By Thomas Oliphant
NO ONE really noticed, but Patrick Fitzgerald made an unassailable point last week about the timing of the indictment that his CIA leak investigation has produced so far.
”I would have wanted nothing better,” he said, ”that when the subpoenas were issued in August of 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October of 2004 instead of October of 2005.”
Give or take a nuance and some garbled syntax, the prosecutor was in effect showing that the quixotic pursuit of a nonexistent right or privilege by some news organizations is one reason President Bush was reelected last year.
John Kerry is still easy to lampoon, as if his narrow loss were in fact a 20-point landslide. But imagine last week’s astonishing developments unfolding in the fall of 2004. Imagine not only the large book of perjury that Fitzgerald threw at I. Lewis Libby, but also the still-tangled web of the infamous Official A in the grand jury’s indictment and imagine President Bush trying to explain in the midst of a presidential campaign what that official is still doing on the public payroll.
Karl Rove’s management of a campaign based on government-inspired fears of imminent terrorist attacks and of a cartoon portrait of Kerry as Osama bin Laden’s soul brother, Rove’s friends’ assaults on a distinguished military record during the Vietnam War, and his allies’ efforts to make the entire nation fearful that gay people who love each other might get married, not to mention Kerry’s own mistakes as a candidate, might have been seen in a very different context.
Obstruction of justice is an elegant legal term for a felony that prosecutors take personally. Fitzgerald noted that the victims of this crime are not just the people who work under the protective shield of anonymity in the world of intelligence, but all of us who are injured when our system is prevented from working.
I would add that the obstruction of justice alleged in this case kept us from knowing material things about our leaders at the moment we were deciding whether to keep them in office. In more common speech, obstruction of justice is a coverup, and the coverup worked — just as the Watergate coverup in 1972 kept facts from the public that would have guaranteed Richard Nixon’s defeat.
By the summer of last year, the indictment makes clear, Fitzgerald already had Libby on the hook. He had testified twice before the grand jury, claiming that his knowledge of Valerie Plame Wilson’s classified CIA position and status as former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife had come from reporters. Fitzgerald had already taken a statement from NBC’s Washington bureau chief, Tim Russert, flatly contradicting Libby’s entire story. Russert had made his statement under ground rules that kept Fitzgerald from asking for anything beyond Russert’s end of a phone conversation with Libby, thus protecting what Libby said to him.
That largely unnoticed fact shows Fitzgerald being sensitive to a journalist’s desire to shield a source from disclosure while pressing for the information (what Russert said to Libby) that was most material. Deals between the prosecutor and reporters for The Washington Post show similar sensitivity.
Time magazine and its correspondent Matt Cooper, and The New York Times and its correspondent Judy Miller contested their subpoenas, which postponed the final stages of the investigation until this summer. Fitzgerald prevailed in each case — no surprise, since the governing constitutional law is clear. Even in victory, Fitzgerald was careful to limit his questioning of reporters and examination of their notes; this was no fishing expedition but a diligent search for evidence from what amounted to witnesses to an alleged crime.
As one of the victims of this farce, Kerry has carried himself with dignity. Not enough people noticed, but he made an important speech here last week about the ongoing war in Iraq, offering a plan to gradually withdraw US troops over the next 15 months as Iraqis shoulder the burden of their own security. The timetable is responsive to a request by a third of the country’s Parliament.
By contrast, President Bush was back before a handpicked audience in Virginia last week, insisting that Americans are at war in Iraq so they won’t have to battle terrorists in this country.
Kerry was merely offering ideas responsibly in the public square. Can anyone seriously claim that Bush is doing that and that he could have survived the surfacing of the truth a year ago?
I must say that any pre-judgement is worng at this point. The investigation is still going on. At this point I do not think anyone knows what really happened. I read this link and I qiestion alot of what you have said in this post. Is Libby really guilty of anything? Read for yourself:
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&issue=20051102
I would like to throw a few quotes but you really need to read the whole thing.
“If stealing and destroying secret documents, stuffing them into your pants and then lying about it isn’t a crime worthy of jail time, why is having a different recollection of events than Tim Russert?”
or
“Lost in the reporting of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s Oct. 28 press conference was this telling admission: “We have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent.” Nor could he.”
I say lets wait and see before we run anyone out of town or we may hear something like this:
“In the end, Libby may be able to echo the immortal words of Ray Donovan, Ronald Reagan’s labor secretary. After being acquitted in 1987 of corruption charges in a similar trial by media, he wondered: “Where do I go to get my reputation back?”
Enjoy!
I’m an avid reader of IBD – but their editorials have to be the most biased in nearly all of the print media.
Sandy Berger was convicted of the crime he was charged with. Criminal cases are not comparable in this simplistic way.
Read the indictment.
This whole thing is a huge waste of time. Wilson and Plame are responsible for their own misdeeds, if not crimes, being made public. Plame, using her so-called “under cover” status to enlist her liberal operative husband (LOH)to help her commit fraud and probably treason against the U.S.
It was Wilson who lied to the media saying Cheney sent him on the mission that we now know to have been a sham in order to fabricate false statements to the American Public. Cheney told the truth when he said “No I didn’t”.
