In the Northern Ring, the Scooter Libby Trial...
SECOND UPDATE: John Dickerson writes again:
Brad your posts continue to be innacurate: This is what I said:
2. It would be improper for me to talk to Gregory about this as surely you must know that people who might be called to testify shouldn't talk about their testimony.
And yet this is what you turned it into:
UPDATE: John Dickerson writes to say that at this stage Fitzgerald and company would be very unhappy if he said anything about David Gregory...
And another thing: You can feel free to post that I also answered your question 1. long before you ever posed it in the piece I wrote a year ago but which you didn't bother to go look for before making your claims.
UPDATE: John Dickerson writes to say that at this stage Fitzgerald and company would be very unhappy if he said anything about David Gregory...
Under oath at the Scooter Libby trial, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has testified that he told reporters John Dickerson and David Gregory that Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. This poses a problem for John Dickerson, already on record as saying that Ari Fleischer told him no such thing.
How does Dickerson handle his problem? By dodging and weaving. He doesn't want to accuse Ari Fleischer of perjury:
My surprise role at the Libby trial. - By John Dickerson: [H]e's never lied to me.... [H]e never outright lied, and I don't see how it would be in his interest here...
Or does he:
More likely, he admitted to prosecutors more than he may have actually done because better to err on the side of assuming he disclosed too much than assuming he gave over too little...
And he creates a little wiggle room for himself:
Could I have forgotten that Ari told me? I don't think so...
Now if I were Dickerson--and if Ari Fleischer's recollection was wrong--I would have done two things immediately after Fleischer's testimony:
- I would have pulled out my notes from the summer of 2003 and said: "Look. Here are my notes from that trip. If Ari remembers things correctly, then what Ari says he told me would be in my notes. It isn't."
- I would have called David Gregory and said: "You were there. Please back me up."
Dickerson does neither of these things.
Where are John Dickerson's notes from the trip? And Tom Maguire asks the big question:
JustOneMinute: David Gregory, Where Are You?: John Dickerson has posted a vigorous denial at Slate. David Gregory, however, is strangely silent (he gave David Corn an "I can't help you, sorry" when his name was first bandied about in the opening statements.) Interesting....
[M]ight Gregory have a different tale from Dickerson?... I think the public would love to hear from David Gregory.
It doesn't help Dickerson that he is already laboring under the burden of his past declarations that he would rather mislead readers than break promises to sources.
