? No participation at all?

EC: That was her…that is exactly what she has said. And Joe Wilson sent a follow-up letter to the Senate committee clarifying that. And there have been other statements as well, including from within, I think, administration officials acknowledging that.

All I can say is wow!  This case is going to be sooooo easy to pick apart in court.  So full of holes and lies the counselor cannot even get his facts right.

Macranger posts about the latest in the Scooter Libby case:

WASHINGTON –Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby wants a memory expert to explain how he — and prosecution witnesses — may have different recollections of their conversations about a CIA officer’s identity.

In a court filing Monday, defense lawyers said Libby has a right to present testimony from Robert A. Bjork, chairman of the psychology department at the University of California at Los Angeles, to correct misperceptions that jurors may have about the reliability of memory.

Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, faces trial in January for lying to FBI agents and a federal grand jury about how he learned and what he subsequently told reporters about then-CIA officer Valerie Plame in 2003.

The crux of Libby’s defense will be that he was too preoccupied with national security “matters of life and death” and that he could have easily confused “snippets of conversations” he had with reporters from Time magazine, NBC and the New York Times.

The court filing confirms that Libby’s lawyers want to try to force a jury into deciding whose memories of those conversations are accurate — Libby’s or the three reporters.”

Ok, this filing be a bit of a stretch, yet it’s brilliant because if the judge allows it – and its a big if – then it brings the real basis of this mockery of a charge to the front .

To wit: Libby’s word vs. the reporters involved in the matter.

Does anyone really believe ole' Fitz is going to go through with this mockery?  He will be destroyed if he does, which may not be a bad thing but can he be this stupid?   

Curt

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