Articles in the
NY Times and
WaPo indicate that Judge Walston is upset by the press storm following the release of Fitz Doc 80 and the subsequent correction. The correction submitted to the court by Fitz on Wednesday was received by and reported on in the press on Tuesday.
UPDATE: Also, as The maven wrote in a diary last night, Team Libby's brief was also being discussed in the press before it made it to the docket.
The federal judge presiding over the pending trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby threatened yesterday to impose a gag order barring statements or disclosures to the news media by Libby's defense team or by the special prosecutor investigating alleged wrongdoing by the former White House official.
snip
He complained that the parties to the case did not heed an earlier warning that he would not tolerate "this case being tried in the media," and he said such disclosures could impair the court's ability "to ensure that both sides receive a fair trial." Walton gave both sides eight days to state any objections before he imposes the gag order.
This does not bode well for us Plame Addicts, and it means that it will be less likely that Patrick Fitzgerald will be the source of any further ammunition that could bring down Cheney. In spite of wonderfully damning circumstantial evidence (via Team Fitz??)
via Murray Waas....
The previously unreported grand jury testimony is significant because only hours after Cheney reportedly instructed Libby to disclose information from the CIA report, Libby divulged to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper that Plame was a CIA officer, and that she been involved in selecting her husband for the Niger mission.
Both Libby and Cheney have repeatedly insisted that the vice president never encouraged, directed, or authorized Libby to disclose Plame's identity. In a court filing on April 12, Libby's attorneys reiterated: "Consistent with his grand jury testimony, Mr. Libby does not contend that he was instructed to make any disclosures concerning Ms. Wilson [Plame] by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, or anyone else."
....Fitz will not likely ever be able to bring charges against Cheney, in my opinion, since it's unlikely that he will have anything better than circumstantial evidence that Cheney authorized the release of Plame's identity. It will take an actual email or recorded conversation to bring charges against him.
Additionally noted, Team Libby has subpoenaed WaPo for information that was never released to Fitz:
In a related development, The Post yesterday was subpoenaed by Libby's defense team to produce records related to the case that the newspaper had not turned over to Fitzgerald. Eric Lieberman, a counsel at The Post, said the newspaper would comply by providing Libby with a complete copy of a memorandum by Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward from his interview with Libby on June 27, 2003.