[piasa]

President Bush's ex-spokesman invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked in front of a grand jury about the illegal outing of spy Valerie Plame, prosecutors revealed this week. Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer sought and received immunity from prosecution for unmasking the secret agent.

Three strikes in the very first paragraph!

1. It hasn't yet been extablished that the "outing" was illegal. Certainly no one has been charged with such a thing.

2. It has never been extablished that Valerie Plame was a spy. We know that she's an analyst, which means she's not a spy.

3. Fleischer couldn't be the guy who unmasked the "secret agent" who's not a secret agent since Armitage already said he's the one who did it.

Ari Flieischer may have invoked the fifth as "federal prosecuitors" say, but on looking closer this article doesn't say "Federal prosecutors" gave the reason- the author appears to have made up the reason or perhaps obtained it from the reporter Kristoff and inserted it behind the info from prosecutors in order to give the impression the prosecutors were the source for hat sentence too.

[Lecie]

Snipped from the article: "Fleischer is expected to tell the court that Libby, formerly Vice President Cheney's top adviser, told him on July 7, 2003, that "he had some information that was hush-hush," said special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald."

Yes indeed, and Ari told David Gregory. No wonder he wanted immunity.

From the Just One Minute blog: "We are relying on the live-blogging of the Libby trial by the always-astute EmptyWheel, who is covering the opening statement of Libby's attorney, Ted Wells, but we have a potential blockbuster absolutely guaranteed to get exactly zero headlines. Ted Wells drops the news that David Gregory of NBC received a leak about Plame from Ari Fleischer on July 11"