Veal on Libby and Fitzgerald
Stromata has an excellent concise statement of the injustice of the Libby prosecution:
Mr. Libby was charged with falsely describing conversations with three reporters: Tim Russert, Matt Cooper and Judith Miller. He was not accused of illegally exposing the identity of a covert CIA agent. According to the prosecution’s version of reality –
- He never discussed Valerie Plame Wilson with Tim Russert;
- Matt Cooper raised the subject of Mrs. Wilson’s CIA employment with him, not vice versa; and
- He “did not treat Wilson’s role, or the fact that his wife worked for the CIA, as a big deal” when he mentioned them to Judith Miller.
…There is likewise, despite Patrick Fitzgerald’s bald assertions, not a scintilla of evidence that Mr. Libby’s statements impeded the investigation of the Plame Wilson imbroglio in any way. Had Libby testified in strict accordance with what the prosecutor insists is the truth, that would not have furthered the inquiry. Mr. Fitzgerald knew almost from the beginning that Robert Novak, who published the news of where Mrs. Wilson worked and how she had recommended her husband for his famous tea-sipping trip to Niger, got his information from Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage. How would it have helped the grand jury to have heard from Scooter Libby’s lips that he (i) didn’t talk about Mrs. Wilson with Tim Russert, (ii) heard about her role from Matt Cooper and (iii) discussed the matter casually with Judith Miller? Those admissions clearly wouldn’t have led to an indictment for disclosure of classified information or violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. We know that because Mr. Armitage was never charged with either. Nor is there any way – at least none that Mr. Fitzgerald has ever disclosed – in which learning those facts would have led to some fruitful line of inquiry.
On the reading most hostile to Lewis Libby, he did not commit a substantive crime or obstruct a criminal investigation. He was caught in a perjury trap. If Mr. Fitzgerald had asked, “What color tie did you wear when you spoke to Tim Russert?”, Mr. Libby had answered “Red” and the prosecution had thereafter proven that the tie was blue, the grounds for the indictment would have been just as strong.
If Lewis Libby were not a former high-ranking aide to an Administration against which a large part of the Nation’s political class has declared war, no one would have suggested that his motiveless misstatements were crimes – certainly not crimes deserving a 2½-year prison sentence, aggravated by the loss of his professional livelihood.