The Perjury of I. Lewis Libby

Well, that was an interesting Friday afternoon...

The extent of I. Lewis Libby's perjury is truly bats--- mindblowing. Here are the people who say that his story is simply not true:

1. An Under Secretary of State
2. A senior officer of the Central Intelligence Agency
3. The Vice President of the United States
4. Libby's own notes of his meeting with the Vice President.
5. A briefer from the Central Intelligence Agency.
6. Libby's then-principal deputy.
7. Judith Miller.
8. Tim Russert.
9. The White House Press Secretary.
10. The Counsel to the Vice President.
11. The Assistant to the Vice President for Public Affairs.
12. "White House Officlal A".
13. Matthew Cooper.

Recollections differ. Memories are fallible. People forget. But I cannot see how any conceivable jury could fail to find Libby guilty on all counts, if the witnesses testify as the indictment suggests they will.

So what did Libby think he was doing? There are two possible answers. Answer 1: Libby is certifiable. Answer 2: Libby is erecting a perjury firebreak to keep Patrick Fitzgerald from knowing that he, Cheney, Rove, and possibly others knew very well that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert operative and thought that blowing her cover would be a nice way to warn the CIA not to leak information that contradicted what Cheney and company had said.

In a normal case, right now Fitzgerald would be offering Libby the choice between spending decades in prison or giving up Rove or Cheney or somebody even more interesting. If Libby doesn't want to sing, he spends decades in prison. If Libby cannot sing--if Libby is in fact the prime mover--than Libby has tough luck and spends decades in prison. If Libby tries to give up Rove or Cheney but just has one-on-one conversations to relate, than once again Libby has tough luck and spends decades in prison: no prosecutor would think that he can convict on the word of a confessed perjurer without corroborating evidence. Only if Libby wants to sing and can point Fitzgerald to corroborating evidence that gives Fitzgerald a conviction of somebody more interesting would he be able to avoid spending a long time in prison.

In the present circumstances, things are complicated by the existence of the presidential pardon power.

So I want to ask a real lawyer: What kinds of discussions among whom about the exercise of the presidential pardon power rise to the level of conspiracy to obstruct justice?

Comments

[the english guy]

I wonder if he can ever get a fair trial, given the publicity this has received?

[otto]

"In the present circumstances, things are complicated by the existence of the presidential pardon power."

No conspiratorial discussion is necessary: everyone can rely on the unspoken assumption that pardons will be handed out during the "Marc Rich" moment. As a result, the likely gaol liability is from the end of the (protracted) trial until after the 2008 presidential election, but before the inauguration of Cheney, Gore, Rice, or HRC etc. Under those circumstances, the penalty would probably be worth taking for many a diehard partisan.

[Davis X. Machina]

The presidential pardon power is plenary, except in cases of impeachment.

Discussions a President has with his advisors about it are at least arguably privileged.

So the sad fact is, the answer to "What kinds of discussions among whom about the exercise of the presidential pardon power rise to the level of conspiracy to obstruct justice?" is probably 'none'.

Not even James Madison, who was no starry-eyed optimist, knew how big a son-of-a-bitch might eventually occupy the Presidency.

[Howard]

I merely report that josh marshall noticed, in today's times, that fitzgerald paid a visit on bush's personal lawyer yesterday.

[dj moonbat]

It may be because I haven't finished law school yet, but I don't know what this means:

What kinds of discussions among whom about the exercise of the presidential pardon power rise to the level of conspiracy to obstruct justice?

[dj moonbat]

It seems you might be asking whether G-Dub, by talking with his minions in advance about pardoning them, could be obstructing justice?

Probably, he could. But until we get a Democratic congress, such charges would be meaningless. Any obstruction of this type by the underlings is pardonable; any obstruction of this type by the president is only punishable by impeachment.

[alkali]

Libby's chance to "sing" may have passed -- testimony given as part of a plea bargain on a *perjury* indictment is of very little value to a prosecutor.

