The Libby Injustice

Opening arguments begin next week in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and, regardless of the verdict, it is our firm belief that this is a case that should never have been brought. While a tragedy for Mr. Libby and his family in personal terms, the case is among the most egregious examples we can recall of criminalizing political differences.

In the most important sense, this is a case without a crime. Yes, Mr. Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, which are serious offenses. But this seasoned, disciplined lawyer is accused of lying to cover up a leak he didn't commit, and which has long been proven not to have been a crime at all. One early bit of drama will be to see what motive prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald comes up with to explain why Mr. Libby would lie to the FBI and a grand jury when he had essentially nothing to hide.

All the more so because one of the mysteries of this case is Mr. Fitzgerald himself. He made his reputation as a tough prosecutor in Chicago who was nonetheless scrupulous about the law. But in this case, he knew from the very first day of his appointment in December 2003 that neither Mr. Libby nor the Vice President's office had orchestrated the leak of Valerie Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak. ...

As it happens, Messrs. Fitzgerald and Libby had crossed legal paths before. Before he joined the Bush Administration, Mr. Libby had, for a number of years in the 1980s and 1990s, been a lawyer for Marc Rich. ...

Two of the prosecutors who worked on the Rich case over the years were none other than Mr. Fitzgerald and James Comey, ...

You are confusing being "charged" with serious offenses (Libby) and "committing" serious offenses (Clinton). If you have read anything about this phony "investigation" of non-existing "crime" of non-existing "leak" about non-existing "undercover"/"covert" CIA operative, you'd know that "investigation" shouldn't have happened at all, as the name of "leaker" Richard Armitage was known since Day 1 (OK, maybe Day 2)... well before Fitzgerald took his expansive team "on a wild goose chase", as he himself put it, around Washington, DC.

If anyone should be charged with abuse of power (for political, and now it seems, also for personal reasons) and obstruction of justice, and perjury (during press-conference charging Libby), it would be Fitzgerald himself.

Answer one question to convince yourself of that: why do you think on the eve of the trial the press that was so salivating about minute details and rumors around this "investigation" is suddenly so quiet and uninterested, except sometimes repeating what has been "alleged" as a serious crime which they now know has not happened at all?

Try reading some posts of few months back on these threads:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=libby
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=cialeak

Would it be ridiculous of me to ask why the former POTUS who granted the highly questionable pardon to Rich isn't being investigated....? Never mind, rhetorical consideration.

As odious as Rich is, Libby did have a duty to try to provide him with the best defense possible. Seems extremely petty to punish Libby for Rich's flight and pardon when neither were his doing. But Fitz has demonstrated that pettiness can be his forward quality.

thanks for the wsj link

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