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Prosecutor tarnishes Libby, justice system
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Also by Will Smith:
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- Israel right to reject Hamas government (March 22, 2007)
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- Prosecutor tarnishes Libby, justice system (March 8, 2007)
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Scooter Libby got screwed. The former chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney was convicted Tuesday on four of five charges of perjury and obstruction in the Valerie Plame identity leak affair and now faces years of jail time. Yet justice was not served: Mr. Libby was merely the political fall guy in a circus-like story of a headhunting special prosecutor determined to get a conviction at any cost. The problem for prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was that, from the beginning, there was no crime to go after.
The media and political insiders have been obsessed with this scandal for more than three years, yet some basic truths of the whole affair have been misreported to the general public from the beginning. Nobody in the White House "outed" CIA employee Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq war critic Joe Wilson; Richard Armitage, a former State Department official who frequently butted heads with the Bush administration, unintentionally leaked Ms. Plame's identity in 2003.
Another fact in this case that we must shine light on, since the mainstream media will not, is that the leak of Ms. Plame's identity was not even a crime — her identity is not protected under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. She was not undercover, yet Mr. Wilson, Ms. Plame and Democratic leaders in Congress have been accusing the Bush administration of breaking laws by leaking a protected CIA official's identity for political reasons when that is simply untrue. Even Mr. Fitzgerald has acknowledged this!
But if no initial crime against CIA official Ms. Plame was ever committed, why did Mr. Fitzgerald charge ahead against top Bush administration officials like Karl Rove and Mr. Libby? Good question. Mr. Fitzgerald overzealously pursued the Bush inner circle until he found a crime to hang his hat on, however irrelevant it might be to the initial case. Ultimately, Mr. Libby's charges were based on inconsistencies within his grand jury testimony. He testified that he was "taken aback" when NBC journalist Tim Russert mentioned Ms. Plame's CIA status to him, yet it emerged that he had already been informed of her status from Mr. Cheney and lied about already knowing. Did this truly have to become the political scandal of the decade?
So if the upper echelons of the Bush White House never orchestrated some grand scheme to out Ms. Plame in an attempt to sabotage her husband, why are the Wilsons, along with Democratic leaders, so happy with this guilty verdict? Mr. Wilson reported that he is satisfied with this verdict, even though the case had nothing to do with him. According to Fox News, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "It's about time someone in the Bush administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics." What are you talking about, Harry? This trial had nothing to do with intelligence manipulation. It had nothing to do with discrediting war critics. But the anti-Bush clowns in Washington, including the mainstream media, are more interested in distorting the facts and the integrity of our legal system to achieve their political goals than they are with telling the truth.
I'm not saying Mr. Libby did not lie under oath. But maybe the legitimacy and integrity of the trial that delivered that verdict should be questioned. From the outset, Mr. Fitzgerald has appeared more motivated by toppling a high-ranking official than serving justice. By the time he was appointed in December 2003, Mr. Armitage had already acknowledged that he was responsible for the original leak of the identity, and the investigation should have gone no further. Yet, with clear evidence to the contrary, Mr. Fitzgerald — convinced that laws were broken — continued going after figures at the top of the Bush White House, including the vice president. It was not until this unnecessary investigation proceeded that a purported crime was committed, and that is how the prosecutor got his much-wanted scalp Tuesday.
Mr. Fitzgerald simply wanted to inflate his own importance by creating the false impression that a crime was committed. When he found no real crime, he manufactured a crime of process. That is, a charge related to his investigation, not the purported CIA leak. Unfortunately, Mr. Fitzgerald's pathetic antics not only do not serve the American political and judicial systems, they will instead have a chilling effect on future testimony in cases where a witness can simply cooperate minimally by "not recalling."
The usual suspects in our Democrat-controlled Congress can lie to themselves all they want about this trial being about the Bush administration smearing its enemies. But the only things that got smeared were the justice system and Mr. Libby. Now, the only way for justice to be served is for President Bush to pardon Mr. Libby.
Will Smith (wsmith@badgerherald.com) is a freshman majoring in political science and religious studies.
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A wise Republican once told me -circa 1998- that this is a country of laws. It doesn’t matter what the crime is, it’s still a crime.
Mr. Smith, after writing this legendary work of journalism, you can never criticize Clinton for lying under oath and you can never use the world “illegal” aliens, since you’re more than willing to make exceptions.
Wow, it’s amazing that anyone still backs this Administration… 22 months of “joy” and “intelligent leadership” to go.
I would have read this whole article, but two paragraphs in i have realized you are a moron.
That is all
Did Clinton getting a hummer really have to be the scandal of the 90’s?
Scooter and Martha both have lessons for all.
NEVER say anything to a government agent except “No Comment”. Don’t say “yes”, don’t say “no” and whatever you do don’t say “I don’t remenmber” - just say “No Comment” followed by “I want to call a lawyer”.
you are a tool. do you know anything about the law?
“is that the leak of Ms. Plame's identity was not even a crime”
Her identity as a CIA employee was classified. Releasing classified information to anyone without proper clearance and a defined need to know is a crime. It does not matter if it is intentional or unintentional.
Libby was not on trial for leaking information. He was on trial for lying to investigators. Just because he did not commit the offense that started the investigation does not allow him to break other laws.
“Scooter Libby got screwed.”
No. Scooter Libby will get screwed as he spends the next 25 years of his life in a Federal pound me in the [rear] facility.
“Its DemocratIC you idiot.”
So I should call Hillary(tm) a Democratic now, instead of a Democrat?
Cool, I’m on it!
“Perjury is actually a very strictly defined term.”
