March 8, 2007: Libby Juror: ‘I Would Really Not Care’ if Libby Were Pardoned

Denis Collins, in a photo taken shortly after the Libby verdict was rendered. [Source: CBS News / Crooks and Liars]New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd prints a column based on an interview with Denis Collins, a juror in the Lewis Libby trial (see March 6, 2007). Dowd knows Collins from grade school as well as being journalists together, though Collins worked at the Washington Post as a sportswriter and Metro reporter while Dowd worked the same stints at the now-defunct Washington Star. Collins is tired of being interviewed by one reporter and media host after another, to the point where he has already posted his diary of his time on the jury on the Web, been interviewed by Larry King, and been reviled by Rush Limbaugh. Collins recalls that most of the jury felt Libby was relatively “small beer” compared to more high-level White House officials also involved in leaking the CIA identity of Valerie Plame Wilson to the press. “He’s too many steps away from the king,” Collins says. “One of the jurors said, ‘He was too busy looking out for No. 1; he should have been looking out for No. 2 and then he wouldn’t have gotten in trouble.’ One of the witnesses told us that Libby spent more time with [his former boss, Vice President Dick] Cheney than he did with his own wife and kids.” Collins says that by far the most damaging testimony came from the prosecution’s government witnesses and not the reporters who took the stand. Asked how he would feel if Libby was pardoned, Collins replies: “I would really not care. I feel like the damage has been done in terms of his reputation and the administration’s reputation.” Collins is equally ambivalent about calls for Cheney to resign or be fired, saying: “Here’s the thing: Libby followed Cheney’s instructions to go talk to reporters, but there’s no evidence at all that Cheney told him to lie about it. So the question is, was Libby just kind of inept at getting this story out?” [New York Times, 3/8/2007]