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Libby Judge Partially Grants Request for PDB's

Update: Don't miss Reddhedd's excellent take on the Judge's order, down to the footnotes.

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The trial judge in the Scooter Libby trial Friday partially granted Libby's request for Presidential Daily Briefings to assist him in preparing his defense that he was too preoccupied with important national security matters to remember the details of his conversations with FBI investigators, the grand jury and reporters about Valerie Plame Wilson.

The Court's memorandum of reasons is here. The Order is here.

Essentially, the Court said the Government could produce redacted PDB's that were viewed both by Cheney and Libby. The Goverment can, at its option, disclose topical overviews instead of the actual PDB's. The Government also has to provide a topic index of the inquiries for additional information Libby made during the briefings. The dates are: June 7 to July 14, 2003; October12 - 16, 2003 November 24 to 28, 2003; March 3 to 7, 2004 and March 22 to 26, 2004.

These documents most likely will never be seen by us or the jury. They are to assist Libby with refreshing his memory. The Court also set a deadline for the Government to challenge his order on the grounds of executive privilege.

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    Will the WH now take it's que and assert Executive priviledge? I bet Libby's got his fingers crossed.

    Re: Libby Judge Partially Grants Request for PDB' (none / 0) (#2)
    by Molly Bloom on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 07:15:28 AM EST
    Looks like Libby should have been more careful in what he wished for... The greymail tactic may have just collapsed since the Judge said Libby shouldn't need to see the complete details of the PDB's to referesh his memory as to why he was too busy to recollect. Heavily redacted PDB's aren't much fodder for greymail.