Look For Libby Libby Libby on your Label Label Label....
Dean
So. The Vice President's chief assistant has been indicted on minor felony charges for obfuscating during an investigation--an investigation that appears to have turned up no crime except said obfuscation.
It is certainly serious to lie to a grand jury, even if your motives are fairly trivial. In the case of Scooter Libby, it's probably to be assumed that he started sweating and thought he might have done something wrong and so did the idiot thing and started denying. But the question must be asked: two years and how many millions of dollars on this investigation, and this is the best that could be produced? Not even an indictment for revealing the identity of an undercover agent, just obfuscating during the investigation? This is tame even by the "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" standard--which is another special prosecutor investigation that should never have happened in the first place.
Yes, dear reader, I have said in the past that I thought Clinton's impeachment was correct, but I've also said repeatedly that I only thought so because once you had proof of felony perjury, no matter how trivial, you had a felony. But I always thought that having special prosecutors was a bad idea and I still do, and that those investigations should have stopped well short of putting Clinton in that position in the first place. The country shouldn't have been put through that, it really shouldn't have been.
This practice of unendingly investigating government officials and then finding anything possible to indict them on needs to end. We've now got to the point where the assistant to the Vice President is being indicted not for doing anything to endanger national security or endanger an undercover agent, but for, apparently, freaking out and dissembling on the stand. What next? Indicting the office interns?
More special prosecutor indictment roundup here.
That said, I have reservations about whether Clinton's lie amounted to perjury in the legal sense. Perjury must be a lie that is material to the case, as far as I know. CLinton's, IMHO, was not.
I wonder about this one by Libby, also. How can it be material to a case if there is no other case? Or does it just need to be material to a potential case? Lawyers out there, please help!
The indictment is about PERJURY, not "obfuscation". As neoneocon says, for perjury to matter, it has to be material. There is obviously a bigger pcture here. Ask yourself the simple question: why would Libby even bother to lie? And continue to lie to the GJ even when he knew that the reporters he talked to were also being subpeonaed? He must have known he would get nailed and nailed. Why? I don't know either, but Fitzgerald is not done.
Pointedly - Fitz also said that of not for Judith Miller, he'd have had indictments a year ago. And Libby's obstructionism is another factor. This indictment is a small but neccessary first step.
As for abuses of power, Fitz is not an independent counsel like Starr was, he is a Special counsel and he could be fired at any time by the President. Keep in mind that Fitz's reputation is strictly Elliot Ness calibre, hes not a power mad litigator but a methodical and dedicated public servant.
There's enough spin floating out there that I really think that on this topic, anyone who profeers an opinion about the "value" of the investigation really neds to affirm that they watched or read the transcript of today's press briefing in full. Fitz himself addresses the critiques and does so VERY well. You're a fair guy, Dean - give Fitz, by all accounts a honest and scrupulous man, a fair shake.
And pay attention to "Official A" in the indictment. Its is even more obvious that he's a central figure, and directly related to actual charges of violating an undercover identity. And Fitz knows who that is, even if we do not.
There are 10 or 15 reasons to not like Bush. I held my nose and voted for him against Kerry -- just barely. He has disappointed me in several ways (run away spendin', botched war, etc, etc).
However, some obscure dude named "Scooter" who apparently lied to the Feds about some pseudo-scandal ain't on my list.
Barnes, Hank
The actual perps in this case are Valerie Plame, her complacently lying husband, and a very real cabal of disloyal CIA officers who have been surreptitiously and sometimes openly attacking White House policy ever since January 2001. Tenet seems to have winked at it. We can only hope that Porter Goss, the new broom, actually cleans house. Meanwhile, crossed fingers are the only recourse.
Second, Fitzgerald should have *begun* his investigation by determining if a crime had been commited: if Plame was legitimately undercover. If she wasn't, then he had no business questioning anyone about who said what.
We don't know all the details yet, but as of right now, I'm leaning toward the idea that this was prosecutorial misconduct. I suspect that Fitzgerald was trying to provoke perjury because he knew there were no other possible indictments in this case.
Libby was one of Novak’s two sources. Fitzgerald refused to say anything about who the other source was.
Fitzgerald also said that it is much more difficult to prove a charge like revealing the identity of an undercover agent, because of the requirements of that law. It is much easier to prove the perjury, obstruction and lying charges. He charged Libby with the crimes he had the strongest case with.
It was not exactly minor misstatements that got Libby charged. Libby told the FBI and grand jury the he learned the name Valerie Plame from reporters. In fact he had been investigating Wilson since early May and had learned the name from several sources, including the Vice president. The reporters all denied telling Libby the name. They indicated Libby told them the name. Libby clearly constructed a cover story that was a lie and repeated it to the FBI and grand jury.
