In a 31 page opinion I have uploaded here (pdf), the Judge in the Scooter Libby trial today denied Libby's request to use a memory expert at trial. [Background here.]

I'm still digesting the opinion, but the shorter version seems to be:

• The studies relied on by Libby mostly pertain to eye-witness identification and don't fit the facts of his case.

• The 13 points of memory principles Libby expert Robert Bjork would testify to are unlikely to assist the jury because the jurors could figure most of them out.

• Libby has not shown that the traditional method of cross-examining the Government's witnesses would not be sufficiently effective.

I wonder whether the Judge has not just handed Libby his first legitimate issue for appeal. I see definite corollaries between the memory principles that affect eyewitnesses and other fact witnesses. It would have been safer for the Government if the Judge had allowed the testimony.

There's been a flurry of filings in the Scooter Libby case. Shorter version: Both Fitz and Libby want to keep information about l'affaire du Plame from the jury. Courtesy of Next Hurrah:

• Libby's Motion in Limine (pdf)

• Libby's Motion to Exclude Evidence re: reporters' litigation and Judith Miller's confinement. (pdf)

• Libby's Motion to Exclude information about Valerie Plame's employment status. (pdf)

Libby doesn't want it to be inferred that his talks with Judith Miller about the NIE were improper. He doesn't want it inferred that he thought he could lie because he believed reporters would refuse to testify. He doesn't think Valerie Plame's covert or non-covert employment status, or any damages she may have sustained, are relevant to the trial.

Fitz' filing is here (pdf.) Fitz doesn't want the jury to hear:

Christy at Firedoglake is following the CIPA/Graymail hearing in Scooter Libby's case today.

BREAKING: Suspicious package found at Federal courthouse where Libby hearing was to have been held this morning. MSNBC reports that Fitz had arrived for the hearing along with his team, and they were all evacuated outside the building along with everyone else. Judges have been moved to the federal courthouse across the street. Team Libby had not yet arrived. The hearing will clearly be delayed, if not rescheduled altogether. More as I get it.

Following the Judges ruling on classified information Thursday in I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's criminal case, on Friday his lawyers filed a pleading entitled PRETRIAL MEMORANDUM Concerning Admissibility of Documents on Consolidated CIPA Section 5 Notice (pdf). In it, Team Libby says:

• Libby will testify in his defense at his trial
• Libby will introduce a powerpoint presentation at his trial
• Libby will seek to introduce his notes made during pertinent times
• Libby will seek to introduce classified documents, including documents pertaining to Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger, which he asserts fall under four exceptions to the hearsay rule.

The AP reports on Libby's motion here.

It's probably no surprise that Libby will testify, but just a few weeks ago, when Fitz filed his opposition to Libby's motion to introduce a memory expert at trial (pdf version here), Fitz wrote (page 17, footnote 11):

Notably, defendant has not committed to testifying on his own behalf, and declines to identify which events or conversations he will claim he got right and which he innocently got wrong.

A few weeks ago Lewis "Scooter" Libby notified the court it would seek to introduce the testimony of a memory expert at trial. In March, Harvard psychology professor Daniel L. Schacter told NBC News he was Libby's expert, which a member of Team Libby confirmed.

Yesterday, Libby filed his "Rule 702" advisement of the proposed expert's testimony and the bases and reasons for it. The expert is not Dr. Schacter but Robert Bjork from UCLA. The New York Sun has more.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby's lawyers have notified the Court and Patrick Fitzgerald that they intend to call a memory expert at Libby's trial. While it's long been known they intended to rely on a memory defense and that they have been consulting with a pre-eminent memory expert, they were mum on whether they would call an expert at trial.

In their July 17 filing (pdf), Libby's lawers said they have provided the expert's name and qualifications to Fitzgerald. They sought (and received) an extension until July 31 to outline the specific details of the expert's testimony and to file a motion requesting the admission of the expert's testimony at trial.

Libby has long maintained that memory lapses were the cause of any misstatements in his grand jury testimony and interviews with FBI agents. He says 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.

In March, Libby's team confirmed that it had retained Daniel L. Schachter of Harvard to consult with the case.

