Posted on 10/28/2005 12:22:42 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
Newsweek magazine reporter Howard Fineman, who's been at the forefront of recent media speculation that top White House official Karl Rove would be indicted, has pronounced Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's decision to indict only Cheney aide Lewis Libby "a victory" for the Bush White House.
"Given the expectations that have evolved around here in the last week or so, if it turns out that this phase of the grand jury ends with only Scooter Libby being indicted," Fineman told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough last night, "that will be seen as almost be seen as a backwards kind of victory here."
Scarborough agreed, saying that the indictment of Libby without Rove would be, "a huge political win for the White House."
Fineman said Rove, not Libby, was Fitzgerald's "big fish."
"Karl Rove is a big national figure and as close to the president of the United States as you can get without being a member of the president`s family," he told Scarborough. "And so, politically, Karl Rove is the much bigger fish here."
> And the MSM big bad wolf huffed and puffed (loudly
> I might add) but couldn't blow down the brick house.
It was astonishing to listen to them today, some practically
begging for Fitzgerald to write their stories for them
(comparing it with Watergate 'n' all). They already knew
what they had been instructed to write by the Clintons and
the DNC, and just wanted to get Fitzy to validate it.
Don 't you mean Patrick Fitzgerald, not Peter?
Thanks for your Illinois perspective. People are slamming Fitz hard here, and I'm no lawyer, but I found him today to be quite cogent... which is not something I'd expect from a partisan hack prosecutor.
People seem to be quibbling over the fact that there is no prosecution for the leak itself, but I said it during Clinton's Paula Jones deposition testimony and I agree with it here that if you lie to a grand jury, you deserve to get nailed. I don't like the us/them double standard... leave that to the Democrats.
Maybe Scooter leaked the story to stop Wilson's machinations at the source, knowing that he was taking a bullet for the administration. It just took that bullet a few years to make impact. But as I say, I'm no lawyer... just law and order.
> the whole thing comes down to Fitzgerald taking the word of "reporters" over Libby
C'mon. While what you say is technically in the realm of possibility, let's not delude ourselves. I'm no lawyer, but have watched enough courtroom dramas to know that Libby had motive (minimize Wilson's damage to the administration) and the means (heard it from Cheney weeks earlier) to out Plame. Give the guy his fair day in court, for sure, but I just think a number of Freepers are in denial to think that Fitz has no evidence with which to charge Libby.
This is such a trite canard. It has nothing to do with any FBI files. I detest the Clinton Administration but that FBI file thing WAS a snafu. The whole thing was blown way out of proportion. It was boob bait for the Bubba haters. It was GOP politicians throwing us flyover people some red meat. There was NO THERE THERE.
I say give the Special Prosecutor AND Libby their day in court. I am giving both of them the benefit of the doubt. It's puzzling now but in time there will be more exposition. One thing for sure, I refuse to trash the Special Prosecutor, I am a conservative and I respect officers of the court. And I refuse to defend perjury and obstruction of justice. Finally Scooter Libbey is at this moment an innocent man. And I pray to God he can deal with this misfortune in the most honorable and expeditious way.
You are EXACTLY correct!
I agree. I was actually laughing today. This is all you've got? A majority vote for indictment not even for the original purpose of investigation, and not even hitting your political target? He is holding a bag of nothing.
Shouldn't that information be available? I mean...he refused to say whether or not the grand jury refused to indict others? Sounds a lot like Ronnie Earles..who went through how many grand juries before he got one to indict DeLay. In fact, he got a "no bill" from one and kept that info from the grand jury that had only been seated an hour before indicting DeLay.
I'm sure the media will be looking into this....yeah right.
You are right! Look...if Libby lied to the GJ...and it looks like he did...then it was illegal, stupid, and he deserves to be indicted and forced to defend his actions. He is entitled to his defense and we must remember that we have only heard the prosecutor's side of the story.
That being said, perhaps the best thing he could do is what Sandy "Burglar" did...plead guilty and try for a reduced sentence. However, my take is that Fitz will not do that unless Libby helps him get Rove.
Of course, when Sandy Burglar stole classified documents...a crime for which he received NO jail time AND revocation of security clearance for only a few years... nobody tried to see WHY he would do that or for WHOM he would commit the crime.
But then....he's a democrat.
"LIBBY was surprised by this statement because, while speaking with Russert, LIBBY did not recall that he previously had learned about Wilson’s wife’s employment from the Vice President."
