Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted today by a federal grand jury for perjury and obstruction of justice. After watching prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald explaining this for an hour, it looked like dumb, petty foolishness from one subordinate. If this is what comes out of all this, it's a big lot of nothing for a payoff.
People want to make Watergate out of this, but it's SO not. The fact that it's not the president screwing up, but the vice president's aide makes it a much smaller scope.
But more important, Watergate involved lying to cover up the truth. The administration was doing bad things, and didn't want people to find out. This involved not wanting to admit to having told the truth. In this case, Libby is in trouble based on covering up from admitting that he was saying true things that he supposedly wasn't allowed to say, ie that Valerie Plame works for the CIA.
There was no crime underneath, and Fitzgerald sure seemed extremely disengenuous in trying to make it sound as if there was- while specifically denying it when asked point blank. No, he explained, Libby has NOT been charged with violating the covert identities statute, which was supposed to be the real charge.
This is not because they don't know or can't ascertain that Libby was giving out Plame's name. That they DO seem to have pretty well established. Nor was it because Libby didn't know her status. He damn well did.
The reason no one is being charged with violating that statute is because it simply does not goddam apply here. She was NOT a covert operative. She was NOT covered by that statute. This statute is not some bedrock of national security law in the first place, but something conjured up a dozen years ago, which liberals were rightly highly skeptical of.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Matthew T. Sussman
What I don't understand is that if Joe Wilson made that story up, why didn't the White House simply refute it with their own argument? It seems the way they went about it was more like the "Your mother wears army boots" route, and it just looks bad.
So why was Wilson's story false?
2 - Dave Nalle
Libby isn't just an idiot, he's some sort of bizarre pathological liar. Considering that apparently everyone else told a story which totally contradicted his loony made up version of the events, how on earth did he think he was going to get away with it?
Dave
3 - Silas Kain
Fitzgerald spent $733,000 while Starr spent $60 million. Somehow I think Fitzgerald has done a better job, Al. I'm hoping that the indictment of Scooter Libby will be the catalyst to draw the truth out of the White House once and for all. I honestly don't believe that anyone had sinister intentions; rather, it's a matter of protecting the Administration. If everyone had just came out and told the truth to begin with, this thing would have been but a memory today.
In the final analysis, I believe that Mr. Libby has served this nation well. I don't agree with all of his positions, but he has served both Presidents Bush with honor up until this point. He's innocent unless a jury of his peers decide differently. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt right now. But make no mistake about it, Dave, if Mr. Libby is lying and allows this whole thing to turn into a long, dragged out trial -- he deserves whatever punishment is meted out.
4 - troll
makes one wonder why an experienced political operative would throw himself on his sword so blatantly
imagine a scenario in which there is this conversation early on between Scoot and his boss about ways to marginalize Wilson including the 'outing' plan in that world his perjury/obstruction makes sense
troll
5 - Scott Butki
This has so much spin it's dizzying.
How can you say that this is different than Watergate because that was lying about the truth?
Isn't this about lying about the truth too?
Lewis was caught lying to the grand jury.
Lewis and Rove have been caught lying to the president, whose spokesman has said both told Bush they had nothing to do with talking to reporters about Plame (something the indictment makes clear is a lie).
And even conservatives like David Brooks last nite on PBS are comparing this to the Plumbers in that in both cases we have White House officials going out of their way to embarrass/rankle/threaten an administration critic.
Brooks compared Libby/Rove going after Wilson to the White House sending its "plumbers" out to break into offices to get back at Daniel Ellsberg.
6 - Scott Butki
And isn't it usually "mountains out of mole hills" or is that part of the spin too because ants are anti-war or something?
7 - RogerMDillon
Al, part of the reason there was no crime underneath was because Libby lied and obstructed justice. They know he gave out the name, but they don't know his mindest and what he knew at the time. Try and get the story straight.
While I may disagree with their positions and actions, I find it hard to believe that anyone could be the VP's chief of staff and all of a sudden become an idiot or a pathological liar.
If Wilson was such a liar, then his story should have been easy to dismiss without revealing his wife. And what does that matter? If he lied, as you contend, then what would it matter who sent him? How does his wife affect any one of his statements?
