FITZGERALD: We have neither sought, much less obtained, all documents, regardless of when created, relating to whether Valerie Wilson's status as a CIA employee, or any aspect of that status, was classified at any time between May 6, 2003 and July 14, 2003.
The only reason the "leak" of her name was investigated at all was because her CIA employment status was supposedly classified.
FITZGERALD: You [Libby's lawyers] demand access to all documents referencing Mr. Wilson's 2002 trip to Iraq.
Wilson's trip to NIGER, not Iraq, is central to the whole case. It's the story reporters were interested in, and the reason they wanted to discuss it with Libby, Rove and other WH officials. It's the reason Novak wrote his column, which triggered the investigation. Yet Fitzgerald doesn't even get the country right two-plus years into his investigation?!
FITZGERALD: A formal assessment has not been done of the damage caused by the disclosure of Valerie Wilson's status as a CIA employee.
By his own admission, then, Fitzgerald didn't bother to find out if there was even a crime committed as regards the "leak" of her name, so he justifies the waste of taxpayer dollars over more than two years by trumping up perjury charges against Libby.
THIS is the prosecutor so many people, including many FReepers, assured us was squeeky clean, dedicated, honest, excellent, etc.? From the above-quoted court documents, it seems Patrick Fitzgerald ignored all the central facts of the case he was employed to investigate. Un-frickin-believable!
At this point, Fitztgerald is the one who ought to be investigated.
We all remember how Fitzgerald kept us hanging until the last minute for the results of his investigation. If I were to pay him for his work, he would only get half. And he would have to pay that back in fines from his fraud conviction.
I don't know what duties and obligations Fitzgerald had in confirming Plame's status, however, to charge anyone with leaking her name, he would have had to confirm that the leaker knew her status. Could this be why Libby wasn't charged with the alleged underlying crime (he didn't know her status)?
We can discuss Libby's prosecution, but this is pretty clearly cause to fire Fitzgerald. He was given a task, and made no attempt to nail down its predicates.
He ought to be brought up on charges for defrauding the American people out of $2 million.
This is disgusting!
Yesterday I watched Fitzgerald's October press conference again. He is strictly defending his call to prosecute Libby for lying, using all the rhetoric that we would use if, say, Hillary was caught lying to a GJ.
He totally side-stepped mentioning that the lies have to be pertinent to the investigation. A witness can lie about the weather or the schoolwork of his children all he wants, for example.
He declared as fact that Ms Plame was in a "classified" position at CIA. The statute that would make Libby's alleged lies pertinent does not focus on "classified" employees, but "covert" employees.
I am sure that Ms Plame retained her "classified" status so that she could retire with higher benefits. I will never believe that a covert agent would
a) use her cover company name to contribute to a Presidential Candidate's campaign, or
b) allow her husband to write an incendiary article for the New York Times.
Fitzgerald was busy managing several other big cases at the same time he was managing this one. I'd bet it was his assistants that messed up the Plame case, and Fitzgerald ignorantly trusted them when he put his seal on the facts.
Either that, or he's incompetent.