Fitz statement: The results are actually sad, sad that we had a situation where we had an official, a person who worked in the office of the vice president, obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wished that that had not happened, but it did. Questions... first q is rushed and mumbly, asking about criticism of Fitz, if Fitz thinks the verdict justifies the investigation. Fitz: I would say this, it's not the verdict that justifies the verdict, it's the facts. I think if people would step back and look at what happened here, when the investigation began in the fall on 2003 and then got appointed to special counsel at the end of 2003, what is NOW clear is what we knew at that time. By that point in time we knew that mr Libby had told a story, that what he had told reporters had come not from other govt officials but from reporter Tim Russert. Its also now public that by that point in time FBI had learned that Tim did not tell mr libby that information. in fact russert didn't know it, tim russert could not have told him. and for us as investigators and prosecutors to take a case where a high level official is telling a story that the basis of his information wasn't from govt officials but came from a reporter, the reporter had told us that was not true. Other officials had told us the information had came from them. We could not walk away from that. And to me, it's inconceivable that any responsible prosecutor would walk away from the facts we saw in Dec 2003 and say "There's nothing here, move along folks". And one responsibility we have as prosecutors is we cannot always explain what we do, why we charge or why we don't charge. At the end of the day, if we look you in the eye and say we made a decision charges are not appropriate, we have to feel comfortable ourselves that that's the case. And none of us on the team could walk away from what we knew in the Dec 2003, so we brought charges, we went to trial, and we proved the case, so the facts justify themselves. 2nd q: Is part of the reason you couldn't walk away from this case the seriousness of the lies, in the sense that the information concealed the role of the office of the VP? Fitz: I'll just say this, any lie under oath is serious. Any prosecutor will tell you um, in my days in NY, in my current days in Chi, we cannot tolerate perjury. The truth is what drives our judicial system. If people don't come forward and tell the truth, we have no hope of making the judicial system work. if someone knowingly tells a lie under oath in any investigation, it's every prosecutor's duty to respond by investigating and proving that if you can. And so that's a serious matter in any case. It's obviously a serious matter in a case here where there's a national security investigation, so the nature of any person telling a lie under oath to a grand jury is a serious problem. Having someone, a high level official do that under oath in a natl security investigation is something that can never be acceptable, and that just made it mandatory that we pursue it. 3rd q: You made several references in the course of this trial and esp. in the closing to VP cheney and that the FBI and GJ deserved to know the truth from Scooter about the VP. Is there still information abt vp that you do not know? and 2ndly, do you believe the VP was truthful in his testimony to you? fitz: We don't comment on... we try to treat everyone the same in our legal system. No one is above the law, no one gets less protection under the law. And so we want to make clear that we don't talk about people not on trial and that's not a negative comment about anyone. We apply the same rules to the VP. Our comments in summation were directed to respond to an argument by the defense that they fairly made. We fairly responded and our point was that mr libby did not tell the truth to the system and what someone doesn't tell the truth to the system everyone suffers. The legal system suffers because we don't know what the actual facts are, and frankly lots of other people suffer since you don't know what the truth is people draw all sorts of conclusions. All we'll say is that mr libby, by lying, obstructing justice, harmed the system and that was something serious and that was the point we made to the jury, and obviously the jury agreed factually. 4th q: But in your summation, you said there was a cloud over the vp and there was a cloud over the WH. Do you think that cloud still remains after this verdict? Fitz: I said what I said in court. I'm not going to add to it or subtract from it. What was said in court was the defense argued that we put a cloud over the white house as if 1. we were inventing something or 2. making something up in order to convince the jury that they want to convict. I think in any case, where you feel that someone is making an argument that you are inventing something or improperly casting a cloud on someone you respond. And we responded fairly and honestly by saying there was a cloud there not caused by us, and by mr libby lying and obstructing justice he failed to remove the cloud. And sometimes when people tell the truth clouds disappear, sometimes they don't. When you don't know what's happening, that's a problem. And so the fact that there was a cloud over anyone was not our doing, it was the facts of the case, it was aggravated by mr libby telling falsehoods, and that's what we said. We're not going to add or subtract from that. That's what we said in court and that's the context in which we said it. 5th q: Is the investigation over now, now that this trial is over, now that you have this verdict, is the special counsel investigation over? Fitz: I would say this: I do not expect to file any further charges, basically the investigation was inactive prior to the trial. I would not expect to see any further charges filed. We're all going back to our day jobs. If information comes to light, or if new information comes to us that would warrant us taking some action we would, of course, do that. But I would not create the expectation that any of us will be doing further investigation at this point, we see the investigation as inactive. 