1 Boring Old Man

This is where reasonable doubt enters the picture. Reasonable doubt and the presumption of innocence form the bedrock of our criminal justice system. A reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason and common sense. It can arise from the evidence presented or the lack of evidence. It’s not about which side you believe more. If you think both sides could be right, or one side is probably, but not convincingly right or even that it’s possibly right, Libby is entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

In the end, this trial must be ruled by the presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt. The charges the Government brought against Libby are narrow and specific as to the exact statements about which he allegedly lied. In the end, no smoking gun was introduced to establish Libby lied as opposed to being mistaken. That lack of evidence presented must be held to work against the Government.

In other words, Fitzgerald missed the forest for the trees. Maybe he thought the case wasn’t there. But in charging such a stripped down version solely against Libby, I have to believe at least one juror, like me, will have a reasonable doubt and refuse to convict.

Will I be disappointed if there’s an acquittal? Yes, but in Fitzgerald, not the system. And if there’s a conviction? Then I’ll be disappointed in the Judge, for refusing to allow a memory expert to testify at trial. As much as I might prefer it otherwise, this case was about memory and reasonable doubt, not about the conspiracy that was proven to exist at the Administration’s highest levels of power.

"I don’t recall the details, but ‘Yes,’ we were preoccuppied with the impact of Wilson’s article on the Administration. When we found out that his wife worked at the C.I.A. and suggested him for the trip, we wanted the world to know – so we told them. Yes, we means myself and my boss, the Vice President. Yes, we wanted the world to think it was a boondoggle. Yes, I was involved in finding out about her and in releasing her name to the Press. No, I didn’t know that she was undercover."

That’s not what he said and the reason was to obfuscate the Grand Jury and Fitzgerald’s investigation. If Fitzgerald had known that instead of having to find it out by meticulously digging through a gazillion documents and people, he could have focused on the question of whether they knew, or should have known, that Valerie Plame was a Secret Agent. But he never got to do that, because, in major part, a central figure in the case made up a story that hid what really happened from the government.

Had Libby told the truth, maybe Fitzgerald would have ended up with a duster – unable to prove that they knew she was undercover. But who knows? From my perspective, Jeralyn might be right about what the Jury will do, but that’s a "tree," not the "forest." There’s "reasonable doubt" about lots of details, but there’s "no doubt" that the Office of the Vice President did a mean, lousy thing and in trying to keep it from view, they completely obscured finding out [thus far] if they did a mean, lousy thing that was also a crime.

"If there’s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of."

"I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job."

"I want to know the truth," the president continued. "Leaks of classified information are bad things."

Libby stood squarely in the way of finding out that truth, on purpose. My choice of old sayings for this case is:

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?