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typos fixed from http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/02/20/libby-live-fitzgeralds-rebuttal-
two/

*** live-blogged - not an exact transcript ***

Don't you think [the] FBI deserves straight answers. When you go in that jury room, your commonsense will tell you that he made a gamble. He threw sand in the eyes of the FBI. He stole the truth of the judicial system. You return guilty, you give truth back.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
"What Americans REALLY care about is..."

I'm not convinced Americans really care about any of this.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
There's no crime here, other than failure to remember what who said to whom, and when. Big deal. No one finds it odd that Libby isn't even being tried for 'outing' Plame ? WHY ? Because she wasn't a covert operative, or because Libby didn't out her in the 1st place.

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excerpted from http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/was_she_covert.html
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There are two types of people who work at CIA. First are the "overt" employees. These are folks who can declare on their resume or any credit application that they are a CIA employee. Their status is not classified and their relationship with the CIA is openly acknowledged. Valerie Plame was never an "overt" employee. At no time during her entire time at the CIA did she identify herself as a CIA employee. Although she appeared in Who's Who as the wife of Ambassador Wilson there is no reference whatsoever to her having a job at the CIA. Zippo!

The remaining category of employee is covert. Covert employees include people who work under "official cover" and people who work under "non-official cover". A former CIA officer, Tom Gilligan, discussed both types of cover in his book CIA Life: 10,000 Days With the Agency. Official cover means the employee can say that he or she works for the United States Government, e.g. State Department, but at no time do you admit publicly that you work for the CIA. You get the added benefit of carrying an official or diplomatic passport. If you get caught overseas engaged in intelligence activity it means you have diplomatic immunity and the equivalent of a get out of jail free card.

Non official cover or NOC also is covert but is more sensitive (and dangerous). A NOC does not work for the U.S. Government. A NOC does not have an official or diplomatic passport. A NOC works for a business or organization with no tie to the U.S. Government. If you are caught overseas while conducting espionage activities as a NOC you are screwed. You do not get a jail out of free card. You remain in jail or may be executed.

Now I will write this in big block letters: VALERIE PLAME WAS STILL UNDER NON OFFICIAL COVER WHEN NOVAK PUBLISHED HER NAME. Valerie and I started our career together and both of us were given official cover. But Valerie later took the additional and more dangerous risk of going under Non Official Cover. She became a NOC and, thanks to the Corn/Isikoff book Hubris, we now know she was helping hunt down Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
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Originally posted by SoupCatcher:

I'd like to get the perspective from any lawyers out there: is it ever a good thing when the person on trial doesn't give evidence in their own defense?

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Originally posted by MedfordTim:
They sure thought it was a crime at the end of Whitewater when it was about a B.J. - I guess THAT kind of perjury and justice obstruction is more important than using reporters to trash a political enemy by outing his wife. Where are our priorities?

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Originally posted by citizen:

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Originally posted by Razza:

So why are they still focused on Libby? If he deliberately mislead the authorities, then let's throw the book at him, but if it was just a misrecollection why are we wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on the wrong guy?

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Originally posted by Razza:
Medfortim:

Okay, if Libby perjured himself and mislead the authorities, send him to jail!

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Originally posted by MedfordTim:
That would be nice, but I think it'll be more like "Presidential pardon time" before he can be flipped to testify against Cheney.

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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
I remember hearing during the OJ trial: defense attorneys are scared to death of putting the defendant on the stand. Officially, if the defendant is under oath, he has to tell the truth. Catch him in a lie and he's up for perjury. Also messes up the Fifth Amendment self-incrimination thing: defendant is answering questions, attorney asks, " Did you do it?" , defendant says, too late, " fifth amendment." Everybody figures he's guilty.

Too many chances for a defendant to screw up.

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Originally posted by Razza:
I, like most americans, haven't been keeping tabs on the trial, but I thought Richard Armitage was the actual source of the leak. At least according to himself and Robert Novak he was the source:

...

So why are they still focused on Libby? If he deliberately mislead the authorities, then let's throw the book at him, but if it was just a misrecollection why are we wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on the wrong guy?

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Please note that Feith, Scooter and Franklin have all been in trouble before for passing classified info to "the country that shall not be named" previously - which should have resulted in the revokation of any clearances they did have.

Ergo, whoever the hell trusted Scooter with ANY classified info *after* that is criminally negligent, thus whomever gave it to him, unless they can plead ignorance should also be charged.

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Originally posted by rue:
BTW, Rap,

That whole thing about there being no crime, no case and no story is now the big item in right-wingnut newsland. I read it myself in TownHall.

You keep sayin' you're not a talking-pointy-head, but everything that ends up here comes straight from there.

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Originally posted by Razza:
So why are they still focused on Libby? If he deliberately mislead the authorities, then let's throw the book at him, but if it was just a misrecollection why are we wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on the wrong guy?

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from http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/02/22/libby_trial/print.h
tml
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{this is from Zeidenberg's closing arguments}
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Zeidenberg ran through the narrative of the loyal Libby, doing the bidding of his principal, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was angered at Wilson's public revelations concerning the falsehoods about the justification for the invasion of Iraq, a CIA mission set in motion by Cheney's own inquiries, which particularly enraged him. Cheney tasked Libby to learn about Wilson's wife, the CIA operative, so that Wilson's trip to Niger could be traced to her and not to Cheney's initial request to dig up information about Saddam Hussein's seeking yellowcake uranium for nuclear weapons.

Libby tapped government official after official, Marc Grossman at the State Department and Robert Grenier at the CIA, from whom he demanded information on Plame. The officials each testified at the trial, vividly recalling his unusual questioning; but Libby remembered nothing about them in his grand jury testimony. Nor did Libby remember his conversations about Plame with Cheney's communications aide, Cathie Martin, or his CIA briefer, Craig Schmall, who also remembered the conversations well. Nor did Libby remember his conversations with Judith Miller, the New York Times correspondent, to whom he leaked Plame's name and an exclusive story about the contents of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. President Bush had declassified the NIE at the insistence of Cheney; the only other person aware of the declassification was Libby -- not then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice or her deputy, Stephen Hadley. But Libby did not remember it. Libby did not remember his conversation with White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, which was "hush-hush" and "on the Q.T.," he said, divulging Plame's identity to him. Nor did he remember his conversation with David Addington, Cheney's counsel, Libby's Libby, telling Addington to keep his voice down behind a closed door as Libby asked him about Wilson's spouse sending him on his mission.

But Libby remembered conversations with Tim Russert, the host of NBC's "Meet the Press," and Matthew Cooper, former correspondent for Time magazine. Zeidenberg played tape recordings of Libby's grand jury testimony in which Libby recalls precisely all the words that Russert and Cooper say were never uttered. On the tapes, Libby blames the reporters. "All I had was information coming from reporters ... all I had was reporters telling us that ... I didn't know he had a wife ... I told a couple of reporters what reporters told us."
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{this is from Fitzgerald's rebuttal to defense's closing arguments}
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"It's not he said, she said," Fitzgerald declared. On the courtroom screen appeared the eight people with whom Libby had discussed Plame nine times. "It's he said, he said, he said, she said, she said, she said, he said, he said. Is this the greatest coincidence in the world?"
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Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
Guilty: 4
Not guilty: 1

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