If lying to a grand jury is a great embarrassment to the administration, does it not occur to you that he might be taking the lesser of two evils? He knew what his notes said and that there were people who would contradict him. He had plenty of time to go back to the grand jury and correct his testimony, which he chose not to do.
8 - Scott Butki
Exactly. Well said.
9 - Al Barger
No Roger, the reason there was no crime underneath is because there was no crime underneath. She wasn't an undercover operative. The statute simply absolutely does not apply.
That it was his wife who set him up with the job is totally relevant to correcting Wilson's lies, for the first meta-lie of his mess was that he went on behalf of the vice-president's office. Well, NO he did NOT. He LIED. It wasn't the vice president, but some agency friends of his wife. Why should the Wilsons get a pass on being publicly exposed for this cheap shit?
Again, if Libby just repeatedly directly lied to the grand jury, as it appears, then he deserves what he gets. He appears to have been trying to avoid political embarassment for the administration, but this dumb stuff is of course far worse.
That there was no underlying crime here is the principle difference between this and Watergate, as Scott seemed not to get in comment 5. This may be that I just didn't explain what I meant very well. The basic point of Watergate is that Nixon's people did some bad stuff, burglary and such what, and then they lied to cover it up. In this case, the Wilson's were the ones lying and doing bad things, and now there's hell to be paid by people who told the truth about them.
If Libby had just kept telling the truth, they couldn't have touched him.
10 - Al Barger
Scott, re: comment 6, yes the usual phrase is that someone has made "a mountain out of a molehill." I was endeavoring to twist the phrase to make it more interesting, and to indicate that Fitzgerald was making a mountain out of something even far less than a molehill.
11 - Scott Butki
Thanks for explaining, Al.
What "bad things" did Wilson do? I know he issued a report that conservatives didn't like but what else?
12 - Mike Kole
Who cares about this cloak & dagger crap? There is so much in the way of policy to take the Bush Administration to task for that it at once frustrates and bores me that this is the only way the 'loyal opposition' can get at the Administration.
13 - Al Barger
Scott, as to Wilson's truth-phobia, here's Hitchens' summary.
14 - bhw
Al says:
That it was his wife who set him up with the job is totally relevant to correcting Wilson's lies, for the first meta-lie of his mess was that he went on behalf of the vice-president's office.
When did Wilson tell this lie? According to the DOJ press release on the case, he publicly and in the media stated that the CIA sent him:
In the article he wrote, as well as in the print and broadcast interviews of him, Wilson asserted, among other things, that he had taken a trip to Niger at the request of the CIA in February 2002 to investigate allegations that Iraq has sought or obtained uranium yellowcake from Niger, and that he doubted Iraq had obtained uranium from Niger recently, for a number of reasons. Wilson said that he believed, based on his understanding of government procedures,
that the Vice President’s office was advised of the results of his trip.
Al also says:
Sounds like [Libby] lied not to cover up a non-existent crime, but to avoid political embarrassment for the administration.
But it sounds to me like Libby knew he was doing something wrong BEFORE he ever told a lie:
The indictment alleges that Libby had frequent access to classified information and frequently spoke with officials of the U.S. intelligence community and other government officials regarding sensitive national security matters. With his responsibilities for national security matters, Libby held security clearances giving him access to classified information. Libby was obligated by federal criminal statute, regulations, executive orders, and a written non-disclosure agreement not to disclose classified information to unauthorized persons, and to properly safeguard classified information against unauthorized disclosure.
And this, too:
shortly after publication on or about June 19, 2003, of an article in The New Republic magazine online entitled “The First Casualty: The Selling of the Iraq War,” Libbyspoke by telephone with his then Principal Deputy and discussed the article. That official asked Libby whether information about Wilson’s trip could be shared with the press to rebut the allegations that the Vice President had sent Wilson. Libby responded that there would be complications at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly, and that he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure telephone line;
Sounds to me like this was more than just embarrassment that he was trying to cover up.
15 - Dave Nalle
I don't think Wilson is a liar, I think he's just politically opportunistic. He told one story to the Senate and then later on he saw a way to advance his own interests by changing his story and publishing an attack piece about it. Since his original report was pretty ambiguous there was room for him to reinterpret it to look more negative when it served his purposes to do so.
