Big news! Some of you may recall my lamenting last week the expatriate purse strings proving unyieldingly taut for me to participate in the Libby trial as a credentialed blogger. Well, Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association, in his infinite benevolence, has just agreed to allow me to contribute from Dublin via a daily round-up of left-leaning bloggers discussing the trial. This is not only a colossal opportunity to increase the level of professionalism around the blogosphere, it is also an enormous opportunity for THF which, for the several few weeks, will be acting as a one-stop summary of the Libby trial buzz.

Alongside this newfound exposure, I ask my readers to remember the immortal words of Stan Lee – “With great power comes great responsibility.” The inclusion of blogs in a major federal judicial process is the result of a massive undertaking by the MBA and, as you’ve probably seen by now, there are very powerful eyes upon us. Quite literally, there is nothing less at stake here than the future of the blogosphere as a respected participatory media body. As such, I would ask anyone submitting a comment to maintain a degree maturity and keep ad hominem and profanity to a minimum.

In addition to daily round-ups, I will also be aggregating the MBA trial feed on the THF front page until the end of the trial’s news cycle so visitors can have direct access to all the official trial feeds. For anyone wanting to catch up on the MBA coverage, I have copied the following links from their home page:

Federal Court Credentials Bloggers
Washington Post “breaks” our Libby Trial News
Media Jumps on Libby Trial/Blogger Story
National Public Radio on Bloggers at Libby Trial
MBA on CNN’s Situation Room
The Bloggers Have Arrived

Finally, armed with the knowledge that we tend to suffer from an acute from of collective political amnesia, anyone wishing to review the timeline of the Libby trial should visit DKos which has a fairly exhaustive compilation. For the knitty-gritty seekers, I have collected a few links for “quickly” catching up on the period just prior to the outing of Valerie Plame in the first half of 2003:

Wiki entries:

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Jr. – “Dick Cheney’s Dick Cheney”
Valerie Plame
Joseph Charles Wilson IV
CIA Leak Grand Jury Investigation
Robert Novak’s Involvement

News Cycle (selected timeline links via DKos):

January 2003
State Dept. INR expresses concern that Niger documents are a hoax, the National Intelligence Council later confirms. The following week the infamous “16 words” appear in the President’s State of the Union Address. The next day, Joseph Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame) questions why intel he had debunked one year prior had been used on State of the Union.

March 2003
The IAEA confirm Niger-Iraq claims were based on forgeries, the DIA responds with memo of Wilson’s trip claiming it supported claims. Wilson appears on CNN claiming "I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday." The following day a decision is made through Cheney’s office to discredit Wilson. The meeting was purportedly chaired by Dick Cheney, and includes Scooter Libby, Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, and John Hannah. Iraq invasion begins on March 19^th.

May 2003
Several days after “Mission Accomplished,” Nicholas Kristoff in “Missing in Action: Truth” mentions Wilson’s trip to Niger. Later that month, Libby requests information from Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman on Wilson’s trip.

June 2003
According to anonymous sources, Cheney met with President, Andrew Card, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, and Karl Rove and tells them that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson is the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger. Scooter Libby meets with Richard Armitage for 15 minutes to talk about Pakistan. Again according to anonymous sources, Cheney met with the President regarding rumors of Wilson going public and exposing the flawed Niger intelligence. Cheney advises leaking classified NIE which purports to show the Iraq-Niger connection as a way to counter anything Wilson might seek to publish.

Throughout the second half of June, Andrew Card, Karl Rove, and senior officials from Cheney's office keep Bush updated about the progress of the campaign to discredit Wilson via numerous emails and internal White House memos. The CIA faxes documents to the attention of Scooter Libby and one other person in the Office of the Vice President. The faxed documents do not give Wilson's name: Libby and others add "Wilson" and "Joe Wilson" by hand and Libby will testify that he frequently referred back to these documents when talking to reporters about the Wilson trip.

The Washington Post writes "CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data", about Wilson's trip without naming the retired Ambassador and cites an administration official saying neither Cheney nor his staff learned of its role in spurring the mission until it was disclosed by Kristof (Scooter Libby is a source for the article (Isikoff and Corn, Hubris, pp. 238-239)). Cheney tells Libby that Wilson's wife works for the CIA's counter-proliferation division. Libby understands the information to have come from the CIA. Richard Armitage tells Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that Wilson's wife works for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst. Judith Miller meets with Libby who tells her that Wilson’s wife might work at a bureau of the CIA.

July 2003
Libby meets with Miller over a two-hour breakfast to discuss Plame. Libby will later testify that the purpose of the meeting was to disclose information from the NIE to Miller, and that the disclosure was authorized by his superiors. Libby's notes seem to have some reference to "tell Judith Miller." Later, Novak calls Rove about an unrelated story and turns to the subject of Ms. Wilson, identifying her by the name “Valerie Wilson.” Novak claims to Mr. Rove that he knows that Joseph Wilson had been sent on the trip to Niger at the urging of Ms. Wilson. Rove responds by saying either "Oh, you know about it" (according to Novak) or, in Rove's recollection, “I heard that, too.”

The trial will be taking place Monday through Thursday from 9:30 - 5:00 EST during which selected MBA affiliates will be live-blogging (aggregated hourly on THF's right sidebar). So as not to interfere with that feed, I will be posting blog round-ups no earlier than 5:30 EST. Today being Friday, check back later in the day for the first installment. And don't forget to tell your friends!