The End Of The Fantasy
Robert Novak points out the end of the entire Plamegate snuff porn fantasy of the left has ended in a whimper, not the bang they sought. It seems the much discussed hope that the Libby conviction would lead to bigger fish is over. Fitzgerald is closing up shop and heading back to his real job.
The Libby trial uncovered no plot hatched in the White House. The worst news Tuesday for firebrand Democrats was that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was going back to his "day job" (as U.S. attorney in Chicago). With no underlying crime even claimed, the only question was whether Libby had consciously and purposefully lied to FBI agents and the grand jury about how he learned of Mrs. Wilson's identity.
While my column on Wilson's mission triggered Libby's misery, I played but a minor role in his trial. Subpoenaed by his defense team, I testified that I had phoned him in reporting the Wilson column and that he had said nothing about Wilson's wife. Other journalists said the same thing under oath, but we apparently made no impression on the jury.
The trial provided no information whatsoever about Valerie Plame's status at the CIA at the time I revealed her role in her husband's mission. No hard evidence was produced that Libby was ever told she was undercover. Fitzgerald had argued that whether or not she was covert was not material to this trial, and U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton had so ruled. Yet in his closing argument, Fitzgerald referred to Mrs. Wilson's secret status, and in answer to a reporter's question after the verdict, he said she was "classified."
The appeals will drag on for a while. But at least one juror has already called for a pardon, indicating that the jury deliberations were flawed. The implication that higher-ups must have been involved colored the decision the jury reached. Fitzgerald's leaving indicates that he knows darn well that there was no real underlying crime. So all the villagers with torches and pitchforks have managed to do is convict a staffer. So much for fantasies.
By daveinboca, Thursday, 8 March , 2007 @ 8:05 am
Note the simple silliness of Sandy Bergler stealing/destroying documents which the 9/11 Commission needed to make its judgments and then walking away with the drastic punishment of picking up litter in Virginia parks for a few days. Then note that a witch-hunt by a political assassin named Fitzgerald catches Libby stumbling in nonsensical memory games—after FitzFong knew the leak had been to Novak by Armitage before he started his show trial. And that Plame was not a covert agent, as Ms. Toensing points out in her lucid professional fashion. Just another Vishinsky-type purge by rabid apparatchiki of the left peddling their agitprop.
The game is fixed, and we remember the ridiculous flaps about chasing DeLay while a crook like Cong. Jefferson gets appointed by Pelosi to Homeland Security, with its fungible secrets that Jefferson will trade for more cold cash to the highest bidder. Pelosi is a machine politician more crooked than DeLay ever was.
The outcome is rigged, and if Billy-Jeff can pardon a mega-criminal like Marc Rich in return for massive contributions to his library and some fleshy face-time with Marc’s wife Deborah, then Libby can get pardoned for faulty memory in a kangaroo court plumped up in the media by mendacious reporters like Tim Russert. And Chris Matthews.
By feeblemind, Thursday, 8 March , 2007 @ 4:00 pm
From here it looks that what Libby was guilty of was talking to the Press. Hope the lesson is not lost among other employees in the administration.
By teqjack, Friday, 9 March , 2007 @ 3:18 pm
I also found fascinating a tidbit from another site: experts on memory were not allowed to testify. Apparently the study of memory [function] is not a science, but just common sense, according to the judge. More tellingly, presentation of expert testimony would only confuse, not educate, the jury members. If I were a doctor (or lawyer, accountant, plumber, mechanic…) I would hope never to be in a trial by a judge who disallows expert testimony because it might be confusing and/or not readily understood: is it not one function of the lawyers to press for explanations of specialist procedure/jargon that are reachable by “the man on the street”?