JOHN PRINE

IX. Mathew Cooper: Hit and Run

Each recollection of a specific witness brings with it other
adjacent memories of that particular day in court. Matthew Cooper –
Time Magazine. Wasn’t that the morning George told us about
chasing the hit-and-run driver into the Arlington County parking garage?

“I said, ‘One more step and I’ll hit
you.’ The 911 operator was yelling in my ear, ‘Don’t
hit him!’ The driver was drunk as could be. He put up his hands
and said, “Guilty.”

On Friday, July 11, 2003. Cooper called Karl Rove.
“Don’t get too far out on Joe Wilson,” said Rove.
“Some info will be coming out. Like his wife. She worked on WMD
for the Agency. I’ve already said too much.”

(That was also the day that Delia and Kate each said, “Why are we trying Libby? Where are Rove and Armitage?”)

Cooper’s value to us consists of a single conversation with Libby. Double Super Secret background

Saturday afternoon. Time’s deadline approaching. Cooper is by
the pool at the Chevy Chase Club. No cell phones or blackberries
allowed. He’s running back and forth to the parking lot, trying
to reach Libby. Finally, at home, sprawled on the bed, he gets the call
and types some notes. At the end of the conversation, he asks Libby if
Mrs. Wilson was instrumental in getting her husband sent to Niger.
According to Cooper, Libby said “Yeah, I’ve heard that
too” or “Yeah, I’ve heard something like that
too.”

To the grand jury, Libby had previously testified that he’d
said, “Reporters had been telling us that, but “I’m
not sure it’s true.”

The disagreement over those few words now plays a significant role in three of the five counts against Libby.

Our lunch is delivered to the jury
lounge each day at noon. The food is not always a delight. I’d
bet the most common subject during the last six weeks is a yearning for
the hot dog and half smokes cart we can see across the street. It
tickles me because my father, after coming to the U.S. from Ireland at
the age of 17, made sandwiches in a deli that probably sat where this
court house sits now. One day a judge said to him, “Dennis (thank
Ellis Island for the extra “n”) you’ve got the gift
of gab. You ought to think about becoming a lawyer.” My father
applied to law school at Catholic University one week later.

During the testimony portion of the trial, we took advantage
of our hour lunch break to make work calls, read, or play cards (Kate
hooked us on Viuda, Spanish for “widow”). But mostly, we
talked. Movies about memory (Memento, Total Recall, 50 First Dates,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind); Mattie’s impeccable
attire (she did not repeat a single outfit during the first three weeks
of the trial according to our fashion experts); Judge Walton’s
walking speed (”They ought to call him Scooter.”)

One day early in the trial, the subject of our weddings arose.
When it was my turn, I confessed to getting married in a heart shaped
chapel in Lake Tahoe, wearing bowling shoes, my wife in a high school
prom dress. Two musician friends played “We’ve Only Just
Begun” and a reporter friend (John Tierney of The New York Times)
in a red, lounge-lizard coat with fake velvet collar, recited
“Feelings” into a hand held microphone. That was not a
story I’d have told any other group of people I’d known for
little more than a week. But we needed safe, if inane, topics of
conversation. I was struck every day by my fellow jurors’
discretion. After defense counsel Ted Wells finished his closing with a
choked sob, for example, not one of us mentioned it.

Now that we’ve started deliberations, the lunch hour has
changed. Arguing innocence or guilt, even indirectly (Reasons for Libby
to Lie, Reasons for Libby to Tell the Truth) leaves us tired and
slightly frayed. We still talk, but spend more of our free time hiking
up and down our carpeted hallway, training for the long road ahead.

Inside the Libby Jury Room

I

VI. Ari Fleischer: “In the West Wing, everything feels like evening.”

Time out. If memory serves…former White House press secretary
Fleischer testified on Monday, January 29th, which was something of a
liberation day for the jury.

As I said, the original 16 jurors – 12 regulars, four alternates,
got along famously with one exception. Let’s call the exception RJ
(Runaway Juror). She broke the first rule by flashing another juror a
page in her notebook during court testimony. Fortunately the message, Look at that eye candy in the third row!
wasn’t top secret stuff. She also bothered Court clerk Mattie about the
lunch menu, and inserted herself into others’ conversations. All that
was easily tolerated. But one day before we were called to court, she
approached three jurors and semi-whispered, “My mother told me that
reporters are writing stories about how we….” Before she could say
more, all three told her to “STOP.”

