Monday, October 17, 2005

One quick Judy Miller note

What Michael Isikoff said on DemcracyNow! this morning was very interesting:

What's fascinating, if you read Judy Miller's account closely, is it's very clear she is still trying to be protective of Scooter Libby, and in fact, as I sort of reread it this morning, I saw point by point where, if she is on the stand, as presumably she would be, if Libby gets indicted and the case goes to trial, the defense lawyer for Libby could go through her account and find passages where she is giving information that could be helpful to Libby's defense. She has the classified clearance. He didn't mention that she was a covert operative. In fact, she assumed from what he told her that she was an analyst, and not an operative. Point by point, you can go through that, and you know, I think – and my guess is that Judy Miller is, you know, agonizing, herself, didn't want to testify at all, still feels a loyalty to her source, and is still trying to be protective of him.
This makes more interesting, for example, Josh Marshall's speculation that Ms. Miller didn't have any security clearance, but just liked claiming she did. It seems to serve almost as a shield for Libby, now, because if she had clearance, was a crime committed if he did mention "Valerie [F]lame" is CIA"? (That's hardly a legal defense, but Miller might think it was one.)

Still more unknown than known in this story. What does Fitzgerald know? And what might intrepid journalists still uncover?

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