Photos courtesy of bmwcyle
Posted on 10/29/2005 10:34:11 AM PDT by smoothsailing
NEWS ANALYSIS
Prosecutor Fitzgerald, Where's the Beef?
By Jim Kouri
Oct 29, 2005
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney as well as a trusted White House security advisor, was indicted Friday by a special grand jury with five felony counts of perjury, obstructing justice and making false statements in the Valerie Plame-CIA Leak case. Libby wasn't immediately arrested, but he did resign from his White House post.
The two-year grand jury investigated allegations that someone in the Bush White House leaked the identity of a CIA covert agent to the press, a criminal act if proven true.
Plame is the wife of former US Ambassador Joe Wilson, who publicly cast doubt on Bush's case for invading Iraq -- that Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear weapons. Mr. Wilson intimated at first that it was Vice President Cheney who dispatched him to Africa, something that turned out to be false. As facts slowly came to light, it became obvious that Mr. Wilson has a casual relationship with the truth. For instance, it was discovered that indeed it was his wife who pushed for Wilson to be sent to Niger to investigate intelligence regarding Iraq and uranium. Wilson repeatedly denied it until a memorandum written by Plame was discovered showing she highly recommended her husband for the fact-finding mission.
Ironically, it was British intelligence who made the claim that Iraq sought the capability to develop nuclear weapons and during Bush's speech in 2003 he mentioned it was a British allegation. To this day the British continue to stand by their intelligence and analysis. And the so-called "16 misleading words" are really a fabrication of the mainstream news media.
The Libby indictment -- the only one after two years of investigation -- provides more questions than answers in that not one person has been indicted for the crime of divulging the identity of a covert CIA operative. In fact, during prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's press conference and subsequent question and answer session with gleeful news reporters, he continuously used the word "classified." But leaking classified information is not a crime, or else people such as Senator Patrick "Leaky" Leahy would be serving several prison sentences and keeping house for his new jailhouse boyfriend.
One could make the case that the indictment of Scooter Libby is actually a victory of sorts for the Bush Administration. Karl Rove, the so-called political genius in the Bush White House, was not indicted Friday as many hopeful reporters, pundits and Democrat operatives had predicted. However, Mr. Fitzgerald did give the reporters attending his dramatic press conference a ray of hope that perhaps the Democrats and the mainstream news media will eventually succeed in fulfilling Joe Wilson's dream of seeing Rove, "Frog walked in handcuffs out of the White House."
Prosecutor Fitzgerald claims that Libby knowingly misled the grand jury about his role in the exposing of Valerie Plame, a CIA secret agent whose cover was blown when administration aides leaked her name to reporters. Of course, no one asked about the fact that Joe Wilson mentioned his CIA wife in his bio posted on a seminar website well before the Robert Novak article outed Plame.
Fitzgerald, playing to the cheap media seats, went into a tirade about the seriousness of divulging classified information and its risks to national security. That is true. However, Mr. Fitzgerald's grand jury did not indict Libby for anything having to do with divulging classified information. He's charged with perjury and obstruction in a case of leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent, and if the charges be true then Libby deserves the appropriate punishment.
Once the celebrating denizens of America's newsrooms calm down, perhaps they will begin to take this case as seriously as they wish Americans to take it. As stated earlier, there are more questions than answers in this case. For instance, did Valerie Plame testify before the grand jury? Did Joe Wilson? Was Valerie Plame indeed a covert CIA agent? Who in the CIA sent Wilson, a man with no intelligence experience, to Africa to investigate the British claims that Saddam attempted to procure yellow-cake uranium? Didn't the US congress question the validity of Wilson's reportage?
And didn't congressmen report that Wilson lacked credibility? Where is Joe Wilson's CIA report? If Mr. Wilson's trip to Africa was classified, why was he blabbing about it in an op-ed piece in the New York Times? When Joe Wilson worked for the John Kerry campaign and was prominently listed on Kerry's website, why was his bio and information removed so quickly when it came out that Wilson was a liar? Yes, there are many, many questions that need to be answered.
Scooter Libby's indictment provided a day of celebration for the Democrat Party and the liberal news media. Soon, Libby will retain attorneys who will conduct their own investigation into this case. This is not a slam-dunk for the prosecution, the liberal-left media and the Democrat Party. They may want to re-think their plans of riding Joe Wilson to victory in the 2006 elections.
