Anyway, as soon as the prosecution tries to charge them with anything their legal team starts requesting access to every classified document they can as part of their defense; they demand to question averyone who could even remotely be called a witness including - especially including- people who are "nocs," people the defense knows full well the government cannot allow to testify because that would be the end of their usefulness as covert agents. If we had real common-sense judges they would deny the defense nonrelevent material, and then a case might proceed if the material he does allow can be declassified safely. But we don't have common-sense judges, we have what Clinton left us. If we had trustworthy defense lawyers we could go ahead and allow more classified info into the court but again, the lawyers we have are internationalists or more loyal to their profession than to the American people, and they would pass on the intel to the press if they thought it was useful.
With the crop of judges we have they will grant access to just about anything the defense lawyers demand no matter how ridiculous, and even if it doesn't really pertain to the defendant's case. A lot of damage could be done, enough to outweigh the justice done.
The government is then forced to choose between the need to prosecute a criminal and the need to prevent its human intel assets in other countries from being exposed and imprisoned or killed, or must choose between prosecution and exposing a very classified project or operation still underway or one that is otherwise crucial to defense.
We tried to nail Agee several times but each time he pulled the "doc dump defense" and because our judiciary is compromised he was allowed to get away with it.
Of course, he twists this to mean that since he wasn't prosecuted the gov has nothing on him, and says the gov won't go after him because their "criminal" actions against him would be exposed. Nothing could be further from the truth- its just that other people could be harmed if the government presented everything his lawyers demand.
The only time you can prosecute without this risk is if enough time has passed that there are no longer human assets or operations that could be adversely affected by being exposed. It may be years before that happens. Or the defendant may be prosecutable because he was so low on the totem pole that there isn't anything his lawyers could demand that isn't worth calling them on and then prosecuting.
Unfortunately, the higher the person was in rank and access and the more damaging the leaks- means they are the ones most likely to successfully pull off a doc dump defense.
Mary McCarthy by virtue of her high position and job description can demand a huge volume of information for her defense and can demand to have a lot of people we would prefer not to expose put on the witness stand. Prosecuting her would require us to expose these people and an awful lot of info and it's doubtful prosecuting her [for now at least] would be worth the damage that the legal case would do to national security.
If they could find some unrelated crime on her part to go after her with it would be worth pressing her for that in order to indirectly punish her for her on-the-job crimes, but she was probably not out doing drugs or mugging nuns. Perhapos in time, if no statute of limitations can kick in, she may be prosecutable, but during a war I doubt the opening will come any time soon.
Sounds reasonable. Then, as a traitor in time of war, why not try her and those of her ilk under military tribunals .. like the insurgents they are .. captured "on the battlefield" of the CIA?
"The reason there is not likely to be much in the way of prosecution is an old one..."
Thanks Piasa - your post makes sense. It is very disturbing and frusterating, but nonetheles good to know. Hopefully the elephant party doesn't get amnesia further down the road, when these useful idiots might be held accountable for their treasonous ways. Unfortunately, in the meantime, it seems like they get a free pass, which can only be encouraging to others who assess the risk of participating in this treason as very low. (Doh!)
We desperately need to fix this. The way things stand, the more important the secrets, the more likely someone can get away with passing them.
I think she should be prosecuted anyway. Then when the charges have to be dropped because the of the defense's demands for secret and sensitive material and witnesses, make a big stink about it!