The Adventures of Tubby Tim
Jul 24th, 2005 at 10:25 am by Susie
So it turns out Tubby Tim Russert didn’t testify about what any sources told him - he testified on what he did or did not tell Scooter Libby. From Newsweek:
A deal that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald cut last year for NBC “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert’s testimony may shed light on the emerging White House defense in the Valerie Plame leak case. The agreement between Fitzgerald and NBC avoided a court fight over a subpoena for Russert’s testimony about his July 2003 talk with Dick Cheney’s top aide, Lewis (Scooter) Libby. The deal was not, as many assumed, for Russert’s testimony about what Libby told him: it focused on what Russert told Libby. An NBC statement last year said Russert did not know of Plame, wife of ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, or that she worked at the CIA, and “he did not provide that information to Libby.”
This now appears significant: in pursuing Russert’s testimony, Fitzgerald was testing statements by White House aides - reportedly including Libby - that they learned about Wilson’s wife from reporters, not classified documents. Libby’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. A source close to Karl Rove, who requested anonymity because the FBI asked participants not to comment publicly, says the White House aides - who passed info about Wilson’s wife to Time’s Matt Cooper - only knew about her CIA job from either a reporter or “somebody” who heard it from a reporter; he can’t remember which or who. Rove did not initially discuss his talk with Cooper with the FBI, but later volunteered info about it and called agents’ attention to a subpoenaed e-mail he had written to national-security aide Stephen Hadley mentioning the conversation, the source said.
Just curious as to how remarks about Russert’s weight bolster your arguments against his ass-kissing style.
Differentiates him from Tiny Tim, famous literary character who was, well, tiny.