sounds like Fitz wasn't there the day they taught Discovery in law school...
Posted on 02/04/2006 9:22:59 AM PST by Kitten Festival
Do not celebrate too soon.
The Fitzpatrick team knew the extent and limits of what they were doing. The indictment is very narrow and very strict about activities that have literally nothing to do with Plame's status. The indictment is about impeding an investigation.
That the investigation did not find anything significant as to Plame's status becomes irrelevant in the narrow focus of the indictment. The lawyers on that team know that. So does the defense.
The current flurry will never be presented to a jury. If this gets to trial, a jury will be explicitly instructed to ignore all such aspects of the case. Plame's status will not the focus of the trial. The very narrow focus will be whether or not the investigation was impeded.
This current flurry is intended for the judge. A judge could declare that the narrow indictment is rendered moot if her status is not covered by any statute. But a jury will never consider that question because they will only see this case if a judge has already decided that the indictment in narrow form can stand.
According to a news report yesterday, two million dollars have been contributed to Scooter's defense fund.
If the Libby case is dropped, several prominent Liberals around the country will spontaneously combust.
That was a smart move on Libby's part. This is getting interesting as discovery progresses. Now it is coming out -- if he wasn't indicted this would have all been buried and rumors would have been flying everywhere. Do believe he took a bullet for the Administration and now we are SLOWLY getting to the truth of the matter.
And now the press and the liberals can all squirm until next January.
I've already marked it on my 2007 calendar!
More telling than this article was a posting yesterday which related other requests for information that Libby's lawyers had requested from Fitzgerald.
One of those requests asked Fitzgerald for any and all documents relating to Valerie Plames classified employment status. Fitzgerald's answer said they could not provide any such documents because his office does not have any such documents and has not asked anyone for them.
So, the idea that a "classified" CIA employee's identity was "leaked" has never been part of Fitzgerald's investigation.
His entire case is that:
(1)if someone complains about government policy and in those complaints (a)lies about the manner in which they obtained that opinion (said his wife had nothing to do with how he got the assignment to Niger), (b)lies about the government's interpretation of just what it is the lier obtained (said his trip "proved" things it in fact did not prove, to anyone),
that
(2)the government or a person or persons in the government are remiss, illegally remiss, if they attempt to correct that liers assertions by giving more facts to the means by which the lier arrived at his opinion (his wife, working at the CIA got him the assignment).
Talk about a purely political witch hunt!!!!!!
Libbey and anyone else in government who revealed the untruths of Wilson are heroes, not criminals.
bump
sounds like Fitz wasn't there the day they taught Discovery in law school...
But not before that Russert pig is indicted for something!
You are right. But there are also plenty of other things that Scooter can do to make it unpleasant for the other side, if he has the funds, which evidently he does.
For instance, he can subpoena all the reporters with any connection to the case, so that instead of finding himself being puffed up as a hero by all the MSM, Fitzgerald will find a bunch of major publishers on his neck for bringing them into a real mess.
January 2007 trial.
Significantly, just a few weeks AFTER the November 2006 elections!
And,in EVERY news story, and in EVRY news lead each evening on EVERY day leading up the elections, the potty-trained (er, dnc-led) MSM can be sure to bring up the "upcoming corruption trial" and the "Upcoming trial about outing CIA agents" and the "upcoming trial of a former White House official".....
I was wondering the same thing. Who gets "frog marched" if that happens?
Why not? It does for Congressmen, Senators, judges and Presidents.
Patrick Fitzgerald—A Tale of Two Cases and a Congressman
The general media view of Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who has indicted “Scooter” Libby for perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements in the Plame leak investigation is that he is an incorruptible “prosecutor’s prosecutor.” A closer look at an earlier communications interception case involving Senator Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) and the Libby case, a curious recommendation for him made by Representative Gerald Nadler (D, NY), and his own background all suggest something far different and more sinister.
I. THE TWO CASES
According to an October 22, 2005 NewsMax article, http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/10/22/142646.shtml Fitzgerald. was the U.S. Attorney assigned to investigate a communications interception case where operatives of U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) arranged secretly to tape a strategy meeting involving Harkin’s Republican opponent, Rep Greg Ganske. Brian Conley, a former aide to Harkin, made the recording while attending the meeting at the request of Rafael Ruthchild, a Harkin operative, and returned the recording and recorder to Ruthchild. When the Ganske campaign learned of this, they complained to Polk County, Iowa Attorney John Sarcone and to Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Conley and Ruthchild both refused to participate in the investigation and Ruthchild resigned from her job with Harkin.
