GayPatriot

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No Evidence of Wrongdoing, but Something Smells Fishy about Libby

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Not long after posting my previous piece on Karl Rove and Plamegate, a reader sent me a link to this National Journal piece on the hullabaloo. As I read it, i realized how little attention I had paid to the testimony of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff. Perhaps because I was so fascinated by the Bush-haters’s demonizing of Karl Rove, I focused more on that good man’s role in all this than in other aspects of the case.

As I read the National Journal piece and recalled some other things I had read (and heard) about Libby, something smelled kind of fishy. It just seemed odd, particularly Libby’s relationship with reporter Judith Miller. Not only that. Several articles have noted contradictions between Libby’s testimony and that of other reporters (including Ms. Miller) with whom he had spoken.

While the New York Times and others on the left seem optimistic that recent comments from special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald heighten “the expectation that he intends to bring indictments” (as the Times puts it), I think this expectation is merely wish-fulfillment — predicting the outcome of the investigation that they most desire. To me, however, it seems far from clear that Fitzgerald intends to indict anyone. The Times itself reports that “Mr. Fitzgerald has repeatedly told lawyers in the case that he has not made up his mind about criminal charges.”

This morning on Fox News, Fred Barnes said that Fitzgerald’s present indecision suggests that there is “no overpowering evidence of wrongdoing.”

Barnes is basically right on this one. I would, however, add one wrinkle related to Libby. As I said above, something doesn’t smell right about Mr. Libby’s activities in this case. He had this unusual relationship with Ms. Miller and his testimony is at odds with that of others. Perhaps, Mr. Fitzgerald, more familiar with the testimony than I (or any other lawyer, or reporter, commentator or blogger for that matter) has had a similar feeling about Mr. Libby. He too senses something is “not right,” but is not sure that Mr. Libby has done anything illegal. He may not know what to make of all this.

Or it maybe as I wondered yesterday that Fitzgerald “has information of which I am not aware.” Perhaps he has some incriminating evidence which he has been able to keep from the media.

Unless he has such information, Fitzgerald seems left only with indicting officials for their misdeeds in the course of the investigation. In Slate, Jacob Weisberg observes that “after two years of digging, no evidence has emerged that anyone who worked for Bush and talked to reporters about Plame—namely Rove or Scooter Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff—knew she was undercover.” And that

absence of evidence that you’ve broken a law [could] just become . . . an invitation to develop a case based on other possible crimes, especially those committed in the course of defending yourself, like obstruction of justice and making false statements. Call witnesses back enough times and you can usually come up with something. Special prosecutors never give up, because saying no crime was committed, after investing years and tens of millions of public dollars, counts as abject failure.

Perhaps, Fitzgerald has not, as Fred Barnes put it, found any “overpowering evidence of wrongdoing,” but, after spending so much time on the case feels he needs to bring an indictment.

From all I’ve heard (and read) about Fitzgerald, he seems to be a better man than that, not one who would bring an indictment for the sake of bringing an indictment — just to make this whole mission seem worthwhile. Perhaps, the lawyers (and others) on his staff, some of whom have been leaking tidbits from the investigation to the media, are more eager than he to bring indictments. Perhaps some of them have axes to grind with the Administration.

Or perhaps Fitzgerald would like to bring an indictment, but is not sure that he could prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt in court.

We don’t know why he hasn’t made up his mind. From what I’ve read, it seems pretty clear that Fred Barnes is right–there is not much evidence of wrongdoing. Still, something sure smells fishy about Mr. Libby’s role in all this. He may not have broken any laws, but it sure seems he has done something wrong.

Even if his chief of staff is not indicted, the Vice President may well be wise to seek a new top aide.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

UPDATE: Well, maybe Libby didn’t do anything wrong, but just brought up Ms. Plame’s name to defend the Vice President against her husband’s lies. According to today’s New York Sun (via Instapundit):

Mr. Wilson . . . said that Mr. Cheney authorized his trip to Niger and therefore the vice president knew that it was false to claim Iraq had sought uranium from Africa. Based on the accounts of reporters Ms. Miller and Matthew Cooper, it appears that if there was a mention of Mr. Wilson’s wife by Messrs. Rove or Libby, it was an effort not to burn an official at the Central Intelligence Agency but to correct Mr. Wilson’s own misstatement about Mr. Cheney’s knowledge of his secret mission.

Comments

  2. “…fascinated by the Bush-haters’s demonizing of Karl Rove, I focused more on that good man’s role in all this than in other aspects of the case.”

    Here’s something to focus on: who forged the Niger documents and why?

    Also, please tell us why you find Karl Rove a good man.

    As to your facination with Bush-haters, I was reminded of the quoted passage from John Lukacs’ “Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred,” that appeared in yesterday’s NRO:

    It may be that in the future the true divisions will be not between Right and Left but between two kinds of Right; between people on the Right whose binding belief is their contempt for Leftists, who hate liberals more than they love liberty, and others who love liberty more than they fear liberals; between nationalists and patriots; between those who believe that America’s destiny is to rule the world and others who do not believe that; between those who trust technology and machines and others who trust tradition and old human decencies; between those who support ‘development’ and others who wish to protect the conservation of land — in sum, between those who do not question Progress and others who do.

  4. anon… “and the court jester simply turned the real world topsy-turvey in order to avoid notice by all that his pants had been down around his ankles for the entire act….”

    If you buy into JL’s vision of the political and cultural future, you need to find some other source work and supplement it with a dash of honest historical perspective… cause JL isn’t even close. Really, not even close –AlGore or DanQuayle have better insights and that’s not saying much.