Really? Seemed your ilk was more flexible when Slick Willy the Democratic was lying to save his skin.
“one of its operatives and the entire company she worked for was blown”
So then why isn’t Armitage (from State Dept NOT White House) on trial?
That is all? You Democratics always think you know it all.
colin powell and dick armitage let the bag out ya lefties! sheesh.
12:58, us lefties had to suffer throught the ridiculousness of the Clinton impeachment. Yeah, that was worth while… thanks to the morally superior Right.
Oh wait, the Right has proven to be just as crooked. Who’s going to guide us now? Please don’t say church…
Anything that a conservative does cannot be illegal and cannot be a crime, so therefore Libby is not a criminal and cannot be guilty of a crime. Regardless of the witnesses, Regardless of the jury, Regardless of the administration-appointed special prosecutor, Regardless of the rule of law, Regardless of obvious unpatriotic actions, there is, was, and never will be a crime committed by a conservative. The American justice system has worked again. It found a specific case of wrong-doing and found a specific person guilty of a specific crime. Is there something wrong with that? Has the conservative movement, this Republican party, and the Bush administration gone soft on crime? If Mr. Libby is pardoned, the cronyism and lawlessness will go unpunished. Mr. Libby has the same access to the appeal system that any person in the justice system does. I’m sure he’ll take advantage of it. If this ruling is overturned on appeal, so be it. Let’s get back to reality, here. Mr. Fitzgerald is, in any other context, a hero, not an over-zealous prosecutor. I really cannot believe that so many conservative voices are rallying against the rule of law.
-Adam James apjames@wisc.edu
Lewis Libby has now been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for lies that had absolutely no legal consequence.
It was not a crime to reveal Valerie Plame’s name because she was not a covert agent. If it had been a crime, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could have wrapped up his investigation with an indictment of the State Department’s Richard Armitage on the first day of his investigation since it was Armitage who revealed her name and Fitzgerald knew it.
With no crime to investigate, Fitzgerald pursued a pointless investigation into nothing, getting a lot of White House officials to make statements under oath and hoping some of their recollections would end up conflicting with other witness recollections, so he could charge some Republican with “perjury” and enjoy the fawning media attention.
As a result, Libby is now a convicted felon for having a faulty memory of the person who first told him that Joe Wilson was a delusional boob who lied about his wife sending him to Niger.
This makes it official: It’s illegal to be Republican.
Since Teddy Kennedy walked away from a dead girl with only a wrist slap (which was knocked down to a mild talking-to, plus time served: zero), Democrats have apparently become a protected class in America, immune from criminal prosecution no matter what they do.
As a result, Democrats have run wild, accepting bribes, destroying classified information, lying under oath, molesting interns, driving under the influence, obstructing justice and engaging in sex with underage girls, among other things.
Hey, 4:32 “dipstick”, what was the underlying crime in the Lewinsky scandal?
It doesn’t matter if there was not underlying crime, genious. We (i.e. your brilliant party) have impeached ELECTED presidents for less.
Quit your whining, you’re starting to sound like a liberal.
It’s the same way President Clinton was impeached for lying to a Grand Jury that was convened to see if he had gotten a blowjob.
Playing politics with the law isn’t unique to either side, quit pretending it is.
” “Unless your client is in a situation where not testifying will cause them to lose their livelihood, and unless you’re certain of what the facts are,” there’s no reason people under suspicion should talk with authorities, says Marvin Pickholz, a former Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement chief, now at Akerman Senterfitt in New York. “Your best hope is to say nothing,” he says. “
A Verdict on the Wilson Affair
By Robert D. Novak Thursday, March 8, 2007
On Fox’s “Hannity & Colmes” Tuesday night, superlawyer David Boies said Fitzgerald never should have prosecuted Libby because there was no underlying criminal violation. Boies scoffed at Fitzgerald’s contention that Libby had obstructed him from exposing criminal activity. Boies, who represented Al Gore in the 2000 election dispute, is hardly a Bush sympathizer. But neither is he a Democratic partisan trying to milk this obscure scandal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/07/AR2007030702045_pf.html
The perjury statute 18 USC 1623: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/uscsec18_00001623—000-.html
The False Statement statute 18 USC 1001(a)(2): http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/uscsec18_00001001—000-.html
Obstruction statute 18 USC 1503: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/uscsec18_00001503—000-.html
Step one of the GOP spin machine: Shift blame! If a Republican does something illegal, immoral, and just plain wrong, blame the Democrats! It’s just that easy! Blame Ted Kennedy (I should make that a bumper sticker)!
Let’s recap the facts. The Grand Jury subpoenaed Mr. Libby. Mr. Libby lied under oath to the Grand Jury. He was then charged with lying to the Grand Jury and obstructing justice. The Grand Jury had stated that a major focus was on Obstruction, perjury, and false statements.
In this case, regardless of whether the original crime actually occurred, the fact that Mr. Libby lied to the Grand Jury is a crime in itself. Can we discuss the case at hand without moving into la-la land of spin?
Adam James apjames@wisc.edu
P.S. Mr. 4:32 - Way to cut and paste an Ann Coulter op-ed into the Badger Herald message board. Not only does it prove you are ultra-cool, but it’s the most reliable source of information I know of. What a tool.
James, you sound EXACTLY like the Republicans did when Clinton was lying to the Grand Jury.
Tweedle-Dee or Tweedle-Dum, it’s all the same spin.
“Did Clinton getting a hummer really have to be the scandal of the 90’s?”
I thought it was Clinton committing perjury that was the scandal. Him getting a hummer while bombing an aspirin factory was just a side show.