Fern said:
I mean WTF?
Everywhere you look the story is different. If you're not a partisan hack, who'll pick and choose the story that fits your political taste, WTH are we to do?
As far as giving a rat's @ss, I'm too busy being confused by so many different stories about the same thing. What to believe a blog or a well known newspaper publication?
And to top it off, the whole Niger investigation by Wilson smells bogus from the outset. OK, I can get by the nepotism thing. But why is this guy running around making false claims about who sent him there? And about his report being widely circulated in the WH when it wasn't?
And this guy flys over to Niger, spent just a little time there talking to people and reasonable people are supposed to think that's a serious investigation?
Somebody needs to alert the other investigative services in this country that they are blowing a pile of money unneccessarily on forensics and other techniques.
"Are you a bank robber?"
"Nope"
"OK, well that's cleared up now. Thanks for your cooperation"
IIRC, The UK to this day remains behind the assertion.
Niger basically only exports Yellowcake (plus some goats)
IIRC a Nigeran gov offcial still insists the story is true.
Is it that hard to believe tht Iraqis' WERE actually interested in Yellowcake?
And if they were, I'm not sure what the big deal is? Like somehow it's a justification to bomb some country for trying to, or actually, buy yellowcake from Niger?
Wilson's trip looks to me like another retarded Washington DC political stunt, followed by another retarded stunt etc.
Completely laughable...
There you have it...I guess thats how it "really" happened, why were you not on the defense team?
If you are so worried about "blowing a pile of money unneccessarily" I guess it was ok to spend
80 million to see if Clinton got a hummer?
Let me repeat this again...he made false statements to FBI agents and to the grand jury.
That is a crime. You people are for upholding Rule of Law, are you not? Perjury's an incredibly big deal, no matter the context.
Fitzgerald didn't set out to trick Libby into perjury, he set out to investigate the leaks. In the course of that investigation, Libby lied, and Fitzgerald discovered the lie, which he could hardly just ignore.
If there's a duly authorized ongoing criminal investigation into X, and the FBI comes round your place and asks you about matters related to X, or if you're sworn in before the grand jury and are questioned about matters related to X, you should damn well
tell the truth
Perjury is a huge deal. If we don't have the confidence that people will tell the truth under oath (or when speaking to the FBI in furtherance of an investigation), where does that leave the integrity of the judicial system?
If perjury isn't vigorously pursued and prosecuted, what incentive does anyone have to tell the truth?
You can't engage in post hoc analysis about whether it was worthwhile to launch the investigation knowing that it would only result in the conviction of one individual for perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements charges.
Rather, I think the two relevant inquiries are, first, whether it was appropriate to investigate the alleged leak in the first place and, second, upon discovering in the course of investigating the leak that the defendant had apparently perjured himself and obstructed the course of the investigation.
Perjury can NEVER happen without an investigation or a trial to form the context for it. So even if an investigation turns up nothing or a trial results in no conviction, perjury cases should still be pursued to preserve the basis for the justice system. Same goes for obstruction of justice.
This goes back to the issue that it is rarely the crime, it is the cover-up that gets you in trouble.
There are some rules that can be learned from our leaders:
Nixon will tell you to burn the tapes, assuming you don't just turn of the damned tape recorder.
Reagan will tell you to add in a few more, "I don't recalls."
Clinton will tell you to bend the meaning of words and obfuscate to the maximum.
I believe the perjury took place in the course of an investigation that was meant, not to necessarily entrap someone/anyone, but to see if any elected officials had engaged in wrongdoing. Fitzgerald didn't know ahead of time that someone was going to perjure himself; he was trying (presumably) to find out any and all crimes committed. That one happened in the course of the investigation
doesn't mean that it should be overlooked.
I grant you that Fitzgerald was hoping for bigger game - indicting a Vice President would have been quite a scalp. But if a smaller fish jumps into your net, haul it in.
The investigation wasn't launched to get a perjury conviction.
The investigation was launched to find out the details and the truth of the matter.
In the course of the investigation Libby threw sand in Fitzgerald's eyes [lied etc]
Fitzgerald was unable to get to the truth of the matter because he had "sand thrown in his eyes" by Libby.
Libby's crimes are in no way diminished because they kept Fitzgerald from performing his investigation thoroughly. Actually, Libby's crimes are that he prevented Fitzgerald form performing his investigation thoroughly.
To say that since the attempt to thwart an investigation is successful it's not really a crime is just silly on the face of it.
Fitzgerald knew long ago that Armitage was Novak's primary source. But he also knew that Libby, Karl Rove, and Ari Fleischer (at least) had either leaked or confirmed Plame's status to various journalists. (Novak was just the first one to publish a story.)
One of the things that law enforcement and prosecutors have to be careful to avoid is the trap of "tunnel vision" - investigating a potential criminal offence with a pre-conceived version of what happened. A good police/prosecution team will approach the complaint with an open mind - has a criminal offence occurred? in what way? by one person or a group of persons?
Approaching this particular complaint with the idea that there was one and only one leaker would be that type of mistake. the police & prosecution have to keep an open mind, not only about whether a criminal offence occurred, but if so, in what way. in such a case like this one, with so many actors involved within government and in the media, I would expect that even if the facts started to point to only one leaker, the police and prosecutors would have to continue to investigate to be sure that that was in fact what happened. once they identified Armitage as a leaker, they couldn't just say "whoops - that's it". they would have to eliminate other possibilities as well.