As I listened today to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald outlining the charges against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, it became clear that what I had been gathering in new reports about the imbroglio over the last week was accurate; the Vice President’s then-Chief of Staff lied to investigators and grand jurors.
Libby has now been accused of doing exactly what Joe Wilson has been doing since that “Administration critic” wrote the New York Times op-ed at issue in this whole mess. He deceived people. With one big difference. Libby lied under oath and Wilson did so in the pages of newspapers, in the pages of his book, on the lecture circuit and on a variety of talk shows.
The First Amendment protects Mr. Wilson’s freedom to lie to the media. It doesn’t protect Mr. Libby’s to do so in a judicial proceeding. As a lawyer, he should have known better than to invent a story of how he learned Ms. Plame’s name, then tell it, not to amuse his friends, but to deceive federal investigators. He should have told them the truth. And now he appears to be guilty of serious crimes. Still, as the president said in his brief remarks just a few moments ago, “In our system, each individual is presumed innocent and entitled to due process and a fair trial.”
It doesn’t look very good for Mr. Libby now. If he did indeed lie to the grand jury (as the indictment indicates), he hurt the Vice President and the president as well. And he broke the law. He did the right thing in resigning. If a jury of his peers finds him guilty of the crimes for which Mr. FItzgerald indicted him today, he should pay a heavy penalty.
You forget that Wilson was lying even before his “Op-ed”.
Attacking the Wilsons is what brought you all to this sad point. Don’t you ever learn?
TGC, good point. He was lying in his conservations with Nicholas Kristof.
You make it seem like he acted alone. Do you REALLY think that Cheney and others are not involved? Are you REALLY that simple-minded on this? Add the question “why” to the fact of Scooter’s lying and see what you can come up with.
And then you talk as if this is over. It ain’t.
I remember reading something on here about Democrats being like children one day. Ahem. In this case, Mommy and Daddy’s people are caught breaking the law and having the book thrown at those people, in your mind, clears up any possibility of Mommy and Daddy’s wrongdoing or involvement in that wrongdoing? Even when the wrongdoers hold positions like chief of staff for Mommy and Daddy? Prehaps liberals and conservatives are both under age, but it is little/conservative children will do anything to exonerate their parents and render them angelic and good in their conceptions and the older/liberal children will rebel, attack, and call their parents out on their hypocrises.
But you can’t, especially in a case where the hypocrisy deals with breaking the law, argue that it isn’t important. Instead, the writers here attack Wilson and fantasize about the Clinton’s reactions. I’d ask that you apply your hermeneutics of suspicion to the occupants of Scooter’s former place of employment as well. See where that takes you.
Actually, Jimmy, the Clinton comparison is very apt; in that case, Daddy himself was caught lying to a grand jury and tampering with witnesses, and the liberal children tied themselves into knots arguing that that slut Monica/Betty/Vernon Jordan acted on their own and trying to AVOID calling their parent out on his hypocrisies.
Of course now, when the special prosecutor for whom they were cheering before only brings one set of indictments against one person, these same liberal children go beserk trying to find conspiracy on every corner and sinister in every shadow, while the conservative children point out that this one person should be tried and, if found guilty, punished.
#2
That’s assuming that you buy into Wilson’s lie that they were “smeared”. Nobody had to do a damn thing to smear him. He was doing fine all by himself.
One doesn’t have to shoot liberals. Just let them talk and they’ll do themselves in.
Don’t believe me? Just look at examples like Howard Dean, John F.You Kerry, your precious lord BJ, you, Kevin, Queer Patriot and Pussy Chumpler etc.
Jimmy (in #4)–well, given how thoroughly Fitzgerald investigated this, we do have a sense that Libby acted alone, considered that he stands accused of lying in his own testimony before the grand jury when he was alone.
And yes, I REALLY think that Cheney and others were not involved. Do you have any evidence (beyond your own suspicions) that he was?
Fitzgerald found no evidence of any conspiracy. Indeed, found no evidence whatsoever that anyone under investigation broke the law which he was initially hired to investigate.
