it’s complicated, it’s true, and I’m sure motives are mixed, they usually are in situations like this, but it doesn’t mean miller’s disingenuous. it doesn’t even mean the onus is on her to prove her case, but do i think libby has a lot of explaining to do. it’s his exhortations that don’t add up (or rather his lawyer’s. nobody seems to ever hear from libby).
from today’s press conference:
Quote:
Q. Your source's lawyer has said that had you asked, you wouldn't have had to spend any time in jail; he would have been more than willing to give you the explicit waiver you say you now accepted.
MILLER. No. Since I was not a party to those discussions, I'm going to let you refer those questions to my lawyer. I can only tell you that as soon as I received a personal assurance from the source that I was able to talk to him and talk to the source about my testimony, it was only then and as a result of the special prosecutor's agreement to narrow the focus of the inquiry to focus on the way - on that source, that I was able to testify. I testified as soon as I could. And I will ask you to please address the questions to which I was not a party to my lawyers.
Q. But Judy, a conversation you were party to: On the steps of this courthouse, when you and Matt faced contempt of court charges, you said out here, when Matt was asked the same question, your answer was different. You said no waiver would be acceptable.
MILLER. No. I said I had not received a personal, explicit, voluntary waiver from my source - what I considered that. That was my position and I said it many times. I said it before I went to jail. I said it when I was in jail.
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in her prepared statement just before that q and a session, miller said this:
Quote:
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“Recently, I heard directly from my source that I should testify before the grand jury. This was in the form of a personal letter and most important, a telephone conversation, a telephone call to me at the jail. I concluded from this that my source genuinely wanted me to testify. These were not form waivers. They were not discussions among lawyers.”
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and
Quote:
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“Believe me, I did not want to be in jail. But I would have stayed even longer if I had not achieved these two things: the personal waiver and the narrow testify - and the narrow testimony. I could not have testified without both of them. I said to the court before I was jailed that I did not believe I was above the law and that I would therefore have to go to jail because of my principles. But once I satisfied those principles, I was prepared to testify.”
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miller also alludes to “reasons” she had about not accepting at face value the story she heard secondhand that her source [libby] was willing to release her from her promise. she didn't say what those reasons were, and this is one girl who won’t yak if she doesn’t want to, but that doesn't mean she's not being forthright.
then there’s this:
Quote:
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On Thursday, Mr. Abrams [Miller’s lawyer] wrote to Mr. Tate [Libby’s lawyer] disputing parts of Mr. Tate's account. His letter said although Mr. Tate had said the waiver was voluntary, Mr. Tate had also said any waiver sought as a condition of employment was inherently coercive.
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so assuming miller didn’t want to spend time in jail, and that’s not as big a leap for me as it might be for someone else, since she never had the slightest garentee that doing time would launch her career (reporters have gone to jail for contempt, but how many can we name?), her story makes more sense in this complicated scenario than the other’s side’s protests that she was free to do what she wanted.
seriously, miller going to jail over protecting a white house source makes the
source look so bad – like a coward in fact, you’d think he’d make a major effort to protect his reputation, even hold a press conference to say, “Yeah. I talked to her. So what? I didn’t spill any state secrets and she knows it. She's free to say so and she knows that too. Beats me why she won’t. As a matter of fact
I called her up personally and told her she could talk a year ago.”
i’m not hearing anything like that from libby. or his lawyers.
- js.