6th q: would it be possible to make public a complete account of your investigation, including the testimony of many public officials, VP Cheney, Karl Rove, and others, whose own accounts were not involved in this trial? Fitz: And the short answer is no, I'm not an independent counsel, the independent counsel statute, many people may not appreciate does not exist anymore. What was different about an independent counsel from a regular prosecutor was that independent counsels would issue reports. They would either file charges or not file charges, and then they'd give a lengthy explanation of what they found. And that is different from what ordinary prosecutors do. We file charges and then we're obliged to prove them, or we don't file charges. There's been criticism of whether independent counsels should be filing reports because sometimes you say things about people that you're not prepared to prove in courts and that was, I think, and appropriate criticism of it. Whatever you think of the independent counsel statute, it doesn't exist, I am not an independent counsel, I am bound by the laws of GJ secrecy, we're bound by the laws that we don't talk about people who have not been charged, so we are not going to be opening up our file drawers, handing them over to you guys or writing newspaper articles or magazine articles or books, or whatever you want to do. That's not the system. And part of that, I think we ought to appreciate as citizens is fair. If you want people to come in and tell the truth, and you tell them, if you talk to us there's GJ secrecy, there are protections for you, we have to live by our word. And we gave our word to have people talk to us, unless we're going to file charges or it becomes public as it does at a trial, that's it. 7th q: How will you feel if a pardon is granted in this case? Fitz: I'm not going to comment on things that have not happened. q: and what about an appeal in which you are asked to bring the case again, or a new trial, how would you go about that? Fitz: (queues up humorous Fitz) An appeal where we're ASKED to bring the case again is different that one where we're REQUIRED to do so (laughs all around). If we're REQUIRED to do so, I would not be happy about that. Obviously, when we announced the case we announced that we would go to trial if necessary and seek to prove it and we did not predict an outcome out of respect for the process and respect for the jury. We obviously feel confident that we think the trial was a fair trial. We think it was an appropriate trial and we think that the jury's verdict should stand. We think that the defense will likely pursue an appeal, out of respect for the appellate process we're not going to predict how three judges who have not been selected will rule on an appeal not yet filed, based upon arguments not yet made. So we will respond appropriately, we're confident in how the trial went forward but we're going to respect the appellate process by not predicting an outcome. 8th q: Will mr libby have an opportunity to get a downward departure if he provides additional information? Fitz: We're not going to comment about anything... Mr Libby is like any other defendant. If his counsel or he wishes to pursue any options they can contact us, but we're going to treat him like any other defendant and not comment beyond that. 9th q: What are the sentences? Fitz: I don't know what range it is off-hand, I did not spend time looking at the guidelines. And we do think that Judge Walton will hear the govt's position on sentencing when we file papers before him, so I'm not going to predict what the guidelines will be. This one ought to feel familiar to all us firepups! 10th q: Did you ever worry after 10 days it was going on so much, and they were asking some qs about the charges, did you worry? Fitz: Of course I got worried. Lawyers are paid to worry, ...some paid more than others, we're paid to worry. And when a jury goes out because there's nothing we can do, we just sit around worrying about things we have no control over. You do your best on both sides, and you have no idea what's going on so you just wait for the verdict. (thanks to FDL for the lawyer speak, I would have just hear gibberish in this Q if it wasn't for Christy, EW, Jane, and the whole FDL crew) 11th q: Question abt VP Cheney not testifying... the CIPA hearings were predicated on the idea that Libby would testify. Some of the questions in the voir dire were predicated on Cheney testifying. Can you tell the public a little bit about your reaction when both of those turned out not to be the case? Fitz: Uhhh, no. (Ok, I giggled a bit on that one, it was a very "Duh" tone of voice) Q (real quiet, paraphrasing): What impact do you think that had on jury selection and defense's knowledge of your case? Fitz: All I can say is that obviously jury selection there was extensive questioning by the parties and the judge as to whether or not the possible appearance of the VP as a witness might effect how the jurors perceive the case and whether they could be fair. So obviously it effected jury selection, but beyond that, lawyers make decisions at trial on both sides as to whether or not to call witnesses. And the reason I said I couldn't answer is, we have our own reactions but the bottom line is we have to try the case in court. And so, a witness shows up, you're prepared to deal with the winess, if the witness doesn't show up you move on to the next thing. We have enough of a time trying to figure out what we're doing at our table and what's coming next, so.. I think it effected the trial in the voir dire process, but at the end of the day I think we got a very fair jury. 12th q: The indictment says that they originally heard the identity