On the Eighteenth Day of Fitzmas

David Corn reviews yesterday's proceedings. Christy at firedoglake recaps the week. Jason Leopold and Marc Ash at TruthOut question what Bush knew and when he knew it. Mark Kleiman speculates that the reason Fitz didn't indict anyone for revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent is that Bush is the one who gave the orders to expose Plame, and a sitting president (arguably) can't be indicted.* * A Sitting President's Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution update: Team Libby doesn't want the public to hear tape recordings of his grand jury testimony. Matt Apuzzo for AP reports: Libby's grand jury testimony — the sworn statements he gave to investigators about his conversations with Vice President Dick Cheney and journalists — is at the heart of his perjury trial. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald plans to play hours of recordings of that testimony in court next week to bolster his case that Libby lied and obstructed the investigation. Trial evidence is normally public and all exhibits in Libby's case have been made public so far. Even though Fitzgerald successfully fought to get Libby's full grand jury testimony admitted into evidence, Libby's attorneys say the audiotapes should not be released outside the courtroom. Libby defense attorney William Jeffress, who successfully argued a Supreme Court case that kept the Watergate tapes from being released, said in court Thursday that grand jury tapes are never meant to be made public. (…) If the tapes are released, they could be broadcast on television news programs, radio stations and the Internet. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said he worried that would sensationalize an already public trial.