The Crime that Never Happened
The situation was far from ideal: a criminal case driven by liberal talking points. Every liberal politician, blogger, opinion columnist and news reporter pronounced the defendant or defendants guilty before some of them were even indicted. Democrats fantasized about watching the defendants getting incarcerated. A prosecutor decided to do whatever it took to gain convictions no matter how much evidence he had to conceal. In the end, everyone who paid attention to the evidence doubted that any crime had even been committed.
Am I talking about the Duke Lacrosse players' rape frame-up by Mike Nifong, or the current trial of Scooter Libby by Patrick Fitzgerald? Actually, both cases match the above description. While it appears only a matter of time until the state drops all charges against the Lacrosse players, Libby is on trial charged with perjury for up to 30 years of his life and may get convicted. The judge in Libby's case has mandated that the jury not be told whether or not Valerie Plame was a covert agent or whether her "leaking" constituted a violation of the law protecting covert agents' identities. Fitzgerald has indicted no one for the leak because the law protects agents' identities until they have been out of covert service for five years. She had been a non-covert employee of the CIA for over six years and therefore was not "outted." No matter how many times MSNBC says she was outted, it is not true. The "leaker," by his own admittance, was Richard Armitage of the State Department. He has not been indicted because no crime was committed. After learning that Armitage was the source for the Robert Novak story on Valerie Plame, Fitzgerald continued his investigation hoping to get someone to commit perjury or to find another underlying crime. He failed in the latter, so the former was all that was left to him.
Why is Scooter Libby charged with perjury, when there was not a crime in the case? Libby is on trial because he said that Tim Russert was the first person to tell him that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's wife and the reason for his assignment on the mission to Niger. A year after the fact, Libby identified the specific conversation in which Russert mentioned the Plame-Wilson connection and Russert remembers that conversation. Russert denies that he mentioned the Plame-Wilson connection and the prosecutor believes Russert over Libby. That's it. Never mind the total irrelevance of how Libby learned a non-criminal piece of information; the other question is, "What possible evidence is there to prove Libby guilty?" This is a, "he said, he said," case in which two men remember the same conversation differently. Without some sort of supporting documentation, Fitzgerald has no case - and everything they said or did not say in that conversation was perfectly legal to say. We have a witch trial on our hands, ladies and gentlemen. I intend to contribute to Libby's defense fund.
Am I talking about the Duke Lacrosse players' rape frame-up by Mike Nifong, or the current trial of Scooter Libby by Patrick Fitzgerald? Actually, both cases match the above description. While it appears only a matter of time until the state drops all charges against the Lacrosse players, Libby is on trial charged with perjury for up to 30 years of his life and may get convicted. The judge in Libby's case has mandated that the jury not be told whether or not Valerie Plame was a covert agent or whether her "leaking" constituted a violation of the law protecting covert agents' identities. Fitzgerald has indicted no one for the leak because the law protects agents' identities until they have been out of covert service for five years. She had been a non-covert employee of the CIA for over six years and therefore was not "outted." No matter how many times MSNBC says she was outted, it is not true. The "leaker," by his own admittance, was Richard Armitage of the State Department. He has not been indicted because no crime was committed. After learning that Armitage was the source for the Robert Novak story on Valerie Plame, Fitzgerald continued his investigation hoping to get someone to commit perjury or to find another underlying crime. He failed in the latter, so the former was all that was left to him.
Why is Scooter Libby charged with perjury, when there was not a crime in the case? Libby is on trial because he said that Tim Russert was the first person to tell him that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's wife and the reason for his assignment on the mission to Niger. A year after the fact, Libby identified the specific conversation in which Russert mentioned the Plame-Wilson connection and Russert remembers that conversation. Russert denies that he mentioned the Plame-Wilson connection and the prosecutor believes Russert over Libby. That's it. Never mind the total irrelevance of how Libby learned a non-criminal piece of information; the other question is, "What possible evidence is there to prove Libby guilty?" This is a, "he said, he said," case in which two men remember the same conversation differently. Without some sort of supporting documentation, Fitzgerald has no case - and everything they said or did not say in that conversation was perfectly legal to say. We have a witch trial on our hands, ladies and gentlemen. I intend to contribute to Libby's defense fund.
posted by Bountyhawk at 9:26 AM
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