[NBarnes]

I suspect that Davis Machina may be correct; the correct solution to the problem, 'The president is sufficently corrupt as to regard his pardon power as a tool to get around obstruction of justice charges,' is impeachment. And I think we all agree that this Congress wouldn't impeach Bush even if Jesus came back and told them they should.

[A. Zarkov]

The Libby matter should be looked at thru a political lens, not a legal lens. On the legal side, it looks pretty open and shut, as the evidence seems overwhelming that he committed perjury. On the political side, how do you get “decades in prison?” Martha Stewart was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury and spent six months in jail. Bill Clinton committed perjury before a grand jury, and he didn’t even get indicted, all that happened to him was a five-year suspension of this license to practice law. Sandy Berger removed up to 50 classified documents from the US National Archives and destroyed them. He was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and got security clearance suspended (but not revoked). Contrast this to Wen Ho Lee. Lee was arrested and held without bail, in solitary confinement. He was also accused of mishandling classified material. So you really can’t ignore the political dimension. If Libby should somehow draw a severe punishment, then I strongly suspect he will be pardoned.

BTW we don’t yet know that Plame was actually a “covert” operative. Some kind of operative yes, but not necessarily covert.

[Emma Anne]

It is true that the President can pardon all these people unless he is impeached. But Libby has to count on all of the following: Bush won't be impeached; no other charges can be brought after the pardon (or the pardon is so broad as to cover all charges, even outing a CIA agent); Bush lives up to his promise and pardons Libby (instead of conveniently forgetting about him). On the other side: 30 years in Federal prison.

Also, once Libby is pardoned he can't claim 5th amendment rights. So the pardon will wait until Bush feels safe. Remember Bush can be prosecuted after he leaves office (that is why Nixon was pardoned). Can he count on the next president to pardon him to "save the country the anguish of having a former president on trial?"

In answer to your question: I do think promising a pardon in return for obstruction of justice is plenty for conspiracy. For now it would have to via impeachment. But not once Bush leaves office. I hope someone looks up the statute of limitations on all of these crimes.

(I am an attorney, but since I am a patent attorney, don't rely on the accuracy of anything I say about criminal law!)

[Altoid]

The pardon thing is certainly worth thinking about, but I don't think the present indictments are the end of the road by a long shot, notwithstanding Fitzgerald's "body language" or his saying the investigation phase is nearly done. The indictments seem more like a gambit in building a conspiracy case.

Libby's free now, but he gets to prepare for a trial at which he's certain to be convicted. Even though he's also certain of a pardon, he won't be having much fun over the next ten months or so.

The potential witnesses are going to have even less fun. For some of them, the testimony will be quick and easy. For others, it won't be. From now until the trial, they'll have to be figuring out what they can say on the stand that won't implicate them in a possible conspiracy.

Indeed, one of the points of these indictments may be to get some of these people to testify in open court to things that the grand jury has already heard about. And they don't know what the grand jury actually was told.

For that reason, I'd be very surprised if Fitzgerald accepts any plea, even guilty on all counts. And Libby, hero type that he is, seems likely to follow the Gordon Liddy brick road and take one for the team, until the pardon springs him. So a trial seems all but certain.

Of course this could be wishful thinking. But I thought I heard Fitzgerald saying that there was an underlying conspiracy that he thinks he can demonstrate, but wants to be able to nail. It seems to me that Libby's trial is where he can do that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's not obligated to forego a trial even if the defendant pleads guilty, right?

[Ari]

Mr. Zarkov

The statement you made about not knowing the status as an operative of Valerie Plame is highly offensive. I am more than surprised at such a statement. Of course, we know.

[wcw]

The best recipe for troll is to ignore it completely and head across the street for yummy burrito.

[Tom Marney]

How soon we forget...