So this Monday morning, Court clerk Mattie (who hadn’t repeated a
single item of clothing in the first three weeks of the trial,
according to our fashion consultants) calls RJ into the hall. A few
minutes later, she’s collecting her belongings. “It was just something
I heard,” she says. We call goodbyes from a distance. As soon as the
door closes, four jurors pump their fists.

“I thought for sure she’d say something to get me disqualified,” said one juror.

“You told me you didn’t want to be on this jury?”

“I’ve come too far to leave now.”

Okay. Back to Ari Fleischer.

General Impressions? Slick Willie. Not believable.

I’m surprised by that negative reaction. I actually thought he was
brutally honest, especially about his relationship with the press. Said
he leaked the name of Mrs. Wilson and her role in the Niger affair to
David Gregory of NBC and John Dickerson of Time Magazine before Novak’s
column appeared.

And how did they thank him for the scoop? The reaction was “a big so
what?” “Like a lot of things I said to the press, it had no impact.”
“They just don’t take it at face value. When I said 9/11 was connected
to Al Qaeda, a reporter said, ‘Prove it!'”

But we digress. Fleischer’s value to the prosecution (which gave him
immunity for testifying) was a conversation with Libby during a July 7,
2003 lunch in the White House mess. In “an offhand way” he recalled,
Libby told him that “[Wilson’s] wife works for the CIA.” That was the
factoid Fleischer later tried to drop on Gregory and Dickerson in
Uganda.

“I never in my wildest dreams thought this information was
classified. The normal protocol is [for Libby] to say right up front.
‘This is classified. You cannot use it.'”

Inconsistencies? Someone suggests Fleischer got immunity so he
could lie to the Grand Jury. Anya explains, in her gentle way, that
immunity only protects you if you tell the truth. Delia, a most elegant
and charming woman, interrupts.

“My mother had a saying. ‘When you let yourself be led by
emotion, you will usually end up wrong.’ I think we need to keep
emotion out of this.”

We are grateful for the calming words.

We leave the issue unsettled, and remove Grenier from the short
end of our Most/Least believable witnesses to make room for Fleischer.

Exclusive: Inside the Libby Jury Room | The Huffington Post

Okay. Back to Ari Fleischer.

General Impressions? Slick Willie. Not believable.

THE JURY AT THE SCOOTER LIBBY TRIAL

[What follows is a juror’s unedited impressions, memories
and facts presented in 14 parts. The names of all jurors have been
changed. Quotes are based on the author’s recollections and
notes.]

I. Deliberation Day

“This is a case about memory, about recollections and
about words.” We’ve heard from the fighting Irishman and
weeping Wells, a gaggle of Pulitzer Prize winners, and some of the best
and brightest from the CIA, State Department, FBI and office of the
Vice President. The Honorable Reggie Walton has just provided us final
instructions.

Deliberations in the case of the United States vs. I. Lewis
“Scooter” Libby in District Court for the District of
Columbia are ready to commence, when one of the jurors offers an
unsolicited statement regarding the solemn task before us.

“I think they’re lying. Every one of them.”

Who knew? For six weeks we’ve been as judicious as novice
G-men, careful to abstain from conversation about witnesses and their
testimony, the war in Iraq, President Bush, VP Cheney and the relative
merits of the half dozen lawyers litigating before us. All we’ve
had to talk about is ourselves and, with one exception, the talk has
been good.

“I know a lot about everything stupid.”

“So how did we know we’d hit bottom in this trial? When we stood on chairs to look at the human cows.”

“When I was 10 years old, I had to hide behind sand mounds to escape the Shining Path guerillas in Peru.”

“Three things happened then. The hunting dog fetched the
dynamite. The dynamite blew a hole in the ice. The truck sank. We told
him there’s no insurance coverage for stupidity.”

We know nothing of one another’s political views and,
except for one juror who wears a Star of David stud in his left
earlobe, little about our religious preferences. What we know is that
we like each other, laugh a lot and take the job seriously.

But now, shut inside our 6th floor jury lounge, we look across
the pide created by that unexpected shout out and wonder where to step.

“Why don’t we start at the beginning?” says
our foreperson Susan, an accounting manager at one of DC’s
biggest law firms and, more impressive to us, a marathon runner, yoga
pa and all around sweetheart. “We’ll take the witnesses one
by one and review the testimony.”

(Read the article)