Libby Convicted of Perjury, Obstruction of Justice

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• RAY SUAREZ:

  It took the jury 10 days to reach guilty verdicts in the perjury trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.

  Libby was convicted on four of five counts resulting from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

  As she had been throughout the trial, Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post was in the courtroom when the verdicts were announced, and she joins us once again.

  And after the jury being out for a long time, Carol, there must have been some anticipation and reaction when the verdicts were read.

• CAROL LEONNIG, The Washington Post:

  There was. You know, there was a lot of feeling on the part of reporters that, you know, what's going on with the jury? Why is it taking so long? Ten days of deliberations after a 14-day trial, it seemed a little out of whack.

  And when the verdict was read, actually what was striking was there was almost no emotion, no visible sign of any reaction on the part of the defendant, Scooter Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  There were five counts in all. Could you quickly walk us through how they broke down?

• CAROL LEONNIG:

  I sure can. There were five counts. Two counts were felony charges of lying to the FBI; two counts of lying to the grand jury, perjury counts; and one count, the most serious of all, which was obstruction of justice.

  The jury found Mr. Libby guilty on all but one of those counts. On the one that he was found innocent of was one that the jury had struggled with for the last five days, lots of questions back and forth. It was the charge suggesting that Mr. Libby had lied to the FBI about conversations he had about Valerie Plame, the CIA officer, who's at the center of this leak probe, conversations he had with Time magazine's Matt Cooper about her.

  And the concern the jury had at the time was that, in notes they sent to the judge, that they weren't sure that the FBI had gotten these statements Mr. Libby had made exactly right. So there are a lot of experts today we've spoken to already this afternoon who feel that the jury was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

  On another related count, in which Mr. Libby described that same conversation with Mr. Cooper to the grand jury, the jury in this case found him guilty of lying about that conversation with Mr. Cooper.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  And we know that was the hold-up with the jury how? Were the jurors open about that after they were dismissed today?

• CAROL LEONNIG:

  Well, we know it two ways. One is that the notes. They were over and over again asking in different incarnations how exactly, your honor — and all these notes were addressed to the judge — how shall we deal with this issue in count three? Can we use the information from the grand jury to make a decision about Libby's statements to the FBI?

  Keep in mind, if you can't remember this, keep in mind that the defense had very effectively during trial raised questions about the accuracy of the FBI's report or its own notes about Libby's statements to them about the conversation with Matt Cooper. There was a suggestion the FBI didn't accurately describe that conversation.

  Now, the grand jury testimony that Libby gave, in which he described this conversation, was tape-recorded and transcribed.