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Article Archives (10-24-2005)
"With Admiration, kiss, kiss, Lewis Libby"
Heads are set to roll this week when Fitzgerald's long-awaited indictments come down. That shall provide ample grist for the mill but, for now, let's digress and focus on the quirky, faux intellectual, surface childish crush letter penned by Lewis Libby to NYT reporter Judith Miller (text of letter). It would be strange coming from a convicted serial rapist let alone the chief of staff to one of the most humorless individuals to walk this earth, Dick Cheney.
To set the scene, Lewis Libby is a person of interest (probably already elevated to "target") of Fitzgerald's investigation into the Valerie Plame leak. Judith Miller has been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury regarding any conversations she had with Libby during certain dates. At the outset of the investigation, Libby waived any reporter-source privilege he may possess over his conversations with reporters. Despite this waiver, Judith refused to testify as Matt Cooper of Time had done and, instead, was incarcerated in Alexandria, Virginia by court order. Her purported reason for choosing jail was to uphold the freedom of the press found in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Apparently she thought Libby's waiver was coerced so she refused to honor it.
Judith cooled her butt in the can for 85 days. Interestingly, she ultimately determined that "yes" she can honor Libby's waiver of reporter-source privilege after he writes a letter to her dated September 15, 2005 (14 days before she is finally released from jail) reaffirming the waiver. It is this letter that holds my momentary fascination. It opens:
Dear Judy,
Your reporting, and you, are missed. Like many Americans, I admire your principled stand. But, like many of your friends and readers, I would welcome you back among the rest of us, doing what you do best -- reporting.
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So far, we can only convict Mr. Libby of shameless fawning--a Washington art form. However, the fawning is usually done by individuals of lesser station to those holding the power (i.e., witness the birthday card from Harriet Miers shamelessly stroking the president). Reporters are the ones who routinely kiss the rear-ends of high administration officials, not the other way around. Warning flag number one. The letter continues:
I would like to dispel any remaining concerns you may have that circumstances [i.e., Fitzgerald] forced this waiver upon me. As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because, as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call. I waived the privilege voluntarily to cooperate with the Grand Jury, but also because the reporters' testimony served my best interests. (Emphasis added.)
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I'm shocked that a guy who is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation being conducted by an aggressive prosecutor would blatantly tell a witness in an open letter what he expects her testimony to be. Libby, in substance, said: "Judy, tell the grand jury either (a) we did not discuss Plame's name or (b) you heard her name from someone other than me before our telephone conversation." In case you are wondering, when Judith Miller finally testified before the grand jury, she went with both (a) and (b): I have no recollection of Libby using Plame's name in our interviews and I had already heard Plame's name from another reporter whose name I can no longer remember! Story. Amazing testimony given that she had written "Wife works in bureau?" and "Valerie Flame" (sic) in her notebook used to take notes during her interviews with Libby. Might Fitzgerald view this section of the letter as witness tampering? Apparently, he is entertaining the thought as he asked Judy whether she thought Libby was attempting to influence her testimony.
Now we come to the freaky part.
You went to jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover -- Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work -- and life.
Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers.
With admiration,
[signed Scooter Libby]
Lewis Libby
(Emphasis added.)
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What the hell is this jazz about the aspens and the "roots connecting them"? It's either a bad poem or a coded message. Fitzgerald was curious as well for he asked her before the grand jury to give an interpretation to the aspen reference in the Libby letter. In the NYT, Miller reported her response to this question as:
In answer, I told the grand jury about my last encounter with Mr. Libby. It came in August 2003, shortly after I attended a conference on national security issues held in Aspen, Colo. After the conference, I traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyo. At a rodeo one afternoon, a man in jeans, a cowboy hat and sunglasses approached me. He asked me how the Aspen conference had gone. I had no idea who he was.
"Judy," he said. "It's Scooter Libby."
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IMHO, Judy gave a non-answer. Does she vacation "out west"? No mention of having a history of vacationing in the west. Her connection to aspens? Miller: Libby knew I went to a conference in the city of Aspen in 2003. Again, a non-answer. But then she spices it up with a tidbit that, at first, does not really seem connected to the question: Judy ran into Libby in Jackson Hole, Wyoming--a place where Dick Cheney has a ranch--in 2003. Question: what transpired between Miller and Libby after he approached her in his cowboy Halloween costume? Did Miller and Libby have a brief affair "out west"? Judy Miller is the subject of a long list of rumors and a few confirmed facts of sexual contact with sources (See Les Aspin, et al.) so it wouldn't surprise me. Add to this the words of Bill Keller, executive editor of the NYT, in a recent memo: "But if I had known the details of Judy's entanglement with Libby, I'd have been more careful in how the paper articulated its defense [of Miller]." Story. Judy's "entanglement" with Libby? What entaglement? All she has acknowledged is a meeting in 2003 at a rodeo in Wyoming and a few interviews in Washington. There must be more to this relationship.
I think Libby is sending Judy a coded message in the letter that has nothing to do with the "aspens out west". He is telling Judy that the two of them are deeply connected at the roots as are aspen trees. Les Aspin, of whom Judy Miller was the former live-in girlfriend, was Clinton's first Secretary of Defense but, before that, was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee during the Reagan years. Both Libby (who was a State Department official during the Reagan administration) and Aspin are Yale graduates. Les Aspin, a democrat, supported Reagan on many defense issues (including aid to the Nicaraguan contras) in defiance of his party.
Was Les Aspin a neocon sympathizer? Does "aspen" have a double meaning of "aspin"? Is Libby reminding Judy that their connection goes all the way back to her old boyfriend, Les Aspin? Yes, I think so. Les Aspin died of a reported stroke in 1995. During the Bush II presidency, Judy Miller has been a faithful servant of the neocon cause. Outside of Fox News and Robert Novak (whose reputations are and were tainted due to bias), Judy Miller was probably the greatest administration cheerleader to be found in the MSM. It's my personal belief that Judy was an informal member of the infamous WHIG (the "White House Information Group"): an official cabal within the White House tasked with selling the Iraq War to the American people. It was the WHIG that attacked Joseph Wilson for his discrediting of their Iraq intelligence.
In my opinion, Judith Miller is an "aspin", an unacknowledged member of the neocon movement, a sleeper agent. Thank goodness her days at the NYT are over. With any luck, Fitzgerald will find a way to indict her along with the rest of the WHIG.
JJR
10-24-2005
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