Finding neutral jurors tough in CIA case - The Liberty Lounge Political Forums

Finding neutral jurors tough in CIA case - The Liberty Lounge Political Forums

AP - Seven critics of the Bush administration and the Iraq war were approved Wednesday as potential jurors in the perjury trial of former White House aide "Scooter" Libby after they said they could set those feeling aside.

But two other women were dismissed from the jury pool when they said their strong opposition to the administration might color their deliberations in the CIA leak trial. One said she couldn't believe any statement by an administration official; the other said Bush's policies would be a strike against witnesses from the administration.

Two others had been sent home Tuesday over negative views of the administration.

By day's end Wednesday, 24 potential jurors had been qualified to serve at the trial that will delve into the political scandal that followed the public disclosure of CIA official Valerie Plame's name in 2003.

I. Lewis Libby, a former aide to Bush and chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is charged with obstruction of justice and lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding Plame. He says he didn't lie but his memory was faulty.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton hopes to qualify 36 potential jurors by Thursday. Then prosecutors and defense lawyers will use peremptory, or unexplained, strikes, until 12 jurors and four alternates are seated. The defense has 12 strikes and prosecutors, eight.

Wednesday's session illustrated some difficulties in picking a jury in the nation's capital. Lawyers spent about an hour questioning one former Washington Post reporter who had worked for Post editor Bob Woodward, lived near NBC reporter Tim Russert and written a book on spying.

Even though Woodward and Russert are to testify, he was qualified to serve after he said to "give someone a pass goes against everything I was taught."

The courtroom erupted in a rare moment of laughter when a retired math teacher, asked his views of Cheney, replied: "I'm not sure I'd like to go bird hunting with him."

Libby dropped his face into his hands and smiled at the reference to Cheney's accidentally shooting a hunting companion last February.

The ex-teacher was approved as were two women who expressed personal rather than political objections to the vice president, who is to be a defense witness. One of the women called him "a responsible but slightly cold man."

Overall the second day went better for Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, because Bush administration critics weren't all excluded.

Also sent to the next stage were a young database administrator who disagreed with Bush's political adviser Karl Rove politically and a female accountant who didn't think Bush was candid about the war.

The retired math teacher thought Bush should have sent far more troops to Iraq.

Defense attorneys Theodore Wells and William Jeffress asked every juror whether he or she believed the Bush administration lied to push the nation into war — a claim made by Plame's husband, ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, in 2003. Wilson says his wife's identity was leaked to punish him and discourage other critics inside the intelligence agencies.

Also approved were:

_A retired woman who once had top secret clearance for the Air Force and Navy and didn't believe the administration had been "truthful or forthright about the reasons" for the war.

_A male Web architect who questioned administration credibility.

_A woman who works for a scientific association and said the U.S. shouldn't have gone into Iraq but her scientific training would allow her to put that aside.

_A male homeland security policy analyst at George Washington University who never believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.