Posted on 10/30/2005 8:40:57 AM PST by smoothsailing
NEWS ANALYSIS
Patrick Fitzgerald Uses Martha Stewart Technique to Indict Scooter Libby
By Sher Zieve
Oct 29, 2005
After Martha Stewart was convicted for saying she was innocent of a crime, which could not be proved, many saw this as the test-case for allowing prosecutors free reign to employ any and all manners of Stalinesque prosecutorial techniques. Stewart was deemed "guilty" of a non-crime for essentially saying she wasn't guilty.
Is it no longer acceptable to defend oneself? In Martha's case, it most certainly appeared not. However, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald advised that he supported the case against Ms. Stewart. Apparently, Fitzgerald is a backer of creativity in the law.
Attorney and co-author of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, Victoria Toensing, said of Fitzgerald's 'Plame-gate' case: "If you don't have a clear violation, you should not become what's called 'creative with the law'. I don't think you're supposed to be creative with the criminal law. I call it fitting the stepsister's foot into Cinderella's shoe." Toensing advised that there was no violation of the 1982 Act. Toensing further quoted the Chicago Tribune, which had written in February: "Probably Fitzgerald's greatest talent was finding creative ways to interpret the law." In regards to Fitzgerald's Lewis Libby indictment (and/or any others to come), this well-known Fitzgerald creativity strongly appears to be the case.
Please don't misunderstand me. Obstruction of justice and perjury are serious crimes.
But, we're not even certain that these charges are either warranted or accurate. However, attaching additional "crimes" to an underlying "crime" that has already been dropped seems baseless at best. At its worst, it smacks of 'we used the pretense of an underlying crime to put you into the hot seat—so that we could go on a fishing expedition and try to get you to make inconsistent statements'. And at his over-an-hour press conference on Friday, Fitzgerald seemed determined to keep Karl Rove and others "on the hook". Fitzgerald refused to answer mainstream media reporters who continued to breathlessly salivate, while asking if he still had plans to investigate and/or indict Rove.
Fitzgerald coyly refused to answer. However, during his press conference, Fitzgerald did manage to make Libby sound more like an axe murderer than someone who had (possibly inadvertently) contradicted his statements.
Note: In a legal system already rampant with activist judges performing legislative duties, to say that our "legal" system has gone wild is a cosmic understatement.
Fitzgerald said that he had charged the now former VP Chief of Staff Lewis Libby with obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury because "we didn't get the straight story." When asked why he didn't charge Libby with the "outing" of former CIA covert agent Valerie Plame, Fitzgerald said that he didn't know if a "serious national security crime" had been perpetrated.
Silly me and others. I'd thought that the outing-crime might have actually been the reason the investigation began, in the first place. Whew!!! After almost 2 years, the special prosecutor still doesn't know if a real crime was committed or not?
Note: Again it appears that for politicians 'innocent until proven guilty' applies only to Democrats—not to Republicans or conservatives.
When Fitzgerald was asked by reporters why he had not charged anyone with the outing-crime, he gave the baseball analogy: "What we have when someone charges obstruction of justice is the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure out what happened, and somebody blocked their view." Hmmm. Not to argue with the special prosecutor, I'd still like to know what real crime he believes was 'being obstructed'. From what Victoria Toensing says, no crime was ever committed. As she wrote the 1982 Act upon which this investigation was purportedly begun, she should know.
So, I have to wonder if this case was and is being made up as it goes along and more people are questioned. However, with no crime having been committed, I'm increasingly uneasy about true motivations. Is it simply that the special prosecutor believed that after 2 years he had to come up with some cause of action? Or, is there something else afoot?
Others, besides me, are asking these same questions.
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Sher Zieve is an author and political commentator.
© Copyright by NationalLedger.com
Didn't you know that being attractive and wealthy are crimes? /sarc.
I don't think it was ever supposed to be a crime to lie... unless you were under oath.
And if they insist you DO talk to them as if you were under oath, you should always have 5th amendment protection.
This whole mess seemed to me to be somehow a way of getting around the fifth amendment.
Doesn't grand jury testimony involve taking the Oath? I thought it did. I heard that right to counsel does not apply, but I thought one could still take the Fifth unless the prosecutor gave a witness immunity. A prosecutor can't compel testimony in a grand jury room that he will use against the witness in open court - that's insane.
Heck, if nothing else, maybe this country will finally wake up to the abuses of the Grand Jury system. Too often, we think that only criminals get charged, and there's no sympathy for anyone ground under the heel of the District Attorneys, Attorneys General or the Justice Department.
Maybe now we see why the law is stacked on the side of the accused - it's too easy to politicize "justice." Criminals should be punished, but the state must have an extremely high burden to meet before the accused is found guilty.
Katie Bar The Door!
Fitz & pals are wrecking the legal system in order to carve notches on their resumes.
That's it, in a nutshell. The MSM is part and parcel of this wrecking, because they are willing to ignore the destruction of the law in order to pimp their political agenda.
An effective and unbiased media would be trumpeting the true miscarriage of justice instead of burying it.
I agree. An even better citzen prcedure would be "Talk to my attorney.".
Actually, it is still possible to forget. Russert, after all, was the one who forgot the substance of a phone conversation with Libby - until the information revealed by his own notes indicated that he had indeed discussed what Libby said they had discussed. He wasn't indicted for lying to a GJ, however; so why, if his oversight was considered mere forgetfulness, should Libby's be treated any differently, even if there are tapes? Consider this a rhetorical question...
They probably answered with things like "To the best if my knowleged or as I can best remember". I'm sure Libby never claimed to be giving an exact yes or no, with human memories, how could he?
And with no crime, how could "Fitz the Hack" continue this investigation past the first few weeks?
I read the same thing into it that you did. It was an explanation of what he had said, not an attempt to mislead the GJ about his words. Unless there are other statements involved, it seems a real stretch to make this the basis for any kind of charge at all.
Ooops, I forgot. Eat the rich! Especially those who have started out in a modest Polish working class neighborhood in Joisey and worked their way into multi-millionairehood. The most dangerous kind!
I noticed that confidence too. If Russert recorded the conversation, the Administration had better find out just what the deal is with NBC allowing reporters to secretly record conversations.
I wouldn't continue talking to any reporter who I knew had recorded me without my permission, regardless of whether it was legal. Legality and common decency are not the same thing.
Patrick is just making sure that if the Dems get in he gets named to the SC.
So the prosecutor is saying because he can't prove there was a crime he is charging someone with preventing him from proving there was a crime.
Talk about blaming someone else.
Seems to me the only proper answer to a grand jury is a 5th amendment stateemt to all questions.
Motive? Trying to discredit Wilson. Sharing classified information about CIA personnel for political gain is an ugly thing to do.
Sorry to say this, but Scooter Libby got caught playing hardball politics too close (and possibnly over) the line. Nothing new about this whatsoever. Some get busted, and most do not; in any case, if you get caught, you have to be prepared to take your lumps.
I seriously doubt if Scooter Libby will ever see the inside of a jail cell, even if (and that is a very big IF) he is ever convicted of anything. I would support a Presidential Pardon for Libby in January '09...
Freep this poll.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1512005/posts
They ought to take some of their own advice.
Well, did he?
Gee, don't you think we should at least give Scooter his day in court, a presumption of innocence, all those pesky rights he's entitled to?
Freep a Seattle poll? Sheesh,get a grip.
Fitz is saying "it's Libby's fault that I failed".
I'd bet a dollar to a donut that Fitz was one whiney kid.
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