> 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.
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.
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.