Posted on 11/17/2005 5:10:51 AM PST by veronica
Fitzgerald has blown this case.
I think it makes Fitzgerald look like an ass. Remember he held a press conference and stated that Scooter Libby was the first person to leak Valerie Plame's name and identify her as a CIA agent to the media. This was a threat to our National Security. And Libby lied about it.
I bet Fitzgerald used the same lines to the Grand Jury and that is why he was indicted.
Remember the only reason Woodward is talking is because his source (Cheney?) ratted him out. The source is probably in the clear because it sounds like he contacted Fitzgerald and said something like. "You know, I now recollect mentioning in passing that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's wife to Bob Woodward." Fitzgerald will probably have a hard time indicting this souce if he volunteered the information. JMHO.
We don't know that there was no crime. Fitzgerald was assigned, by the DoJ, to find out. According to the GJ, Libby's perjury and obstruction of justice prevented the GJ from finding out. So the investigation continues.
Good point, and a good reason to be skeptical about the coverage.
I read it when it came out. I'm not sure I believe it.
I don't recall what they said about Woodward being in the CIA. If they said that, I'm even more skeptical about the boook.
Matthews wept.
Horse puckey.
Perjury is a separate issue and charge, which Libby has to answer for.
However...Customary practice and DOJ guidelines state that before the investigatory nachinery of the government is brought to bear, there should be some case that a law has been broken. diGenova and Toensing have been saying from day 1 that there was no crime. There's at least a hint of prosecutorial misconduct, which Fitzgerald would have to answer for. Any competent defense attorney would seek to have the case thrown out on those grounds.
We know there was no crime because there is no law against outing a CIA agent who is not "covert" by the definition of the IIPA.
The Espionage Act of 1917 does not apply and has never been applied for such. (Which was why the IIPA of 1982 was legislated.)
"Remember he held a press conference and stated that Scooter Libby was the first person to leak Valerie Plame's name and identify her as a CIA agent to the media. This was a threat to our National Security. And Libby lied about it.
I bet Fitzgerald used the same lines to the Grand Jury and that is why he was indicted."
Excellent point. I would bet you are right.
"I am lost in how the Woodward revelation is a good thing for the Whitehouse? If Woodward is to be believed, Senior Whitehouse staff was trying to discredit Plame/Wilson longer then had been known."
The premise of Wilson and his water carriers in the DNC/MSM is that Plame was outed as payback.
Do you think George Tenet or Colin Powell would have outed her as payback?
Nobody does. Not even the lunatics in the DNC/MSM.
We are speculating, based on the above and more, that there was no crime. But the Dept. of Justice assigned a special prosecutor to find out, and until he is finished, we can only speculate.
I guess reporters need "beards" too.
Now I'm seeing rumors from DU, Daily KOS and ABC that Fitzgerald might convene a new Grand Jury to present information he received from Woodward. The RAT spin is that the Woodward revelations will allow for the indictments of others. Were that true then Woodward would have been pressed to reveal his source.
IMHO: the new GJ is cover for dropping charges against Libby.
While I would like to see this go to trial also, there's only one problem. Libby has to pay for it. He could be ruined financially. It would take at least a year, maybe longer, for this case to come to trial. Libby has to twist in the wind until then. He can't practice law, and probably couldn't earn a living at all unless he was hired by some think tank or something. And his name has already been smeared.
What is your point. Libby said he found out from reporters. If he did, name them, and tell me why he bothered to ask the CIA and state departments who Wilson was and why he was sent to Africa. Tell me also why he conveniently forgot that they had reported back to him and to Cheney? Tell me why he was able to remember hearing about it from a reporter, although he cant remember who, and conveniently forgot that he had learned four times before.
"I believe Woodward was an officer in Naval Intelligence.
That could have put him in contact (depending on assignments) with lots of people from the various Intelligence Agencies, (ie NSA, DIA, NRO, CIA...)"
No, he wasn't.
Knight Fellowships: 1998 Knight Lecture: Bob Woodward
"QUESTION: I don’t think Mr. Colodny, the co-author who wrote "Silent Coup," would agree with that. Do you want to include out of your comments whether or not you had an intelligence background in the Navy, whether or not you were placed in this role? You seemed to come on to the scene very timely, your relationship to, no, I’m just telling–
WOODWARD: No, no, this is a fair question. There are, that book, the book, "Silent Coup," I’m intimately familiar with, which has been just discredited up and down and the allegation is that somehow when I was in the Navy I worked in Naval intelligence which I did not, which there are records of. I worked in Naval communications. I had nothing to do with that."
http://knight.stanford.edu/lectures/knight/1998/
"We are speculating, based on the above and more, that there was no crime. But the Dept. of Justice assigned a special prosecutor to find out, and until he is finished, we can only speculate."
No. It went more like this:
1. Some cubicle drones (most likely blue-haired old ladies) at the CIA are assigned to scan the US newspapers for mention of the CIA.
2. They saw the name of Plame and that she was an agent. The bluehairs went to their computers and punched in a few words and sent the info to the Justice Department for investigation. (Something that happens more than once a week, by the way.)
3. We would probably have never heard another word about it, but Admiral Joe Wilson began to scream from the rooftops, and since he was working for the DNC and Kerry's campaign--he was able to get enough press that the (cowed) Bush administration decided they better put a special prosecutor on this.
If there had been a law broken, Fitzgerald would have mentioned it. He didn't.
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