All of this is coming from an administration that lies routinely, openly and transparently on a plethora of subjects, e.g. the budget, taxes, the war. They even lie when there's no compelling reason to. They do it for political/cultural reasons: because their base agrees with what they're saying and admires their brazenness. I'm sure that there's a body of opinion within the White House and the Republican Party that the ideal outcome of this case would be for the accused to be convicted in a court of law but exonerated in the court of public opinion, then pardoned by the ever-just-and-righteous George W. Bush. That opinion is certainly common enough is the larger right wing universe.

That Scooter would lie as comprehensively and transparently as he has, especially given the prospective sheild of a presidential pardon, is IMO the least surprising aspect of what we've seen so far.

[cb]

>>>So the sad fact is, the answer to "What kinds of discussions among whom about the exercise of the presidential pardon power rise to the level of conspiracy to obstruct justice?" is probably 'none'

I don't agree with this at all. To answer Brad's question a demonstrated quid pro quo would surely do it. You can't get, for example, the Supreme Court to "un-pardon" Scooter Libby as the power is plenary....but if the WH were to use the pardon to keep Libby from testifying, that would be a problem.

Fitzgerald could have very well used his visit to Bush's personal attorney last week to make clear that he would view a pardon at this stage of the game as an attempt to obstruct justice and that he would not hesitate to seek an indictment against the President. He may have made clear that a pardon after Libby were to testify fully would not result in an indictment.

[save_the_rustbelt]

By indicting for perjury Fitz has destroyed Libby's credibility for proceedings against anyone else - could that be to someone's advantage down the road? Did Libby fall on that sword intentionally?

This has a paralell to the Martha Stewart case. Martha was convicted of lying to investigators about insider trading, but as I understand she was never prosecuted for the underlying act of insider trading. That is a bit of twisted logic I do believe.

No one has yet been indicted for leaking.

[Firebug]

It seems to me that this whole situation points out various structural flaws in our Constitution.

First of all, vesting a pardon power in the President at his sole discretion was clearly a mistake. The pardon power has been abused egregiously by the past several Presidents. Bush _pere_ pardoned the Iran-Contra conspirators, thus preventing an investigation into his own role in that illegal subversion of Congress. Clinton, in a sordid but admittedly less serious act, pardoned his own brother for drug charges, as well as fugitive campaign contributor Marc Rich. And, now, it appears that Bush _fils_ may use the pardon power to prevent a real investigation of him and his staff. The last real principled use of the pardon power that I know of was Carter's amnesty for Vietnam-era draft evaders.

What we need is a Constitutional amendment vesting the pardon power in a Board of Pardons consisting of twelve nonpartisan civil servants. They would have the power to propose pardons to the President, who could either accept or reject them. If they were rejected, the Board could override and push them through anyway with a 2/3 majority. The President should not have the power to pardon anyone on his own initiative.

The impeachment process should also be overhauled. Remember, when the original Constitution was written, the Framers disliked the idea of political parties ("factions"), and, under the original Presidential selection process, the Vice-President would be the runner-up in the election, and thus, presumably, would represent a real change from the existing President's policies. That changed with the 12th Amendment, which instituted the present system of VP selection at the President's sufferance. This has effectively made impeachment a paper tiger, because it serves little purpose to remove a President only to enthrone his virtually identical successor from the same party. Perhaps the impeachment process should be altered so that a convicted President's administration is removed completely, and a special election is held to cover the interim period.

[Nan]

"In the present circumstances, things are complicated by the existence of the presidential pardon power."

This is not a normal case. Libby has many options.

1) Any conviction can be overturned by friendly federalist society judges. Think Ollie North.

2) He pleads guilty in exchange for no jail time. Bush pardons him after leaving office.

Libby will do everything he can to avoid a trial. He doesn't want "Go Fuck Yourself" to testify under oath at this trial. He will fall on his sword and pick option #2. Fitzgerald might not accept a deal with no prison time or Libby not flipping and naming names.

