A federal judge is putting more potential jurors on standby in the CIA leak trial because so many people have been dismissed, mostly because of strong feelings against the Bush administration and the Iraq war.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton had hoped to have a 12-person jury picked Thursday so opening statements could be held Monday. After three days of hearings, however, Walton did not even have a pool of 36 impartial people from which to choose the final jury. He pushed opening statements back to Tuesday.
Attorneys for former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby have been asking pointed questions about each juror's political views. Several have been dismissed because they said they could not set aside their opinions on President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney or the war in Iraq.
Libby is accused of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. Plame's identity was revealed shortly after her husband, Joseph Wilson, criticized the administration's march to war.
An Iraq factor?
As defense attorneys continued pressing would-be jurors about their views, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said, "The jury will not be asked to render a verdict on the war or what they think of the war."
Walton needs six more jurors to fill the jury pool but has only a handful available in the original pool. He ordered 10 jurors from an alternate pool to come to court on Monday in case they run out.
The jury pool is drawn from within Washington, a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 9-to-1.
Political bias
Fitzgerald and defense attorneys spent more than 15 minutes Thursday morning arguing privately with U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton over whether to dismiss one potential juror, a management consultant. She said her feelings about the administration could spill over into the trial.The woman was ultimately dismissed but Fitzgerald's fight to keep her was his strongest effort yet during the politically charged hearings.
"My personal feeling is the Iraq war was a tremendous, terrible mistake. It's quite a horrendous thing," said one potential juror, a management consultant. "Whether any one person or the administration is responsible for that is quite a complex question."
Only one juror had been accepted into the potential jury pool Thursday by early afternoon and attorneys were debating whether to accept a woman who works for the CIA. Walton had hoped to have 36 qualified jurors by the end of the day. Attorneys for both sides can then eliminate jurors for any reason until 12 jurors and four alternates are seated.
The makeup of the jury pool is a critical pretrial issue. Libby plans to tell jurors that despite what prosecutors say, he didn't lie to investigators. He says he was bogged down by national security issues and simply didn't remember the conversations about Plame correctly.
If jurors come to the trial already skeptical about the credibility of Libby or Cheney, attorneys say they won't get a fair trial.
The panel so far
The jury who will decide Libby's fate is shaping up to be a group of highly educated, mostly white, middle-aged residents of Washington. Some of them have coincidentally worked, knew or lived in very close proximity to a few of the star witnesses in the case.
Most of the prospective jurors who have been interviewed so far by both parties and presiding judge Reggie Walton, know at least some details about the leak of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.
Those jurors that say they know about the case got their information from newspapers, radio, television or magazines.
A hotel sales rep said she heard about the case on the radio, "you don't forget a name like Scooter," she told the judge.
Among the selected, there's the software database manager whose wife works as a prosecutor for the Department of Justice and who counts the local U.S. attorney and a top official in Justice's criminal division as neighbors and friends.
Neighborly juror
Possibly the most bizarre member in the jury pool is a former Washington Post reporter. His former editor was now-Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward. The member says he recently lived across the street from NBC's Tim Russert, and has been invited to his home for neighborhood barbecues. Their sons, he said, have played basketball together in the ally that separates their houses. And interestingly, the now-freelance reporter has just published a book on the CIA and spying. Russert is the star prosecution witness in the Libby trial.
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The potential juror said he'd understand if the lawyers didn't believe he could be impartial as a juror, "If I were in your seats, I'd be skeptical." But in an impassioned answer, he said he would use his years of journalistic experience to keep an open mind. "I am not making a pitch to be on this jury,” he said, “but I just want to say I don't lean one way or the other in finding out the truth."
The juror then noted that Libby "has a great arm" because one of his best friends plays in an over-40 football league him. And, he noted, his connections go even further: he went to grade school with Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist who was highly critical of former Times reporter Judith Miller after some of Miller's reporting on the Iraq war came to light around the time of the Plame investigation. Miller is a witness for the prosecution.
Once the group of jurors accepted by both sides reaches 36, then they will undergo a quick background check. After that, the defense will have 12 strikes, and the prosecution 6. The final 16 jurors left will be seated, though only 12 will make the final decision on whether Libby is guilty or innocent of the five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements that he is charged.
Libby is accused of concealing his conversations about CIA officer Valerie Plame. Plame's name was leaked to the press in 2003 after her husband, Joseph Wilson, criticized the Bush administration's march to war.
The case is expected to last four to six weeks.
NBC's Joel Seidman contributed to this story.
