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To: Kryptonite
You don't get it. In order for a perjury charge to stick, the false information must be material. You can't just throw a bunch of alleged crimes against a wall and expect me to see that any of them will stick. A witness in a murder case can deliberately lie about the color of his socks if it has nothing to do without the murder, and not have to worry about perjury charges.

Instead of talking about socks in a murder case, why don't you use the specific issues in this case? As I already noted, Fitzgerald was given the "authority to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses." See the part that says "as well as"? Please explain to me how answers given in reponse to questions about revealing the identity of Wilson's wife are not material to Fitzgerald's investigation, since that was the point of the investigation.
140 posted on 10/25/2005 7:30:49 AM PDT by drjimmy
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To: drjimmy

I already have, several times.

See my prior posts regarding proving criminal knowledge of Plame's status as a covert agent, as opposed to someone merely working for the CIA, at the time of the communications.

If Fitzgerald cannot prove that any alleged leaker either had actual knowledge of Plame's status as a covert agent or reasonably believed she was a covert agent, he has no case relating to "unauthorized disclosure", as you put it. I think that its pretty clear that he has no case on the main part of the investigation, at least not against Cheney, Rove or Libby.

Perjury only comes into play if it is material to the underlying investigation. Although the underlying investigation also dealt with sources of leaks, Libby cannot be convicted of perjury for allegedly lying about his source unless it can also be shown that he knew Plame was a covert agent. It's a fine point of law but that's what I see in the leaks from unidentified lawyers close to the investigation, and all the prattling on about other issues by the likes of Fineman and O'Donnell yesterday.

Can you point to anything anywhere that indicates any target of the investigation besides Joe Wilson and Plame knew that Plame was a covert agent instead of simply a CIA employee at the time of the communications?


144 posted on 10/25/2005 7:48:32 AM PDT by Kryptonite (McCain, Graham, Warner, Snowe, Collins, DeWine, Chafee - put them in your sights)
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