My money is on that this is gonna plead out.
No way jury wouldn't convict if you have a parade of reporters marching in all with the same story. Plus, they all protected the source until Libby let them off the hook for source secrecy (probably under obstruction charges pressure from Fitz - or bad advice from counsel). Oh, and that's not to mention the paragraph that obviously comes from the VP himself re: when he told Libby that Plame worked CIA in counterproliferation or whatever it was.
By the way, Fitzgerald is squeaky clean, and the other investigators - one is this pencil-neck geek looking guy who seems nice and one or two younger women that also seemed nice. I for one don't believe these were a bunch of hacks and/or operatives running the show.
The old line is you can indict a ham sandwich is apropos here, and that being said, the fact that they did not indict him for more than this is a testament to the prosecutors' evenhandedness, I hate to say it.
In fact, I think faced with the information in that indictment, any one of us who had Fitz's job would have had to indict Libby for this. Remember the standard at indictment stage is Probable Cause. Far far FAR cry from reasonable doubt.
Some of the allegations rely on Cooper having a perfect memory.
that will fail.
You think Fitzgerald is evenhanded? Then does his paperwork claim Plame was covert and not know outside of intelligence circles? The guy is either a hack or a complete moron.
I agree with your take on it. Fitz did not seem to me to act like what I would think of as a partisan hack (recall the 9/11 commission, for many fine examples of partisan hacks)