Here is the rub, Wilson and Plame used the CIA, taxpayers money and various laws to shield their unethical and probably illegal activities. Wilson baited the administration knowing that Cheney either had to propagate the Wilson/Plame lie to avoid breaking the laws and thus lending weight to the fraud as a whole or Cheney had to tell the truth as carefully as possible to avoid prosecution.
National Security was not compromised in fact we might be safer now that these agents of the liberal left have been identified and put out of commission. The CIA should not be in the business of influencing Presidential elections in America and I’m amazed that this fraud has any traction at all.
If you can setup administration officials so as to prosecute them on a technicality that you designed then this country is in deep trouble. Plame and Wilson should be the ones on trial and I hope to one day see them behind bars.
Right thinker you are back, and in rare form. Did you go to some sort of conservative compound to get reprogrammed.
Blaming Valarie Plame for her cover being blown is brilliant. If she was not a liberal or at least had not married a liberal none of this would have happened. Then again Joe Wislon may not even be liberal he just resented being lied to. It is still the wilsons fault as it is Cheneys right to lie, and the rest of us should be proud to say “thank you sir, may I have another.
Nice to see you back!!!
Right, we’ve got laws. People break them and they’re prosecuted. While you’ve laid out some serious charges here, where’s your evidence? Where’s your evidence that Wilson or Plame committed a crime?
Because the Libby indictment debunks much of what you’ve written here. I’ve posted it a few times already, but it’s worth another reference.
All the punditry and spin goes out the window when it’s official, in black and white for anyone in the public to read. I suggest you take a look at the indictment.
Libby Indictment
If a crime hadn’t been committed, then the investigation wouldn’t have been justified at all to begin with. Plame’s status is no longer a valid point of discussion. It’s not only been clearly stated in the indictment, but months ago it was clear in a judicial opinion I posted in the History section. The Miller-Cooper case. This is only unsettled to those who don’t want to face reality.
They did the wrong thing Right, and they got caught.
You really need to read the whole thing.
Ecerpt:
To wit:
• In July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan 500-page report that found numerous failures of intelligence gathering and analysis. As for the Bush Administration’s role, “The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,” (our emphasis).
• The Butler Report, published by the British in July 2004, similarly found no evidence of “deliberate distortion,” although it too found much to criticize in the quality of prewar intelligence.
• The March 2005 Robb-Silberman report on WMD intelligence was equally categorical, finding “no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community’s pre-war assessments of Iraq’s weapons programs. . . .analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments.”
Most commentators missed the final bullet point. The Robb-Silberman report was the “missing” Phase II that Reid demanded. He and the Democrats refused to accept it because it doesn’t help them raise money or gather voters for elections.
Kerry had the good sense to drop Wilson like, as the WSJ says, a Paris Hilton boyfriend once Wilson’s lies came to light. His delayed adoption by the rest of the Democratic leadership shows just how ethically empty and bereft of ideas they have become.
Read it all hear.
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005721.php
This summary pretty much sums up what is really going on if you want the truth. Othgerwise just keep listening to the Dems and Harry Reid.
http://www.floppingaces.net/2005/11/03/hide-the-cake/
Or maybe someone who is actually there might have an opinion on this debate and if we should even be debating it at all. Very intersting read. I would listen to this soldier before I would listen to anything anyone in DC, Rebublican or Democrate, would say.
Why all the politics? It is time to be proud of America again. I am.
http://www.soldierlife.com/?p=508
Did you go to some sort of conservative compound to get reprogrammed.
What are you talking about? You were there too, oh, wait, you said to keep that a secret. Sorry.
People break them and they’re prosecuted.
And that is the down side to a set-up or frame-up. Libby will lose his livelyhood because he corrected the lied told by Wilson. Isn’t that amazing? Wilson and Plame conspired to harm the President and America and Libby and others will probably pay a heafty price for exposing the fraud.
Because the Libby indictment debunks much of what you’ve written here.
The Libby indictment has nothing to do with the Plame/Wilson scheme, rahter, its about his testimony being different from Russerts. When this goes to an actual trial I predict he will be found not guilty on all charges but the damage is aready done.
They did the wrong thing Right, and they got caught.
That is the point of contention here. Had an impsrtial and less sleazy person been sent then this would never have happened. Had Wilson told the truth or, at least picked a smaller fish to lie about, this wouldn’t have happened. This all centers around Plame and Wilson.
I would be very surprised if a Judge in a trial will allow political agents to use the law to incarcerate an entrapped person.
Maybe the investigators should look into this!
Nahh that might make sense and it would not further the Bush is evil image they want to present.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007508
Poor Bush everyone is against him
The article Frodo posted…here it is, I’m going to be breaking this down in a new topic.
What I am saying is that no one is charged with outing anyone yet. Someone is charged with lying to the investoigator, namely Libby. If he, or anyone else is guilty of a crime send them to jail. Period and end of discussion on that point. I await the end of the investiogation and the results of the trial before I condem anyone.
Again someone calling out the CIA and its actions in this affair. Are they without fault here? Were they trying to protect themselves? This is an intersting read as well.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/56927.htm