And I never said that this wasn’t important. In this particular post, I make clear that if found guilty, Libby “should pay a heavy penalty.” But, in our system, which Fitzgerald so nicely praised today, he has the chance to defend himself at trial.
Wilson deceived people? I guess those nasty WMDs will be showing up any day then? Maybe the president should start looking under his desk.
I think history has already proven that Wilson was right and the indictment further proves that.
Ken in #8, history has proven no such thing.
The indictment, as Fitzgerald, says has nothing to do with the war. Wilson addressed only the issue of whether Iraq was trying to get yellowcake from Niger. He lied about who hired him and according to some reports, even misrepresented his own findings in Niger.
Gaypatriotwest, got a quote showing Wilson lying about being sent to Africa by the CIA responding to an inquiry from the Vice President’s office?
Then-CIA Director Tenet said that he sent someone to Africa on his own intiative.
#11
And he resigned so SUDDENLY AND WITHOUT APPARENT REASON.
I can’t wait to hear HIS testimony at the trial.
Didn’t he get a medal?
I just want to assure you that that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government–not of the CIA but of the government–and came back in February of 2002 and told the government that there was nothing to this story, later called the government after the British white paper was published and said you all need to do some fact-checking and make sure the Brits aren’t using bad information in the publication of the white paper, and who called both the CIA and the State Department after the president’s State of the Union and said to them you need to worry about the political manipulation of intelligence if, in fact, the president is talking about Niger when he mentions Africa.
That person was told by the State Department that, well, you know, there’s four countries that export uranium. That person had served in three of those countries, so he knew a little bit about what he was talking about when he said you really need to worry about this. But I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof called him in his article, is also pissed off, and has every intention of ensuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs. It may not have legs over the next two or three months, but when you see American casualties moving from one to five or to ten per day, and you see Tony Blair’s government fall because in the U.K. it is a big story, there will be some ramifications, I think, here in the United States. So I hope that you will do everything you can to keep the pressure on. Because it is absolutely bogus for us to have gone to war the way we did.
Joe Wilson, June 14, 2003
If Wilson was such an honest saint, why was he dropped like a digested burrito from the Kerry campaign?
GayCon, you really need to clean up your potty imagery. It undermines just about everything you think you have to say.
GPW, I think you’re jumping the gun. (On Libby’s guilt.)
We haven’t heard Libby’s side yet.
From what I can tell, all Fitzie has on Libby is stuff like Tim Russert disagreeing with Libby. A lot of “he said he said.”
Apparently Libby and Russert talked 1-on-1.
Libby says: We talked briefly about Wilson; Russert told me there was a rumor among reporters that Wilson’s CIA wife gave him the Niger trip; I said, yeah I heard that too.
Russert says: I remember it differently. What sticks out in my memory is the column 3 days later, where it told me Wilson’s CIA wife recommended him for Niger.
Stuff like that. That’s one example. There are more witnesses against Libby but I don’t know how much better. Don’t condemn Libby until the trial evidence and cross exam.
Comment 15: I also wonder about GC’s fulsome references to bathroom and bodily functions. But his quotation stands. Wilson lied – on that point, and others.
Calarato. Fair point.
I had written this post before seeing Mary Matalin in Hannity & Colmes Friday night. She has worked with Libby on Cheney’s staff. She pointed out Libby’s reputation for honesty and noted that he had handed over all documents, including those noting that he had learned Wilson’s name from the Vice President.
I have read the indictment and it looks bad for Libby, but realize also that Fitzgerald used only those segments of the transcript (of the grand jury sessions) which most buttressed his case. When this comes to trial, when we see the entire transcript, when Libby gets to make his case, we’ll have a chance to see his side.
GPW, I think you’re jumping the gun. (On Libby’s guilt.)
We haven’t heard Libby’s side yet.
I agree. We haven’t really heard Libby’s side yet. It might be a lot worse than even the left could imagine. We’ll have to see how carefully he constructs his answers and/or pleads the fifth.
I REALLY think that Cheney and others were not involved.