As for Libby outling Plame as a way to embarass Wilson, it just doesn't make any sense. I guess it could have been some sort of petty, vindictive attack, but how does it really harm Plame or Wilson? It gets her transferred to a desk job - except that she was already working one and not currently undercover. It doesn't cost her her job or any money, and there's nothing embarassing to Wilson that his wife is a CIA operative. The whole thing just fails the test of logic. How does revealing her identitty get them any revenge? I don't see it.
Dave
16 - bhw
I guess it could have been some sort of petty, vindictive attack,
Ya think?
She's no longer undercover. That's not significant? He didn't harm her career?
17 - Scott Butki
Al, I trust Hitchens about as much as you trust Wilson.
18 - Cobra
From Wikipedia:
>>>"Brewster Jennings & Associates was a front company set up by the CIA for Valerie Plame, who was allegedly uncovered as political retaliation...
...Plame's status was revealed by Robert Novak (based on leaked information) in a 2003 column. In an interview on CNN, he said "Wilson's wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates. There is no such firm, I'm convinced." It later turned out that BJ&A did exist for all intents and purposes, listed on the Dun & Bradstreet database of company names.
Since NOCs (CIA agents under nonofficial cover) usually work at companies set up by the CIA itself as fronts, it has been speculated that other employees of BJ&A may also have been NOCs, doing work similar to Plame. If that were true, the damage done by leaking Plame's name would be vastly multiplied, as all the other NOCs would be compromised."
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:q28m89mqFeMJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Jennings_%26_Associates+Novak,,+%22Brewster+Jennings%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
And what was the purpose of this CIA front company Brewster Jennings?
>>>"Intended to infiltrate ties between groups involved in smuggling nuclear weapons, it was apparently named after the late Brewster Jennings, who served as president of a predecessor company to Exxon Mobil Corporation."
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:q28m89mqFeMJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Jennings_%26_Associates+Novak,,+%22Brewster+Jennings%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Whether you LIKE Joe Wilson or not...whether you think Valerie Plame was a secret agent or not, it is UNDENIABLE that Robert Novak blew the cover on a CIA front company operation SPECIFICALLY DEALING with the proliferation of WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, specifically NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
I defy any flag-waving, jingoistic, "fight them over there instead of over here" type to defend that action, and claim the leaking of this classified information wasn't a national security risk.
--Cobra
19 - Eric Berlin
Cobra -- please make all links clickable.
Thanks.
20 - Al Barger
RE: comment 17 Scott, you may arbitrarily decide that you don't "trust" Hitchens, but you have absolutely no basis for questioning his truthfulness. You may disagree with his analysis of events, but there's no good reason to question his honesty.
21 - Al Barger
RE: comment 14 Libby does not appear to have in fact done anything illegal until he started this apparent lying. But now there's a special prosecutor and a grand jury, and bunches of subpoenas and such what. He knew that telling the truth about Wilson was now being twisted to look like a criminal thing.
Then Libby was D-U-M-B enough to start lying and make it in fact from that point at least a little criminal. Note that these charges are entirely nothing but lying to cops, and not anything whatsoever to do with any supposed underlying criminal activity at all.
22 - Al Barger
RE: comment 16 "He didn't harm her career?" No, she harmed her own career by engaging in this stupid petty political game with her husband. She goddam ASKED for it.
Also, so what if her career was harmed? This was co-incidental to the point, which was to tell people the truth about Wilson. Outing an undercover operative and placing them in danger of being killed would be one thing. Hurting someone's professional standing by telling THE TRUTH about them, however, is not a statutory violation that I've ever heard of.
23 - Dave Nalle
Al's got a point on the political motivations of Wilson and Plame. She shouldn't have been playing politics with her job.
But my point was that since she was not an active covert agent at the time, no immediate harm was done. She might have lost the ability to go undercover in the future, but that's a hypothetical. The real, immediate harm of the leak is so slight that I don't see it as an effective form of revenge.
dave
24 - troll
Maybe it wasn't Wilson who was being spanked by the 'outing' but rather the CIA for not properly configuring the yellow cake intel
troll
25 - Al Barger
Good point, Troll. I hadn't thought of that. Exposing Plame did expose not just this schmuck couple, but the whole inappropriate domestic political interference by the CIA in participating in this game.