Fitzmas Update 12/11/06

Team Libby fails in attempted graymail. Joel Seidman for NBC News reports: A federal judge has accepted a series of redactions and substitutions proposed by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald - to be provided to I Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense team - which will limit what Libby can share with jurors at his upcoming trial on some of the specifics of his top-secret White House briefings. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton also ordered the review by national security agencies of classified documents requested by Libby - Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff - for his defense of perjury and obstruction charges in the Valerie Plame, CIA/Leak case, must be completed by December 22. (…) The new substitutions submitted by Fitzgerald may also effectively end what prosecutors say was Libby's attempt to try to get the case dismissed by demanding so much sensitive information that the government would have no choice but to refuse. The legal gambit is called "graymail." via Steve Soto