Most people thing Fitzgerald has made plea deals with one or more other people in this case, and they may eventually plead guilty to something. If that is true, we may not find out who for some time.
There is something to be said for being either a "true believer" or "naive". I.e. you collect as much data as you can, then summarize exactly what the data does and doesn't say.
For example, this guy seemed to do a very good job explaining bird flu.
The cost of such open-ended investigations is another matter. Ideally you would want some sense of proportion - an issue that mattered would get funded. Unfortunately you can't an in-power government or an opposition to do that.
I think Dean should post the Friday night thread and we should all move on.
That said, Fitzgerald may not be an independent prosecutor, but he's still under the gun to find something or look stupid, and in effect he's go a contract that doesn't expire because any effort by the sitting President to shut him down is politically impossible.
Yes, I am aware of the frailties of the human memory, and so are juries - they are only humans also. And most of the juries I have seen (petit juries, mind you, not grand juries) down at the Wayne County Circuit Court, Criminal Division took their jobs seriously.
That said, the underlying crime wasn't found, Mr. Fitzgerald was thorough and acted professionally so far as I could see, but he found a crime in his investigation and had to bring it forth. If any witness lied it must be punished, that's why there is such a law. The system needs to have that to keep humans on the right side of their oaths, or it all falls apart. Then we might as well go back to "Theodoric of York, Medeival Judge" and start tossing people in ponds to see if they sink.
No, as a lawyer I want and need to have perjury treated seriously and punished seriously or the whole system starts to fall apart. And yes, the system does work.*
*Yes, the legislature can do boneheaded things, and so can prosecutors,judges, juries, and defense counsel. If you want perfection, I suggest you petition God Almighty to set angels to judge over us. Until then, the cumbersome system we have is pretty good at orting things out, and I wouldn't change it for worlds. Not even for a jungle of monkeys.
The second charge falls under Article 1001 of the Federal code, which states that anyone who lies to a Federal agent for any reason, is liable for a felony charge.
Here's the kicker: you don't have to be under oath to be liable.
Read that. Take a deep breath; think about it. Then read it again.
Yes, boys and girls, you too can go to Federal prison for fibbing to an agent. This is, by the way, how they managed to send Martha Stewart to prison. They had jack for evidence on the insider trading charges, they were desperate to nail her for something to avoid looking like idiots, so they whipped out article 1001 to save the day.
Mike, you're a lawyer, and it sounds like you work with some decent folks; but let's face facts. When you get into the DC limelight, and are in charge of high-profile investigations that run into tens of millions of dollars (plus++), the temptation to find something, -anything- is damn near irresistable.
Over thirty million dollars for the Whitewater investigation, and all we get is Clinton lying about a blowjob. And this relates to the original topic in what way? I'm sure Starr took his job very seriously as well.
I don't know how much Plamegate/Nadagate has cost, but it's been two years, and the prosecutor only came out with charges on what was, literally, the last mandated day of the investigation. On top of that all he came up with was lying to the grand jury, and to fed agents. Feh.
It's the same pattern for the Delay charges. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard from more than a few lawyers that money-laundering and/or obstruction of justice charges are generally last, desperate resorts in these types of cases.
Right now, no one here knows exactly what Libby allegedly lied about to the jury, and the article 1001 charge is a fucking joke. I suppose that's a good indicator of my position.
Mike thinks these government lawyers are nice guys who take their jobs seriously, and (hey) we should cut them some slack.
I prefer the more traditional American attitude: when you see revenoors, shoot first and ask questions later.
I said perjury was serious and needed to be punished seriously.
I said juries, in my experience,know the difference between a faulty memory and lying.
I said it appeared that Fitzgerald did a thorough job, uncovered a crime, and is indicting for that. Which he has to do.
And that part that seems to have offended you, I said that boneheaded things do occur in courts, but for the most part the system does work, and it does. You seem to be under the impression that the legal system doesn't work. I don't know you're experience with it, but my experience is that it does work and works as well as any human created and run system will. There was no time when there was perfect justice and in many parts of this world Libby would have Scooted, heck there wouldn't have been an investigation, and if a Joe Wilson had embarrassed the government like that he and his family would have disappeered, not gotten a Vanity Fair cover.
No, for the most part our government is spectacularly non-corrupt* and the system functions surprisingly well.
*My sister-in-law is Colombian and she is still surprised by how smoothly things work here.
About the time the sun burns out.