Actually, I believe that there have been emails from Time Magazine correspondent Matt Cooper that establish that Rove was involved. Those emails caused Rove to testify again before the grand jury, to “correct” his previous testimony.

He hasn’t fired Karl Rove and he hasn’t fired Dick Cheney (though he can’t actually do that–he’d have to ask him to resign).

I guess the height of the bar has been changed.

The correct response to use in not incriminating oneself is called, ‘taking the 5th’. It is not legal to lie or perjure oneself instead of taking the 5th, because those responses, by pretending to be cooperative, do mis-direct and can derail an investigation.

While a prosecutor may not command ‘cooperation’ from a person who ‘takes the 5th’, our laws say that a prosecutor must hold deponents who do agree to answer, as Libby did, to being wholly truthful.

I agree that the Martha Stewart situation seemed unfair. But then, I think of Moussaoui’s lying to federal agents…..and what his lying might have derailed [preventing 9/ll]. I think the Plame investigation falls somewhere in between these two extremes……

No, you have the absolute right not to be compelled to incriminate yourself.

Libby and Rove testified of their own free will, and opened themselves to perjury when their testimony didn’t match other tesimony and evidence.

I disagree with your contention that a prosecuter needs cooperation from the people under investigation to prove a crime. That’s absurd under our system. You have an absolute right not to incriminate yourself. This is a very bad precedent and I have never agreed with it – it is not political at all. I dislike Martha Stewart and still think she was wrongfully convicted of the same sort of charges.

To be precise, you need to change that phrase to “when no underlying crime has been proven”, which accuracy allows your readers to begin to understand why we have enforceable laws against perjury and lying.

Both perjury under oath and lying to investigators are actions which derail the search for the very facts needed to prove the ‘underlying crime’.