[Wolfstar]

That still leaves me with the other question. I have understood through all of this that in order to be charged, a leaker would have had to have known Plame's status. Wouldn't Fitzgerald have come to these crossroads regarding her status when one would assume he tried to pin Libby with the original leaking charge? Wouldn't he have had to determine that Libby had knowledge?

That's the whole conundrum in this case, Dolphy. To this day we, the taxpayers footing the bill for this charade, still don't know if a crime was committed when Noval revealed Plame's name. As so many others have said, if there was no crime, then there can be no perjury. Perjury has to be material to the underlying crime.

[lepton]

As so many others have said, if there was no crime, then there can be no perjury.

There is a semantic difference here: The difference between there an act being not criminal even if what was being asserted was true; and there being no commission of a crime.

[Dolphy]

I think I'm being obtuse, especially for someone who followed this fairly closely :)

As natural as that progression of thought should have been when Fitzgerald first skirted the issue of Plames status, I guess I had never quite thought of it from the angle that Libby didn't know.

[Cboldt]

As so many others have said, if there was no crime, then there can be no perjury. Perjury has to be material to the underlying crime.

False testimony can be a crime of its own right, independent from finding, even independent from charging an underlying crime.

Absence of an illegal leak will not excuse false testimony.