Team Libby

* jeralyn: "The third order indicates to me that Libby is going to lose his request for being provided with the Presidential Daily Briefings, and even the documents he will receive will be for a much shorter time period than he had requested. "

* reddhedd:

"The big question in my mind is where does Team Libby go from here?
This is where the tension between the lawyers who want Scooter to stand up and fight for himself, perhaps cut a deal now while it is still possible, and get what he can from Fitzgerald rather than risk having the book thrown at him after a conviction at trial and the lawyers who hang with Babs and her crowd, and want Scooter to remain the steadfast and loyal firewall...well, they begin to get a lot more tense as these pre-trial dominoes begin to tumble, don't they?

And between your former boss shooting a man in the face, and now having poll numbers in the low 20s, and the President having poll numbers in the 30s -- well, is that really what you want to bank the whole farm on at this point, if you are under indictment for five felonies and facing further investigation?

I mean, think about it: you are Scooter, sitting at home when you aren't at the wingnut welfare think tank office, and you flip on the teevee, and you are hit with pictures of Iraq sliding into civil war, this port deal with Dubai, NSA spying revelations, more Republican indictments and investigations into members of Congress...it just goes on and on every day.

Can you assure yourself, if you are Scooter, that any pardon at all is even remotely possible...in the next three years, in this political climate, with Bush and Cheney as your trusty knights in severely dented and rusting armor, wheezing along astride a very lame looking duck to carry them forward into battle for the next three years? This is your battle plan for staying out of prison? You want to risk your life and freedom, and the happiness and well-being of your wife and children, on the steadfast loyalty and political capital of Bush and Cheney?"

i hope Redd is right. that's our best chance, wedging the contrasting objectives of Libby's different lawyers, as so aptly highlighted by emptywheel. Perhaps the coolest thing about a Libby plea would be that Fitz automatically doubles his bandwidth on other issues.