[wkwillis]

Think politically. The swing vote is all that matters. How do the swing voters feel about Libby getting a pardon? If they don't care, he gets a pardon. What we think is irrelevant.
Rich got pardoned for his trading companie's contributions toward exposing the oil for food program embezzling by the French, the Russians, the UN officials, etc. That's why it disappeared from the newspapers so fast, because the Republicans clamped down on the story after the Clinton administration clued them in.
Clinton's brother got his record expunged so he could get a gun license or something else that he couldn't get with a drug conviction. Clinton refused to pardon him when Clinton was Governor of Arkansas and he was in an Arkansas jail for some drug conviction.

[Viacondotti]

The piquancy of the Marc Rich examples of course lies in the fact that Libby was Marc Rich's lawyer.

[No Preference]

"Rich got pardoned for his trading companie's contributions toward exposing the oil for food program embezzling by the French, the Russians, the UN officials, etc. That's why it disappeared from the newspapers so fast, because the Republicans clamped down on the story after the Clinton administration clued them in."

I've certainly never heard this before. Do you have a link?

[A. Zarkov]

Ari:

“The statement you made about not knowing the status as an operative of Valerie Plame is highly offensive.”

My statement could be wrong (new facts can emerge), but why is it “highly offensive?” At his press conference Fitzgerald was asked:

“Can you say whether or not you know whether Mr. Libby knew that Valerie Wilson's identity was covert and whether or not that was pivotal at all in your inability or your decision not to charge under the Intelligence Identity Protection Act?”

His answer:
“Let me say two things. Number one, I am not speaking to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert. And anything I say is not intended to say anything beyond this: that she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward.
I will confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003. And all I'll say is that, look, we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent.”
So Ari are you offended by Fitzgerald? Did he say any different than what I said. If you have better information then share it with us, and please send a copy to Fitzgerald.

Additional comment:
If you read the indictment against Libby you will find that it describes Plame as “employee” of the CIA. It also says that Plame’s “employee” status was classified. Nowhere in the indictment is the word “covert” used to describe Plame.

[Ari]

Thank you, I understand. The reason we should be upset however is that employees of the CIA are involved in protecting us, and it is not for us to know or question what status they have. Obviously the identity and status of this employee was supposed to be shielded for our sakes. Setting out the identity was a terrible thing to do. I know you understand, so I had to complain.

[J Thomas]

A. Zarkov, your confusion here is understandable supposing you are not a lawyer.

You aren't a lawyer, are you?

YOU say we don't know whether Plame's status was covert or not.

FITZGERALD says that he does not claim at this time that Plame's status was covert.

It's understandable that you might think these mean the same thing. There have been similar confusions in the past, as for example practically everybody thought that Saddam had WMDs in 2003, while the Bush administration said "We know Saddam has WMDs and we know where they are". There are people to this day who don't see the difference between those.

Similarly, Dan Rather accepted a forged document that claimed to show Bush didn't complete his military service. And there are people to this day who want to say that since one document was forged, there was no problem about Bush's military service.

Lots of people make this kind of logic mistake, it isn't just you.

[p lukasiak]

someone really should make these people look up "covert" in the dictionary.

Valerie Plame, by virtue of the fact that her employment by the CIA was classified, was "covert." It was a secret that she worked for the CIA. She was a "covert" employee.

Of course, what these progeny of Rumplestiltskin are really trying to do is confuse the issue by implying that unless someone met the specific definition of someone protected by the IIPA that they are not "covert."

[Brad DeLong]

As I understand it, there's "covert," and then there's "covert as defined in the Intelligence Agents' Protection Act." These may not be the same thing.

[A. Zarkov]

J. Thomas:

Of course I understand that Plame could have been a “covert” operative, and at this time Fitzgerald chooses not to describe her as such. My point is that until we know she was covert, we should not describe her as such because there are legal implications in using that term. There are many reasons a person working for the CIA could have a secret employee status. The CIA has many undisclosed satellite offices, some in the Washington DC area, and others elsewhere. So you can’t acknowledge that you work for the CIA because that could identify the building where you work as a CIA office. If you did the same job functions over at Headquarters in McLean your employee status most likely would not be secret. On the other hand, some employees work at front organizations, so obviously your connection with the CIA must be held secret. Some overseas CIA employees are “NOCs” meaning “No Official Cover.” They work for overseas front organizations and recruit foreign nationals to spy for them. If the identity of a NOC is revealed then the whole front organization gets “rolled up.” This is the kind of thing that Phillip Agee did in the 1970s. The Intelligence Identity Protection Act was aimed at punishing people like Agee. The authors of the Act wrote in the WSJ that they meant it to apply a pattern of activities, not a single case.

