As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the C.I.A. leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, is focusing on whether Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.
Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement - counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.
Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has Mr. Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges. The prosecutor has said he will not make up his mind about any charges until next week, government officials say.
With the term of the grand jury expiring in one week, though, some lawyers in the case said they were persuaded that Mr. Fitzgerald had all but made up his mind to seek indictments. None of the lawyers would speak on the record, citing the prosecutor's requests not to talk about the case.
Associates of Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby continued to express hope that the prosecutor would conclude that the evidence was too fragmentary and that it would be difficult to prove Mr. Rove or Mr. Libby had a clear-cut intention to misinform the grand jury. Lawyers for the two men declined to comment on their legal status.
Interestingly, then, it appears Mr. Fitzgerald will not seek any prosecutions based on the underlying act of outing Valerie Plame's identity. Instead, he's looking at perjury and obstruction charges related to the investigation, rather than at the crimes that were the subject of the investigation.
Heh. Politicians. The only class of people stupid enough to commit felonies to cover up misdemeanors. Or, as it appears in this case, to cover up something that probably wasn't even a crime at all.
But, hey, it's only perjury, right? If memory serves, in 1999, some argued that a little perjury wasn't even a crime worth anyone's attention at all...
Any takers on the odds for a pardon for Karl Rove?
I read this article critically - several times. I simply don’t agree with the conclusions you reach.
Here’s what you say:
Interestingly, then, it appears Mr. Fitzgerald will not seek any prosecutions based on the underlying act of outing Valerie Plame’s identity.
Here is what the article says, with emphasis added:
Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement - counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.
I see nothing in this passage that supports what you are saying. "Among," is a lawyerly way of saying there may be other charges, but these are "among" them. Lawyers know it denotes non-exhaustion. Among means there may be more charges coming.
But, hey, it’s only perjury, right? If memory serves, in 1999, some argued that a little perjury wasn’t even a crime worth anyone’s attention at all...
You claim to be a principled person with respect to whether public officials have committed perjury. If they lied, they should go down.
But if you cannot discern a distinction between lying about a blow job and lying about matters involving the Plame case, national security, government secrets, classified information, and the perverse desire to destroy a woman’s career even though she is working on WMD issues, you simply don’t get it.
Here comes the false moral equivalence.
One prediction: This site will spend the next three months attempting to analogize Plame with Lewinsky.
But if you cannot discern a distinction between lying about a blow job and lying about matters involving the Plame case, national security, government secrets, classified information, and the perverse desire to destroy a woman’s career even though she is working on WMD issues, you simply don’t get it.
Just like you simply don’t get the problem with having the Chief Executive Officer of the United States lying under oath.
That said, I have my doubts any convictions will come out of this. Truth to tell, the one person I want to see convicted and jailed is Joe Wilson. Treason, as I recall, is a more serious charge than anything else being contemplated.
Sadly, that doesn’t fit with the politics of those pursuing this case.
Just like the feminists that all of sudden discovered a new way to look at sexual harassment when it was Bill taking advantage of a subordinate? I mean, if it’s one of those viscious Republicans or some fat cat CEO, then all they have to do is look at a women with a cocked eyebrow, and NOW is ready to take their scalp. But Bill could use his position to get sexual favors, and somehow that’s OK. Just between consenting adults, you know...
Don’t try and play the "moral equilvalence" and "hypocrisy" games with us. The left has too many examples, back to Lenin and Stalin. Your side is still buying Che t-shirts and praising Castro, for goodness sake.
MK simply agrees with Rick. Like I said either yesterday or the day before, their arguement is summed up thusly: "A crime is only a crime if the perpetrator’s ideology differs from yours."
That being said, I thought Clinton should have been ousted, and I think if Rove or Libby (or anybody else in the administration, for that matter) committed a crime, then they should be ousted, as well.
As for the odds, I’d say 3:2 against a conviction.
The real criminal in all this is Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who lied about his own activities and findings in connection with Iraq’s attempts to buy uranium in Africa. In other words: He’s the guy who lied about National Security.
That the "outing" of Valerie Plame could have been a "vindictive" attempt to "retaliate" or "destroy" her, is absurd.
She walked openly through the front doors of CIA headquarters every morning for 5 years. She was undercover in no meaningful sense whatsoever. And, whoever may have brought up her name, they did it in a context of saying "Look, Joe Wilson is not on the level....for one thing, Cheney didn’t recommend him for the Niger trip like Wilson claims; it was only his own wife." Very appropriate.
From today’s rumors, it looks like we are going to be treated to another Martha Stewart case. That is: the person(s) did nothing wrong whatsoever, except view the prosecutor with a bit of suspicion and defend themselves accordingly....and the prosecutor is now going to prosecute them for daring to defend themselves.
In other words, we are going to have to suffer through the prosecutor’s vindictiveness.
Again, the information I’ve seen up to this point is that Plame was in no sense an "undercover agent", and characterizing her as such is a gross exaggeration.
IF Plame was a true "undercover agent" who did yeoman’s work for the United States, AND IF she had carefully protected hert undercover (not casually revealing it to neighbors, as reported), AND IF Libby or Rove was therefore first to "out" her, understandably or not...then yeah, Rove or Libby would have done something wrong, and should go on trial (in addition to Wilson).
