Cheney and CIA LeakFollow

Can't say I have any complaints. Fitzgerald is a bit of a Boy Scout when it comes to government corruption and, whichever way the investigation ends, you won't hear me complaining that he didn't do his job or bowed under partisan pressure.

And what exactly would make them "bogus"? It sounds more as if you're pre-emptively deflecting blame should Fitzgerald find fault with administration staff. Unless you have some basis by which to assume he's prone to making false or inappropriate charges just to save face.

Circling the wagons so soon? Heavens forbid Fitzgerald indict Rove or someone else; we'll have Rush and O'Reilly calling him a liberal partisan

Kenneth Starr =/= Patrick Fitzgerald.

How the Starr investigation was conducted has absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand.

Fitzgerald is a Republican and was appointed by a Republican. His office is currently engaged in a prolonged corruption battle with the (Democratic) mayor of Chicago who is, not even arguably, the most politically powerful man in the state -- certainly moreso than the governor. I find it increasingly both funny and sad how, as things wrap up and the spotlight is still potentially on members of the administration, we see this pre-emptive debunking of any claims as bogus, claims that he's gotta nab somebody, hints from the Right that Fitzgerald is some maverick, etc.

Presumably, perjury is still a crime in this country.

The criticism on Clinton was that the Lewinsky thing never should have been investigated in the first place. It was a spin-off of Whitewater that was apropos to nothing. Yes, Clinton lied under oath. He also did so during a questioning that really should have never happened.

The questioning Rove, Libby et al underwent was directly related to the question at hand of who leaked Plame's name. It doesn't compare to Lewinsky although I assure you that, should someone get indicted for perjury, obstruction, etc we'll hear a thousand howls of how the liberals cried when it happened to Clinton and now the EXACT SAME THING is being done to Rove... yadda, yadda. It won't be true, but we'll hear it anyway. The under the breath accusations about Fitzgerald will turn to open demonization and, somehow, this will all become some liberal machinization. Fitzgerald's already lost his Congressional sponsors as a result of his not softballing the investigation; the only thing keeping the criticism soft on the Right is that they can't afford the chance that they'd sell him as a hack and then he exonerates the administration.

The most important part in all of this, to me, is those (possibly?) forged documents. Did someone out Plame trying to hurt Wilson's credibility? Did she out herself, as Gbajj is suggesting? Maybe something altogether different happened. I dunno. To me that is just a puzzle piece in a much larger puzzle, if that makes any sense.

I haven't posted very much in this thread because I am trying to piece all of this together in my head. People seem to be saying very different things, so I am not sure what I believe. I suppose we will see how the dice rolls.

Edit: This article in tomorrow's NY times sort of discusses what I said.



Edited, Sat Oct 22 16:45:23 2005 by Katarine

Except that you and I both know that historically, this isn't really very true. It *should* be, but the fact is that public perception of answers given under oath have a great deal of weight, and those answering "tricky" questions are well aware of that.


Look at the huge uproar simply over the way Rove answered one question. He said that he "never told any reporter Valerie Plame's name", and it was immediately speculated in the media that this was a dodge since he could have referred to her as "Wilson's wife" instead.

The problem in this case is that in all likelyhood several members of the White House staff *did* discuss Valerie Plames CIA employment with reporters. But one of the difficult points with this issue is that the general public is not really aware that this is only illegal if they also knew that she was a NOC, and the vagarities between those two issues (one legal, one not) can make answering questions very very tricky. Heck. Almost every time this issue has come up, I've had to repeat several times that it's not a crime to say she works for the CIA unless the person saying it knows she's a NOC. And I certainly think that the average "clue" level on this board is generally a step or two higher then the general publics...


So when someone like Rove is asked a question like: "Did you reveal Valerie Plame's identity to a reporter?", how exactly should he answer it? Which "identity" is the question referring too? If he talked about her at all (even if he never mentioned her employment), is he required to answer "yes"? What if he did mention that she worked at the CIA? Was he revealing the same facts that were supposed to be secret? Is it even a fair question? Should he instead interpret the question to mean "Did you reveal her status as a NOC to a reporter?". In any case, if he answers yes, the public will interpret that as a admission of guilt, no matter what aspect of the question he was answering yes to.

But if he answers no, there's a chance that the prosecutor could show that the answer is literally untrue, and therefor perjury.

So yeah. Sidestepping the question isn't a bad choice. I've not followed the ivestigation heavily, but judging just on the questions asked of Rove, and the reactions in the media to those questions, there certainly were a number of those "potentially double meaning" questions that are the hallmark of this sort of investigation (designed to either present false guilt, or be usable to show perjury later).

Oh someone's going down for something. If he didn't have a case, they wouldn't be so worried.

But who's going down, and for what?

You're going down...for a face-full of man-chowder.

Perjury's not a crime, now? Or is it when the Dems do it, but not when it's a good ol' Pubbie boy?

