3:10 The process of playing 8 hours of tapes of the grand jury testimony begins, starting with Libby’s testimony of March 5, 2004.
When Fitzgerald asked Libby about his conversations with Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman about Wilson’s Africa trip, Libby’s memory failed him. He testified that he couldn’t recall any conversation with Grossman about who sent Wilson to Africa, nor could he recollect that Grossman told him Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. In contrast, in the first week of this trial, Grossman testifed: 1) that Libby asked him on May 29 if he knew about travel of a former ambassador to Africa to look into the yellowcake intelligence; 2) that he (Grossman) called Libby back that same day and gave him Wilson’s name; and 3) that on June 11, he told Libby that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, after which Libby thanked him for the information.
Then the topic turned to Libby’s conversations with Walter Pincus that occurred prior to Pincus’s June 12, 2003 article on the Wilson trip. Behold two masters at work:
F: Did you talk to Pincus about Wilson’s wife?
L: I believe not.
F: Can you rule out the possibility?
L: I have no recollection of it.
F: Can you rule out the possibility?
L: I don’t think I did.
F: Can you rule it out?
L: I don’t think I did. I don’t believe I did. I’m reasonably certain I did not.
F: Is it possible you did?
L: To the best of my recollection, no, I did not talk to him about it.
(Whew! Point Fitzgerald?)
We got through 90 minutes of the tapes today. Only six and a half hours to go.
This exchange just exudes of somebody knowing he has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar yet tries to pretend that the other person has lying eyes. It never works.
I look forward to reading more jems like this.
Thanks for the good work Eric.