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Witness Grilled in CIA Leak Case    [

    In the Libby Case, a Grilling to Remember
    The Washington Post

    Friday 27 October 2006

    With withering and methodical dispatch, White House nemesis and prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald yesterday sliced up the first person called to the stand on behalf of the vice president's former chief of staff.

    If I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was not afraid of the special counsel before, the former Cheney aide, who will face Fitzgerald in a trial beginning Jan. 11, had ample reason to start quaking after yesterday's Ginsu-like legal performance.

    Fitzgerald's target in the witness box was Elizabeth F. Loftus, a professor of criminology and psychology at the University of California at Irvine. For more than an hour of the pretrial hearing, Loftus calmly explained to Judge Reggie B. Walton her three decades of expertise in human memory and witness testimony. Loftus asserted that, after copious scientific research, she has found that many potential jurors do not understand the limits of memory and that Libby should be allowed to call an expert to make that clear to them.

    But when Fitzgerald got his chance to cross-examine Loftus about her findings, he had her stuttering to explain her own writings and backpedaling from her earlier assertions. Citing several of her publications, footnotes and the work of her peers, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that the methodology she had used at times in her long academic career was not that scientific, that her conclusions about memory were conflicting, and that she had exaggerated a figure and a statement from her survey of D.C. jurors that favored the defense.

    Her defense-paid visit to the federal court was crucial because Libby is relying on the "memory defense" against Fitzgerald's charges that he obstructed justice and lied to investigators about his role in the leaking of a CIA operative's identity to the media. Libby's attorneys argue that he did not lie - that he was just really busy with national security matters and forgot some of his conversations.

    When Fitzgerald found a line in one of her books that raised doubts about research she had cited on the stand as proof that Libby needs an expert to educate jurors, Loftus said, "I don't know how I let that line slip by."

    "I'd need to see that again," Loftus said when Fitzgerald cited a line in her book that overstated her research by saying that "most jurors" consider memory to be equivalent to playing a videotape. Her research, however, found that to be true for traumatic events, and even then, only 46 percent of potential jurors thought memory could be similar to a videotape.

    There were several moments when Loftus was completely caught off guard by Fitzgerald, creating some very awkward silences in the courtroom.

    One of those moments came when Loftus insisted that she had never met Fitzgerald. He then reminded her that he had cross-examined her before, when she was an expert defense witness and he was a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in New York.

    Libby's defense team declined to comment.

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    Witness Grilled in CIA Leak Case
    By Matt Apuzzo
    The Associated Press

    Thursday 26 October 2006

    Washington - Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald took on the first witness in the CIA leak case Thursday, dissecting an expert witness until she acknowledged errors and misstatements in her research.

    Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, hoped the hearing would persuade a judge to let him call a memory expert at his obstruction and perjury trial in January.

    At the outset of the procedural hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton indicated that he was not inclined to allow a memory expert to testify at the trial. Still, he allowed Libby's lawyers to present a witness to bolster their claim that memory experts would help in his defense.

    When it came Fitzgerald's turn, the veteran prosecutor launched into a nearly three-hour cross-examination of the witness - psychologist Elizabeth Loftus - that had some members of the audience shaking their heads.

    It was the first public courtroom confrontation between Fitzgerald and Libby's defense team and foreshadowed a contentious trial.

    Libby wants to use a memory expert to help argue that, when he made false statements to investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame, it was because of faulty memory. Prosecutors say he lied.

    Loftus testified that many jurors don't understand how memory works and how unreliable it can be.

    Fitzgerald challenged the validity of memory research. Citing footnotes in her publications, presenting conflicting statements and questioning her methodology, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that a statement in one of her research papers was taken out of context and that a figure in one of her books was incorrect.

    Libby's defense team had no comment after court.

    Walton did not immediately rule on whether to allow the memory testimony at trial. He closed the courtroom to continue the debate over how much classified information Libby should be allowed to present at trial.

    Libby is the only person charged in the leak case. Plame believes the Bush administration leaked her name to reporters as retribution for her husband's criticism of prewar intelligence on Iraq.