Keeping Up with Scooter

In the run up to a trial, you can sometimes get an idea of the strategies the two sides may be preparing by what pretrial motions they file. And the Scooter Libby trial is no exception. According to Murray Waas in National Journal, Scooter revealed classified information to reporters for one of the oldest and most popular reasons known to humanity--he was only following orders.

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

One of Scooter's lawyers, William Jeffress, has denied that Scooter would actually try to shift the blame to his superiors at trial, but that can easily be explained as an effort to mend fences with Scooter's former boss, Dick Cheney, and the rest of the administration. Scooter's still receiving right-wing largesse, so he doesn't want to turn on them any sooner than he has to. You do have to wonder, though, how much of the rap he'll be willing to take all by himself. He may be trying to negotiate in his own mind exactly how much he can give up and still hold on to his reputation as a good soldier.