Richard Hohlt

Richard Hohlt is the heavy hitter you've never heard of.

Asked by one of Libby's lawyers if he had talked about Plame with anybody else before outing her in his column, Novak said he'd discussed her with a lobbyist named Richard Hohlt. Who, the lawyer pressed, is Hohlt? "He's a very good source of mine" whom I talk to "every day," Novak replied. Indeed, Hohlt is such a good source that after Novak finished his column naming Plame, he testified, he did something most journalists rarely do: he gave the lobbyist an advance copy of his column. What Novak didn't tell the jury is what the lobbyist then did with it: Hohlt confirmed to NEWSWEEK that he faxed the forthcoming column to their mutual friend Karl Rove (one of Novak's sources for the Plame leak), thereby giving the White House a heads up on the bombshell to come.

So you discover that your reporter buddy is thinking about betraying the identity of a CIA case officer working under non-official cover, and your reaction is to fax the column to your White House buddy? And when the dirty deed is done you just keep your mouth shut?

Hohlt is the sleaziest man in our industry.

Randall Samborn

Randall Samborn, spokesman for Patrick Fitzgerald, may have the most unusual challenge in PR. How do you present a client who is prosecuting a publisher and throws a reporter in jail? How do you defend your client to the press when your adversaries can put all nature of spin in the press and the rules of the court prohibit you from responding?

Throughout this controversy, Fitzgerald has been pilloried as a threat to the first amendment for compelling journalists to disclose their sources. Samborn could have responded that these very same journalists were perfectly happy to throw Richard Clark under the bus. Why did he refrain from pointing out their hypocrisy? I can only assume that he decided that it was better to put the focus on the case itself, that the journalists had information vital to an investigation touching on national security. Ultimately their prior hypocrisy did not come into it.

Samborn did an excellent job in placing the very favorable Vanity Fair article that humanized Fitzgerald with its tales of bad housekeeping. It gave the public a brief view of the famous prosecutor, satisfying the public’s curiosity.

I hope Samborn has a chance to speak publicly about this case. How do you make reporters and the public feel that you are being responsive when all you can say is no comment? How do you put a damper on speculation? How did handling the public relations of this case compare to other high profile prosecutions?

I also have questions about the Special Counsel’s website. How is it designed? What was the procedure for putting documents on the site? How did they make sure the copy on the website was the final copy of the document? How did they plan for the great surge in site traffic at the time of the original indictment?

I hope it will be possible to make this information public.

Judtih Miller and Scooter Libby having lunch at the St. Regis

Exclusive photos and transcript.

Correction, and apology to Robert Cox

For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder

It is the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media, said Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. Mr. Cox negotiated access for the bloggers.

This is the second time Cox has taken credit for arranging for press credentials for the FireDogLake bloggers, and for the second time FireDogLake has denied it:

One correction, though: the MBA did NOT negotiate our media passes. We have been working on getting passes for this trial from the moment Libby was indicted. Jane and I made calls to the courthouse, e-mailed, wrote letters, and worked on getting credential from very early on. To emphasize our commitment to doing serious coverage, we enlisted the help of Arianna, whose Huffington Post name was more recognizable than FDL to folks not familiar with how blogs had been covering this investigation. But the gaining of our three media passes? That was OUR work.

Why persist in taking credit for getting bloggers credentials when you didn’t do it? It doesn’t make you or your organization look good.

Correction: February 16, 2007

A front-page article yesterday about bloggers covering the perjury trial of
I. Lewis Libby Jr. referred imprecisely to the role of Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, in securing credentials. Mr. Cox negotiated access for his association, which was the first blogger group to be granted credentials to cover the trial. He did not negotiate on behalf of firedoglake.com and other blogs that received their credentials later.