NEW YORK—On Feb. 7, at the end of the third morning of former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin’s libel trial against The New York Times, Judge Jed Rakoff began asking his own questions of a witness. On the stand was Eileen Lepping, a researcher and factchecker at the newspaper, who worked on the editorial at the heart of the lawsuit. Lepping had already given her testimony under direct and cross examinations when Rakoff started asking her detailed questions. In the published editorial a sentence began with, “The link to political incitement was clear,” and ended with a hyperlink to the map Palin’s political action committee (SarahPAC) had distributed with crosshairs superimposed over districts of Democrats. Lepping had previously testified she had not included this in her factchecking. “Was this an oversight?” Rakoff asked her. She replied it was “a combination of things.” Palin is accusing The New York Times of connecting …