of ms Plame from the VP, who had gotten it from someone in the CIA. Do you know abt that transaction between the VP and the CIA, how that came abt? Fitz: I won't say anything beyond what was said in the trial and Mr Libby's GJ testimony abt what he understood in the note. And the only relevance at that point was to show that Mr Libby had the information he gave out from an official source and understood that the VP had it from an official source not from a reporter. So that was the relevance and I don't know if there was anything beyond that from the trial record. Q: Why was it important that the CIA was the person who (bg noise gets too loud, speaker gets too quiet, I think he asked why it had to be the CIA was the official source: Fitz: Well, it would be a very different case if the VP learned it from Mr Russert back in June and then told Mr Libby. If he was passing on a reporter's rumor, that would be very different than if he was passing on official information. So the contention we made was that Mr Libby learned it from a number of officials, first learning it from the VP. And what was important to establish is that the VP learned it from official channels, that Mr Libby had an understanding that this was all official information, which is very different than saying it was a rumor he heard from a reporter. 13th q: (paraphrase, these reporters are too damn quiet) How do you feel about giving Ari Fleischer immunity? Fitz: We think we made an appropriate decision, and I had no regret. 14th q: If congress chooses to investigate the Plame leak, will you cooperate with them, make your records available to congress? Fitz: If congress does something or not, I'm not going to predict or say what they would do, we will do what's appropriate, I have not had (crosstalk) parallel investigation, we will do what's appropriate. 15th q: Can you say in what ways you believe the investigation changed the nature of a reporters... deal with official sources and their promises, pledges of confidentiality? Fitz: I will say this, it's probably... reporters can tell us how it's effecting things. I think what people outta understand is what was unique about this case. What was unique about this case that was different than many other cases is that the reporters involved here were not just people who got whistleblowing tips. We do not think that what mr Libby was telling reporters was whistleblowing. Secondly, they were not reporting something that would not otherwise be heard, they were actually potential eyewitnesses to a crime. If someone is passing out classified information to a reporter that's different. And I think what people have to understand is if the mission that you're given is to find out whether the law has been broken, and you've been told that the story that the person gave to the FBI is false, that the information came from officials and not reporters, but their claim is that they told reporters the information and they made sure to tell the reporters that they knew it came from other reporters and they didn't know if it's true... you could not ever bring a case without talking to the reporters (bdu's comment: EXACTLY what they were hoping would happen!). That would be irresponsible, because if the reporters came in and said that's actually what he said, you would be charging someone who was innocent. And so by placing the information behind reporters, there was no choice but to find out from the reporters what that information was. And the situation where the person had already disclosed the confidences and waived the confidences, we think that was the appropriate way to proceed. We're not saying that we shouldn't be very careful, that we shouldn't have atty gen guidelines, that we shouldn't follow atty gen guidelines, that resorting to questioning reporters should be a last resort in a very unusual case. But I think what people should realize is that we never take that off the table. And there are times when govt. informants... we have confidential relationships that we have to breach, and that's something we have to recognize. We can't just say that this will never, ever happen, that we'll never, ever ask a reporter about a source. And this was a case where it was appropriate. 16th q: Was there clear evidence at the trial that the information about her was indeed classified? Fitz: The trial evidence, the judge made a ruling that we were not going to try the case abt whether the information was classfied. I can tell you that on the face of the indictment, it states that her relationship with the CIA was classified, and I have 100% confidence in that information. We would not put it in the indictment. We didn't make it an issue at the trial because the issue was whether or not Libby perjured himself under oath. There's no doubt that her relationship with the CIA was classified, and that's just a fact. 17th q: So this case and your investigation doesn't necessarily become a paradigm for future investigations? Or do you think it will encourage others given the success you've had here? Fitz: I think people can look to any case for developments, but I think there's a danger reading too much into it. I think people ought to look at the law, look at the facts, and then I think you have to be careful applying them to other cases, so... if it's made clear what the circumstances were in this case I think other people will look to this case, people ought to look at it for what it is. A particular set of facts where reporters were eyewitnesses to a potential crime and reporters, if they did not testify, we could never get to the bottom of the questions here. And THAT's what was key. If we did not question reporters, we could not answer the question of whether or not a lie was told, and in fact, talking to reporters proved a lie. And that's a very unusual circumstance so I would just caution people to do it in context. Thank you very much. (end of Fitz statements/questions)