May 8, 2006: Reporters, News Organizations File Motions to Quash Libby Subpoenas

News organizations and reporters file a variety of motions to quash the Libby defense team’s subpoenas for their notes and testimonies for the upcoming trial (see March 14, 2006, April 18, 2006, and May 1, 2006). The arguments are similar: Lewis Libby’s subpoenas violate the journalists’ and news organizations’ First Amendment rights to privacy in their reporting, the subpoenas are overly broad and lack relevance—a “fishing expedition,” as Time’s lawyers phrase it—and Libby’s lawyers cannot expect to be granted such “unchecked leeway” in subpoenaing reporters without far more specific goals and objectives than the defense team has previously stated. The lawyers for NBC reporters Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert write, “Defendant’s case rests entirely on serial speculation—i.e., if Ms. Mitchell knew about Ms. Wilson and her employment prior to July 11, and if Ms. Mitchell shared that information with Mr. Russert before he talked with Defendant, and if Mr. Russert then shared the same information with Defendant, then her testimony would ‘be important to the defense.’” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/8/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/8/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/8/2006 ; THE NEW YORK TIMES' REPLY TO DEFENDANT I. LEWIS LIBBY'S RESPONSE TO MOTION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES TO QUASH LIBBY'S RULE 17(c) SUBPOENA, 5/8/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/8/2006 ] Former prosecutor and FireDogLake blogger Christy Hardin Smith writes: “Here’s a rule of thumb—you can’t call a witness that you know is not going to be favorable to your case solely to raise questions about that witness to confuse the jury. It’s called bootstrapping, and judges do not like it. Let alone the fact that it is not allowed under the rules.” [Christy Hardin Smith, 5/12/2006] In her response, Judith Miller’s lawyer Joseph Tate objects to Libby’s speculation that he may have learned of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status from Miller, and his request for Miller’s notes to prove or disprove his speculation. In the brief, Tate writes: “Mr. Libby asserts that he ‘has established a ‘sufficient likelihood’ that the documents he seeks are relevant to his defense.‘… In support, he maintains that ‘the documents sought are likely to contain evidence that some, if not all, of his testimony about… conversations [with reporters] was correct and that it is the reporters who have an unreliable recollection or have misstated the facts.‘… He also makes the startlingly baseless claim that it may have been Ms. Miller who mentioned Ms. Plame to him.… These contentions are unavailing. How can it possibly be maintained that Ms. Miller’s notes of discussions with persons other than Mr. Libby, regarding topics unrelated to the instant case, have any bearing on his, hers, or anyone’s recollection of the salient facts regarding her conversations with him?” Author and FireDogLake blogger Jane Hamsher writes that if Miller expected a response such as “‘If Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Judith Miller can’t remember, how can Mr. Libby be expected to remember?’ [w]hat she got instead was an invitation to play scapegoat.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/8/2006 ; Jane Hamsher, 5/9/2006]