January 31, 2006: Libby’s Team Demands Disclosure of Highly Classified Presidential Briefings

Lewis Libby’s defense team reiterates its demand for the disclosure of 10 months’ worth of Presidential Daily Briefings, or PDBs, some of the most highly classified of government documents (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, and January 23, 2006). Defense lawyer John Cline has said he wants the information in part to compensate for what he says is Libby’s imperfect recollection of conversations he had with Vice President Dick Cheney and other government officials regarding CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004). In documents filed with the court, Libby’s lawyers argue, “Mr. Libby will show that, in the constant rush of more pressing matters, any errors he made in FBI interviews or grand jury testimony, months after the conversations, were the result of confusion, mistake, faulty memory, rather than a willful intent to deceive” (see January 31, 2006). Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has already informed Cline that his office has only “received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs” and “never requested copies of PDBs” themselves, in part because “they are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified.” Furthermore, Fitzgerald wrote that only a relatively small number of the PDB information he has received refers to Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Cline is considered an expert in using “graymail” techniques—demanding the broad release of classified documents from the government, and, when those requests are denied, demanding dismissal of charges against his client. He was successful at having the most serious charges dismissed against an earlier client, former Colonel Oliver North, in the Iran-Contra trials (see May-June, 1989). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 1/31/2006 ; National Journal, 2/6/2006]