The Federal statute in this case, 18 USC § 2511(1)(a) specifically prohibits any person from intercepting “any wire, oral or electronic communication[.]” This taping of the Ganske meeting appears to have been such an illegal interception. Nevertheless, the noted NewsMax article reported that Fitzgerald, after about a two week investigation, “announced there was no violation of federal law by Harkin’s team.” Fitzgerald apparently did not even interview Harkin, who “staunchly denied he had any prior knowledge of the possibility of a criminal tape plot.”
This starkly contrasts with Fitzgerald’s investigation of the Plame leak case. Here the alleged underlying violation was of either the 1992 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (the Identities Act) or the Espionage Act. The Identities Act prohibits disclosure of the identities of “covert” CIA agents, 50 USC § 421, and narrowly defines a “covert” CIA agent as an individual whose “identity . . . is classified information and . . . who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States[.]” The Espionage Act, 18 USC § 793 is equally narrow in that it applies only to a specifically listed set of disclosures, not including the disclosure of covert agents’ identities and prohibits such disclosure only if it is done “with intent or reason to believe the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation[.]”
Plame wasn’t a “covert” agent since she had returned to the United States more than five years before her identity was disclosed. There couldn’t have been a violation of the Espionage Act because “covert” agents’ identities aren’t covered by that act and any disclosure of her identity was to protect the United States from the damage she and her husband were doing to it, not with intent to use the knowledge to injure the United States or help a foreign power.
Nevertheless, Fitzgerald went ahead with the Plame investigation without any reasonable chance of discovering any underlying statutory violation while he dropped the Harkin investigation, in spite of clear appearances that there was an underlying violation. Why??
II. THE CONGRESSMAN
Enter Gerald Nadler (D, NY), a far left Democratic congressman from New York, who distinguished himself with his passionate defense of ex-president Clinton during Clinton’s impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives. Subsequently, Mr. Nadler enthusiastically supported of Hillary Clinton in her run for the NY Senate seat she now holds. He can be anticipated to do his all supporting her in her likely run for the presidency in 2008.
Mr. Nadler has apparently been watching Patrick Fitzgerald’s handling of the Harkin and Plame cases and approved of the way he’s done both or, at least, Fitzgerald’s handling of the Plame investigation. Once again our old friend NewsMax has done some worthwhile digging and gone to Mr. Nadler’s website. On October 22, 2005 NewsMax, http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/10/22/234208.shtml reported that “Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are so pleased with reports that Leakgate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is about to indict senior White House officials that they want him to lead an impeachment investigation into whether President Bush lied to Congress about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.” According to the same report, Nadler has written to the Justice Department and requested it to expand Fitzgerad’s investigation.
All this leads an inquiring mind to ask why Nadler, a strong supporter of Hillary in all her endeavors, is such a strong supporter of Fitzgerald. Is it possible that he knows something about Fitrzgerald, or ethically dubious communications involving Fitzgerald, that have not been publicly disclosed?
Fitzgerald’s background and general present situation suggestion that’s exactly the explanation for Nadler’s view.
Fitzgerald will tured 45 on December 22, 2005. He has served a little more than four years as US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, having been confirmed on October 24, 2001. Before then his entire career was spent in various positions in the Justice Department, meaning he is now and has always been a man of no more than upper middle class means. His whole career shows that he’s a very ambitious man. According to an August 4, 2005 article in the Chicago Sun-Times http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-fitz04.html US. attorneys normally only serve four year terms, Fitzgerald’s time is up, and there’s “speculation that he’ll be shown the door[.]”
Thus, it boils down to the fact that Fitzgerald is a very ambitious lawyer of no more than upper middle class means who’s at the end of his current career trajectory. He must find another way to advance and has shown an unscrupulous willingness to attack the Bush administration in the Plame investigation far different from his disinclination to follow a more promising investigation against Harkin. Now he has the golden opportunity of a lifetime—the chance to be the lynchpin of the Democrats’ effort to do what they have been absolutely unable to do since 2000, elect a Democratic President and Congress by destroying the Bush presidency in a time of war. If Fitzgerald accomplishes that, he will be their superstar and is almost assured to become Hillary’s Attorney General. His motive for pursuing this investigation where there is no underlying crime is clear—he ambitiously and unscrupulously desires to become Hillary’s Attorney General.
 I have trouble with authors that can't even get the name of the person they are roasting correct. It's Patrick Fitzgerald, not Peter. If one is so sloppy to blow the very first sentence, it makes others wonder about the remainder of the article. |
Please add me to the Libby List!
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