Why are we Here?

Prosecution witnesses have had some trouble keeping things straight in the first couple of days at the Libby trial. Several have in fact changed their stories to one degree or another:

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald didn't buy Libby's defense, ultimately deciding to indict Libby in November 2005. But now, at the long-awaited trial, some of Fitzgerald's witnesses are having memory problems of their own. Under cross examination by Libby's lawyers, two of Fitzgerald's first witnesses had to concede that they could not remember aspects, sometimes important aspects, of their roles in the Plame matter and that they gave conflicting accounts of events during interviews with the FBI, during appearances before Fitzgerald's grand jury, and at the trial itself.

Meanwhile, you've got testimony that fairly substantially rebukes the popularized memes of Administration pressuring the CIA in the run-up to Iraq and corroborating the SIC report where it determined that Joe Wilson got his job courtesy of Valerie:

"I mentioned it only in passing," Grenier testified. "I believe I said something to the effect that Ambassador Wilson's wife works there, and that is where the idea [for his taking the trip] came from."

"Why was it you felt that that was a piece of information that should be passed on to Mr. Libby?" asked Zeidenberg.

"The reason I said it was that I wanted to be as forthcoming as I possibly could," Grenier answered. "And to me it was an explanation as to why we had found this Ambassador Wilson and sent him off to Africa--I thought that was germane to the story."

"How was it in your mind germane to the story?"

"Because not only was she working in the Counterproliferation Division, she was working in the specific unit that had decided to sent Ambassador Wilson," Grenier answered. "There was some question of why-- and the reason of why was because his wife worked there."

From Byron's post: Beyond that, there are a lot of things said at the trial that don't get much coverage but which shed light on some major issues involving the Bush administration and the war. One such moment came with the testimony from CIA briefer Craig Schmall. Schmall recounted a time in which Libby mentioned being contacted by a reporter who said that he, the reporter, had a source in the CIA saying intelligence analysts were complaining of being pressured to come up with damning information in the run-up to the Iraq war. "[Libby] was annoyed that somebody at the Agency was talking to a reporter about this briefing," Schmall said. Schmall checked on it, and found nothing. "I talked to the manager who was present at the briefing," Schmall said. "I asked them if they felt pressured or bullied, and she said absolutely not, that they were actually happy to have the opportunity to talk to Vice President Cheney and Mr. Libby about their topics."