Well. Kay Hutchinson can say whatever she wants. And yeah. It certainly looks hypocritical to me. Whatever.

It doesn't make the first point invalid though. Whether she's changed her tune based on the direction of an investigation or not, the fact is that she does have a point. And it's the same point I made, and also the same point made in the Slate article



I made my statement basically to agree with the one in the article I linked earlier.

While Hutchinson may have agreed with it when Ken Star was roasting Clinton, and disagreeing with it now that Rove/Libby are getting the raw end, the fact that she's *right* about how Special Prosecutors end up working isn't changed. Regardless of right and wrong, those guys are under huge pressure to find "something", and in many cases the only something they can find is so called "silly" charges along the way.


Hutchinson may be hypocritical here, but I am not. I said the same thing during the Starr investigation. And I'm saying the same thing now. They're both witchhunts. And if you want hypocrisy, it's on both sides Joph. All the folks who were pissed when Clinton got investigated, but are now cheering with this one are also hypocritical.

The biggest difference I see is that Starr's focus was always and solely Clinton. Find something that can be used against him, and use it.

The current SP seems to be following the trail wherever it leads. From what I read, and I grant you he's doing an excellent job of keeping the proceedings quiet so there isn't much, Fitzgerald's focus is now on Libby, as opposed to Rove. There may be others as well, but he certainly doesn't seem to have the same sort of blinders on that Starr appeared to have.

There have been special prosecutors in the past who have closed their investigations with no indictments handed up, by the way. It's a bit disingenuous to play the "once you start them up they have to keep going until someone's career is ruined" theme, when there's historical evidence to the contrary.

Huh? I have no clue if he will or not. Since when did this come down to me having faith in someone I've never met nor know much about other then that he's the special prosecutor in this case?


I don't *know* what he'll do. All I said was that given the fact that I do know about the case, I don't see any possible way he can "get" Rove or Libby for outting Plame (which is what I was saying from the beginning). I also added that if there are any indictments handed down, they will likely be for "bogus" charges like obstruction (for the reasons listed earlier).

That's my personal viewpoint. I personally see those sorts of charges in an investigation like this as bogus for *exactly* the reasons stated in the slate article. It smacks of "Dammit. We didn't find anything, but we've got to charge someone with something...".

What I think is irrelevant. What Fitz does is all that matters. I'm not placing bets one way or another. I also don't think it has *anything* to do with integrity. It's just one of those things that happens in cases like this. You start out honestly looking for the truth. You call in lots of people, and hear lots of testimony. And in the end, all you can find is a few inconsistencies, so you nail people for that because "perjury is a crime" (as stated by several people in this thread).

Nevermind that the whole thing is circular, that's just what happens. It's not about good or bad, or right/left, whatever. That is simply what happens when you get a group of lawyers asking lots of questions of people under oath. Some of them will make statements they didn't mean to make. Or they'll try to hide something unrelated to the investigation and get caught. Or they'll reveal something unrelated to the investigation because they didn't want to lie and maybe get caught. It happens. Ask enough people enough questions under oath and you *will* find something to charge someone with.


It says nothing about Fitzgerald one way or another. Nor should we assume anything as a result. That's part of what I'm trying to say here. Everyone is jumping up and down as though this whole process really means anything. It doesn't. It's a political necessity because Plame's name got printed in a newspaper with the word CIA nearby. It would be nice if we lived in a world where boths sides could look at a situation like this, realize that she was blatantly open with her employment at the CIA, realize that it was pointless to try to blame someone for "leaking" something that everyone already knew or could find out trivially, and just move on. But we don't live in that world, and so we must go through this ridiculous process that everyone knows wont reveal anything about the leak, but will undoubtably end up turning over a couple stones and getting a couple indictments for someone.


Cause that's just the way these things always work out.

You're making zero sense there Joph.


Find where I said that this is what *will* happen. I only said that *if* there are charges handed down, they will likely be of the bogus variety. I never discounted the possiblity that the whole matter could be closed with no indictments.

Stop making assumptions about what I'm trying to say. I find is amusing that you demand that I make a claim about what Fitzgerald will do. What the hell kind of stupidity is that? What exactly is wrong with qualifying your statements? Maybe the rest of the world is rabidly pro or con something, but I'm not. I put a qualifier in there because I *don't* know if he's going to hand down indictments or not. But if he does, I have a feeling they'll be of the bogus kind.


And they'll likely be politically motivated. You've already made a point of saying he's a republican many times Joph. You think that's lost on folks? You think that if he hands no indictments down that this fact wont be pushed by the Left?


We'll see what happens. I'm perfectly content to wait and see. I've made my opinions well known on the guilt/innocence of Rove and Libby in terms of the outting of Plame. I have absolutely no clue as to whether or not Fitzgerald will hand out "bogus" indictments. He either will. Or he wont. Why do you insist on making me guess? Because that's all it would be. What possible value is that?