Truthout has posted the transcript (pdf) of the May 16 Scooter Libby hearing. Jason Leopold points out the new details, primarily, that Libby's lawyers seem to suggest Miller may have discussed Joseph Wilson's wife before June 23.

According to a May 16, 2006, court transcript obtained by Truthout, Libby attorney William Jeffress told US District Court judge Reggie B. Walton that redacted versions of Miller's notebooks turned over to the defense during the discovery phase of the Libby criminal proceedings show that "Ms. Miller was investigating and focusing on [former Ambassador Joseph] Wilson before the very first time that she met with Mr. Libby, that is before June 23, 2003."

"There are numerous entries throughout those notebooks to 'V.F.,' or 'Victoria Wilson,' or to 'Valerie Wilson,' all of which indicate that she [Miller] is talking to someone else about Mr. Wilson's wife," Jeffress said, according to a copy of the 128-page transcript. "What she learned and when she learned it about Mr. Wilson's wife is extremely - it is right at the heart of this case."

VP Dick Cheney told CNN he may be a witness at the Scooter Libby trial.

Libby is "one of the finest men I've ever known," Cheney said, then declined further comment. "I may be called as a witness."

There's a lot of discussion about Cheney in this May 5 Libby hearing transcript.

Is this enough to make you sick, or what? I take it with a grain of salt, since Joe DiGenova seems to be the one pushing it.

To put this out in the media through DiGenova now, Team Libby (the p.r. team, not the lawyers) is either testing the waters or hoping to demoralize Team Fitz by making them wonder if Libby's prosecution is all for naught.

One thing I agree with: If the Dems take the House and Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, a pardon before his last day in office may be too dangerous for Bush -- it could have severe adverse consequences for the Republicans in 2008.

If you have any doubts about DiGenova's rooting for Libby, check out Libby's website, which touts these quotes by DiGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing:

There will be a status conference Monday (pfd) in the Scooter Libby trial.

On a related note, in addition to partially granting and denying Libby's motion to compel discovery on June 2, the Court issued an order on classified information. It ruled that by June 9, the Government must turn over substitutes of these classified documents:

(1) The government shall provide to the defense by June 9, 2006, the proposed substitution recounting Valerie Plame Wilson's employment history with the Central Intelligence Agency from January 1, 2002, and thereafter.

(2) The government shall provide to the defense by June 9, 2006, the proposed substitution discussing potential damage (if any) caused by the alleged disclosure
of Valerie Plame Wilson's affiliation with the Central Intelligence Agency.

(3) The government shall, as requested, provide to the defense by June 9, 2006, the true names of three individuals whose identities were redacted from classified documents previously made available to the defense, and shall identify for the
defense the specific documents and locations within those documents where those
names should be inserted.

The Wall St. Journal (free link) assails Fitzgerald and backs Scooter Libby today.

There is all the difference in the world between seeking to respond to the substance of Mr. Wilson's charges, as Mr. Libby did, and taking revenge on him by blowing his wife's cover, which was the motive originally hypothesized by Bush critics for the Plame exposure. The more of Mr. Fitzgerald's case that becomes public, the more it looks like he has made the terrible mistake for a prosecutor of taking Joe Wilson's side in what was essentially a political fight.

Christy at Firedoglake responds. And check out the perfect photo for her post.

The Judge in the Scooter Libby case has ruled on Libby's discovery motion seeking a wide array of documents. All of Libby's requests were denied except one. Tim Grieves at Salon provides his usual lucid and correct analysis. Tom Maguire hosts the Court Order here, and offers his analysis is here.

From the Court's ruling.

...the only question the jury will be asked to resolve in this matter will be whether the defendant intentionally lied when he testified before the grand jury and spoke with FBI agents about statements he purportedly made to the three news reporters concerning Ms. Wilson's employment. The prosecution of this action, therefore, involves a discrete cast of characters and events, and this Court will not permit it to become a forum for debating the accuracy of Ambassador Wilson's statements, the propriety of the Iraq war or related matters leading up to the war, as those events are not the basis for the charged offenses. At best, these events have merely an abstract relationship to the charged offenses.1