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I read the Indictment {all 22 pages} and then went to the US Code of jusitce to see what Title 18 Section 793 {and all of the other litte subsections, 100, 1053 etc} were all about.

This section of law was written to be able to prevent {or later prosecute} any person from giving military secrets about ships, shipyards, and other very specific military, classfied secrets to anyone not entitled to receive them.

Since valerie was not covert, fitzzy could not use the law that was charged in the original investigation {if there was no crime, there was no cover up} so he dug around and found another nebulous law, which could be strecthed into an indictment.

This case is so weak that if a person's entire life were not in chaos, it would be funny. Now Libby is out of the WH, but he will have to spend millions of dollars and years of his life, disproving some spurious charges, about whether it was raining on July 23, 2003 when he looked out his window, and thought about valerie and joe.

After two years, a mid level staffer gets indicted, using a law about the secrecy of shipyards. All of the other charges, perjury, obstruction etc. all flow from this statute}. What a msierable system, that allows a prosecuter, the power over anyone, without any check or balance. That is the real danger of a "special prosecuter" for this one investigation, he has no boss. He can't be fired, no matter how badly he is screwing up, The Attorney General, the Congress, The President, no one can stop him, until he feels like quitting. Too much power, no oversight {except the eagle eyes of the press}.

Too much power, no oversight {except the eagle eyes of the press}.

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Well, I for one plan to keep an eye on this matter. Perhaps the non-mainstream media (e.g., Freepers, bloggers, et al.) can help get justice for Mr. Libby. After all, it was the little guys who outed CBS and Dan Rathernot over those forged documents.

And one more thing: I don't know a whole lot about Attorney Tate other than his firm and Martindale bios as posted here, but I know his firm is a prestigious heavy hitter. Sounds to me like Attorney Libby has chosen his counsel well. At least, he didn't get the OJ Simpson dream team. (Ugh)

What a msierable system, that allows a prosecuter, the power over anyone, without any check or balance. That is the real danger of a "special prosecuter" for this one investigation, he has no boss. He can't be fired, no matter how badly he is screwing up, The Attorney General, the Congress, The President, no one can stop him, until he feels like quitting. Too much power, no oversight {except the eagle eyes of the press}.

I suppose you felt the same way about Ken Starr ??

I don't know what Title 18, Section 793 has to do with anything.

Scooter Libby was mainly indicted for lying to the FBI and grand jury about how he learned about Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent. He claimed he learned from Tim Russert, when Tim Russert said that he never spoke to Mr. Libby about Ms. Plame, and other evidence shows that he knew about her identity before speaking to Russert. That other evidence includes Ari Fleisher's (presumed) grand jury testimony that Mr. Libby told him about Ms. Plame's identity, (presumed) grand jury testimony from others in the administration (including an Undersecretary of State and Libby's CIA briefer) that Mr. Libby spoke with them about Ms. Plame before speaking to Russert, and a pre-Russert fax to his office about the issue.

These charges, on their face, are serious. Flame away, but they don't appear to me to be trumped up or evidence of a vendetta by a special prosecutor run amok. And it's not just question of "Russert, Cooper and Miller said" versus "Libby said", as some here have claimed.

Of course, these are just the ALLEGATIONS of a special prosecutor and grand jury, and Scooter Libby is innocent until proven guilty. But IF the allegations are proven, what Libby did was both illegal and really stupid. You don't lie to the FBI or a grand jury. Period.