Libby SHOULD NOT have been surprised about Plame's employment with the CIA, HOWEVER, I can understand his surprise that "all reporters knew it." Now...is Russert saying that he never said that to Libby? If Russert remembers differently, the problem for LIbby is that his credibility is much less because he already should have remembered her name.
It has nothing to do with any FBI files"
You're right..however, the fact that Chuck Colson got prison time for ONE FBI file and Hillary and Bubba illegally had 900 is just one more example of "prosecutorial discretion" for some and "prosecution" for others.
Libby should have been indicted by what I can see..and he deserves his day in court. It just galls me that a Sandy Berger (Burglar) can actually STEAL classifed information, and no one in the media looks further into it.
On one hand you have Fitz saying "national security" was compromised, but refusing to say HOW, refusing to categorize Plame as covert, AND dismissing Wilson's lies as irrelevant. At the same time, the media is trying to take a case of perjury about a conversation with a reporter as the breakthrough to Bush's impeachment over why he went into Iraq.
If the FBI files had nothing to do with this...if Wilson's lies about Niger had nothing to do with this case...then this perjury case has nothing to do with Bush's decision, based on CIA intelligence that existed and was relied on by both Clinton/Bush adminstrations, to go to war.
You have a point there! It appears to be shaking out that the White House is dodging the bullet, it's all confined to Scooter Libby and the White House can get back to business. Thank God.
Well...Boundless...I truly think you've nailed it. ;o)
Kind of puts a new spin on the old formula, "I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me." ( I.e. because my answer would be a lie. )
But seriously, isn't this just the kind of inquisitorial proceeding that the fifth amendment was designed to prevent? Why shouldn't all the White House figures plead the fifth? It's the purest logic. Why is this any different than putting a guy on the stand and asking him, "Did you do it?" and then throwing him in jail for perjury if he says no.
There better be someone that can be elected, because Bush isn't running for President anymore.
Excuse me, but I seem to remember a certain associate of Richard M. Nixon having to spend time in jail for illegally possessing ONE FBI file. If it was a crime then, it is a crime now regardless of the number of files possessed or which party is guilty of the transgression.
First of all he wasn't charged with that. That would have been conspiracy.
Secondly, if he did lie to the FBI and the GJ, as the indictment charges, it would have done nothing to minimize Wilson's damage as that was past history.
Thirdly, is it wrong for an administration to actively defend itself from those who aim to undermine its agenda? Particularly when that opposition is based on lies? Wilson, through the CIA, concocted a completely false story that contradicted a major point in the administration's case against Saddam/Iraq. He lied about who requested his "fact finding trip" claiming it was the administration. He lied about filing a written report to the CIA. He further spread this lie by writing an op-ed in the Wash. Post.
That is a clear and determined attempt to undermine the foreign policy of the Executive Office during a time of war. Frankly I think it would be incompetence if the administration didn't do something to curtail a blatantly false story aimed at destroying an active foreign policy mission regarding national security in the context of nuclear weapons development in a rogue nation under multiple UN sanctions against WMD programs.
...and the means (heard it from Cheney weeks earlier) to out Plame.
Out her as what? She was not a covert agent. She changed from that status nine years prior and the statute makes it illegal for only five years after covert status has been resigned. There are a number of other legal hurdles to jump before the statute applies as well which weren't.
Apart from all of that his statements to the FBI and GJ indicate that he had attempted to conceal his prior knowledge of Plame's identity from reporters not necessarily from the FBI or GJ. It is not entirely clear, from the indictment's quotes, that he was trying to sell that line to the FBI or GJ. Fitzgerald conveniently left out much of the questioning that lead up to those answers.
I find it interesting that Fitzgerald claimed that "this has nothing to do with what led up to the war" yet he mentioned national security as an issue when he announced the indictment. He also talked about "threatening the cover of a covert agent." Yet there was no covert agent in any of this to uncover and Fitzgerald should have been aware of that after about thirty minutes of investigation. We were at FR. But the bottom line of that is that Fitzgerald didn't indict on those points yet he cites them in his public statement and yet he claims the investigation had nothing to do with the war in Iraq. His fly is wide open.
-ccm
The President ordered his staff to cooperate. Each evidence witness could have taken the 5th in principle. Might have been a good tactic, in hindsight. The case would then have been about whether or not disclosing Plame's identity was a violation of 50 USC 421.
The case in this indictment is about whether or not Libby was truthful in his testimony to the GJ about when and where he first heard of Plame's ID.
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