    As a conservative gay, I don’t have any contempt with the LibLeft –frankly, they no longer matter in American discourse… soon to go the way of the Farmer-Socialists, CPUSA, and other radical groups who fail to adapt and change to new political realities.

  5. I would put it this way, Anon……that may be the future of the Right, but it is the present of the Left.

    And, as Cindy Sheehan has shown us, those whose binding belief is their contempt for conservatives, who hate conservatives more than they love liberty, who believe that America is to blame for all the problems of the world, and who sneer at any concern for human decency that does not fit their selfish view of the universe are dominant.

  8. Anon in #2, my fascination with the demonizing of Rove is similar to my fascination with the demonizing of W, stemming from my interest in psychology and the notion of projection whereby people project their own shadow, their own hidden side, onto others.

    Any serious reading of this case shows that if anyone in the Administration is guilty of wrongdoing in the Plame matter, it is Libby and not Rove. (Hence this post.) Yet, most on the left have focused their sights on Mr. Rove. One reader even messaged me to say that Rove would most surely be indicted, not based on the facts of the case, but on his own low opinion of the President’s Deputy Chief of Staff.

    So what fascinates me is the psychological angle of all this. What are so many on the left so eager to demonize Mr. Rove? And so eager to defend a man (Mr. Wilson) discredited as dishonest by numerous reports, including this post today.

  9. We’re still waiting for those links where you show that Ken Mehlman has been smearing Patrick Fitzgerald. There are links that prove what you accused him of, aren’t there?

    Oh for god’s sake, I started writing the post and my browser crashed. Grow up. And the post referred to how this investigation is different than the Clintons. Just some points to ponder about Mehlman’s response to it all…

    Read the Meet the Press Transcript for July 17th for reference to an alleged smear campaign:

    Mehlman: But here’s the point. We don’t know this stuff. We’re prejudging this morning. And that’s why it’s so outrageous that this past week, John Kerry, who was the nominee for president of the United States by the Democrat Party, Hillary Clinton, the first lady of the United States, Harry Reid, the Democrat leader in the Senate, would attack Karl Rove, call for him to lose his job, call for his national security clearance to be taken away.

    Host Tim Russert then asked Mehlman the obvious questions: “If, in fact, he indicts White House officials, will you accept that indictment and not fight it? Will you pledge today, because you have tremendous confidence in him, that you will not criticize his decision?” Despite the urgings of Russert (and Center for American Progress CEO John Podesta), Mehlman would not take that step.

    In a conversation with Wolf Blitzer on 7/12/05, Mehlman would neither confirm or deny when specifically asked if he has conversations with the White House regarding Plamegate.

    Mehlman also reiterates point after point of discredited talking points in his 7/12 RNC news release.

    Mehlman also conveniently talks about the case when it’s beneficial to his position and then conveniently claims the necessity of not commenting when it’s not.

    It’s politics as usual. I’m not codemning the man, just pointing out a fact.

  10. And, where in those remarks does Ken Mehlman smear Patrick Fitzgerald the way the Clinton’s smeared Ken Starr? No where. Your reputation as GayWeaselBob, (the guy who makes an accusation, can’t back it up, then claims he was saying something else, and can’t back that up either, then changes his story again) is enhanced yet again.

  11. #7 Chandler, you can read! You’re right, your buddy gay cowboy bob’s “bet me, bet me, come on, come on, bet me” IS getting old. Glad you can see the light from middle at least once in your lifetime.

    But you gotta get out of the gutter dude with that comment at #11.

    And belated congrats on having another visitor to your website this month –that’s three consecutive months with at least one visitor each month now. Yeah baby, you are on a ROLL! He’s rollin’, he’s rolling, oh yeah. The big Hollywood names will be calling you any second now for some serious collaboration.

  12. Your reputation as GayWeaselBob, (the guy who makes an accusation, can’t back it up, then claims he was saying something else, and can’t back that up either, then changes his story again) is enhanced yet again.

    Whatever. Just start archiving the stuff off your blog you want to look back on some day in private. Delay got his mugshot taken. And he deliberately went to another precinct to avoid the media. Weasel indeed.

  17. Even though I don’t like Tom DeLay much (he’s a big part of the reason the Republican Congress has been spending like crackwhores {Although the Democrat-led hissy-fit against cutting pork to pay for Katrina yesterday means they have nothing to be proud of either}) — Anyway, I still had to chuckle at how Tom DeLay outsmarted Wile E. Tom Earle yesterday, smiling for his mug shot and choosing a Texas county that doesn’t put numbers on mug shots:

    Link: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/127683.php

  18. Hey Chandler, I guess one of the editors thought your comments, previously posted at #11, were a tad too crude for even your postings. That’s why it’s deleted and my response is in its place; simple as that is for an explanation, I bet it escaped your grasp.

    I seem to recall your crude comments suggested the Vice President’s Chief of Staff was sexually interested in NYT reporter Judy Miller… albeit with more Chandler-esque scriptwriting style.

    There’s the gutter for you Chandler. Say hello to HowieDean while you’re in it, ok?

  19. In case you forgot GayCowBoyBob… we’re all still awaiting with somewhat bated breath for your “evidence” that Ken Mehlman has been smearing P Fitzgerald ala Bill Clinton & Company’s PR game on Starr, Lewinski, et al.

    Can you even get a single reference beyond some foamings from the DemocratUnderGround or DNC-Smear Hdqtrs?

  20. So TGC, you think it may be Joe Wilson and the French that forged the documents. I’m going with Michael Ledeen, house guest and friend of Pajamas Media founder Roger Simon. We’ll see. Should be interesting.

    Something else that’s fishy about Scotter: He represented Marc Rich.