Libby's attorneys and their investigators will pursue answers to many questions that the news media feel they should ignore. They will also have the power of discovery, full disclosure, and will be able to dissect what went on in the grand jury room. They will be able to delve into Valerie Plame's and Joe Wilson's attempts to undermine the Bush war effort. Defense counsel will look into the purpose of the CIA sending a left-wing activist with no intelligence or investigative skills on such a sensitive mission. The defense lawyers will reveal what many already know: that Joe Wilson and Valeria Plame had a hidden agenda. These topnotch lawyers will conduct an inquiry into the relationship Joe Wilson has with Senator Chuckie Schumer or other Democrat Party honchos.
In the days ahead the Democrat Party blowhards will repeatedly talk about the Bush Administration's "culture of corruption." The fact is there has been merely one White House staffer who's ever been indicted in five years. I suggest the Democrats look at the number of indictments and convictions during the eight years of the Clinton Administration before they start their vitriolic rhetoric. And if they want to discuss issues of national security, they should go talk to Sandy "Pants" Berger.
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Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police.
© Copyright by NationalLedger.com
Scooter should call everybody else first, expose as much of the CIA plot as possible,and save the Timmy the Toad for last.The classic "Star Witness".
If Libby lied to get the whole thing in court, he sure has 'gone all-in' betting 30 years of his life. So that's a big maybe when he doesn't know Fitzgerald's hole cards.
Scooter can supoena Wilson's testimony and the transcript of Plame's interview if he chooses.
That's the hidden time bomb in all this,IMO,what I thought might never see the light of day because of GJ secrecy, now can be exposed publicly in a court of law.
The damaging thing for Libby is that he told investigators and the Grand Jury that he didn't hear about Plame's identity until a certain date, and that he heard it first from the press, and yet Fitzgerald has evidence that he heard it from at least four people in the Government before that date.
Boy you would never know that by reading some of the newspaper articles and listening to the MSM. The reporting sounds like the next step in this process is to switch to the "Lied going to War" routine we hear everyday. If Bush lied to get us to war, then I want every one of the Senators that voted for Bush to enforce Resolution 1441, every stinkin one, to be impeached along with Bush. Dems and Repubs alike (especially the Demonrats who want to take down BUSH).
A large part of Fitzy's evidence sounds like he said/she said stuff to me.The rest could just be explained away as faulty recollection.
On the other hand, maybe Scooter deliberately lied for the higher purpose of exposing a plot to undermine the war effort.All he would need in that case is one sympathetic juror.
It's all just speculation on my part, but I find it intrigueing. I hope Scooter prevails and this whole sordid mess is exposed for what it is.
That has been clear for some time. All that has happened in the last five years is to show how hard it is for a presient to control 1) the State Department, )the Defence Department, 3) the intelligence communities. Indeed, the whole of the federal government. Talk about countervailing forces, checks and balances, etc. It seems clear than carryovers from previous administrations invariably oppose an incoming administration, even those carryovers from his FATHER's administration.
That would be a first in history, too put it mildly!
Photos courtesy of bmwcyle
ROFLOL!
For a man like Russert to be named as a key witness in a criminal indictment can't be a good thing.
from http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-10-28-voa63.cfm
"The indictment, says Mr. Conyers, should be the beginning rather than the end of a process of holding the administration accountable for what he calls the pre-emptive war in Iraq." and "Senator John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential nominee who lost to President Bush in the 2004 election, accused the White House of trying to cover up the use of national security information as a weapon against a critic of administration policy in Iraq."
it stands a good chance.
Apparently there is too much demand for the top picture.
It is is the same Rove look a like with a sign saying, "Indict this!"
Hopefully the demand will cool down a little.
How much credence should be placed in the blatherings of Conyers, Pelosi, Kerry, and Kennedy in your judgement.?
You say if President Bush lied to get us to war you want him impeached.Why do you even entertain such a notion?
What were the reasons President Bush gave for pre-emptive war, do you recall? Which reason could even remotely have been a lie?
Right now you've got me scratching my head wondering what in the heck you're talking about.
Libby will never serve a day in jail.
Pray for W and Our Troops
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