[piotr]

Martha Steward served time for false statements to officials that were not made under oath. This is a crime, although a minor one.

Libby lied under oath. Libby lied on the topic of the investigation, and he definitely obstructed the investigation, even if he obstructed the prosecutor ability to assertain that no crime was committed.

I personally spent several years in an awkward situation, "out of status alien with permission to work", risking even worse, because I did not want to "simplify" the reasons for granting me the immigration visa. At length, State Department issued a statement to the effect that "Piotr X should be denied visa because of Act Y, but under circumstances it would be stupid, so we waive it". I could answer my questionaire in a way that would not trigger consideration of Act A, but if facts were discovered later, I could be simply deported.

The similarity is that it is a crime to lie even if it would lead to correct exoneration. Libby lied that he did not leak, and the putative crime would involve that leaking. He did not lie about totally out of tangent questions. His lies were fabrications, not "shading the truth". Mere mortals in such situations are in deep doo-doo.

[Nan]

A. Zarkov,

"Bill Clinton committed perjury before a grand jury,"

This is incorrect. Clinton testified truthfully to the grand jury and admitted the affair. He had lied in his deposition for the civil case and the case was dismissed by the judge.

[self]

Zarkov,
On Plame's covert status, the 3 judge panel that reviewed Fitzgerald's secret evidence is verification enough for any who are not engaged in intellectual dishonesty.

[A. Zarkov]

Nan:

Are you saying that Clinton did not make his deposition under oath?

[Randall]

The point is that there was an attempt to harm an American intelligence agent because her husband was willing to discuss a false reason given for the disastrous war in Iraq. This was a truly shocking event in a democracy.

[A. Zarkov]

Nan:

1. The impeachment of President Clinton charged that:

“On August 17, 1998, William Jefferson Clinton swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before a Federal grand jury of the United States. Contrary to that oath, William Jefferson Clinton willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury concerning one or more of the following ...”

2. The Starr Report states Clinton lied to the grand jury.

3. Clinton asserts that he did not lie in his grand jury testimony, and his defenders say that he admitted to an “improper relationship” so he didn’t lie. Since he never had to stand trial on that accusation, ultimately it’s in the eye of the beholder as to whether he lied to the grand jury. If after reading the transcript of his appearance before the grand jury you still insist he was not lying then that’s your judgment, but many others disagree.

[A. Zarkov]

Self”

“On Plame's covert status, the 3 judge panel that reviewed Fitzgerald's secret evidence is verification enough for any who are not engaged in intellectual dishonesty.”

You’re weaseling. Show me the evidence that Plame was a covert agent. It might come later, but right now I don’t see any.

[Randall]

All that matters is Valerie Plame was protecting America, and was betrayed by the people who gave away her identity and lied and covered up the betrayal. Anyone who cares about america should be heartsick at the betrayal of a CIA agent. A disgrace!

[J Thomas]

Zarkov, you still haven't told us whether you are a lawyer.

If you *are* a lawyer, then it might make sense to belabor this minor matter of precisely how the crime gets worded.

But the CIA has reported that the CIA was significantly damaged. So the minor details of wordsmithing may matter for the precise charges, but they aren't really central.

There is no question that this attack by high administration officials successfully damaged the CIA. Now the important questions are whether it is legal for them to attack the CIA this way, and whether other important crimes will show up as further evidence is collected.

[howard]

A. Zarkov, actually, Bill Clinton did stand trial on Ken Starr's delusional claim that he lied to the grand jury: the forum for that trial was the united states senate, and he was found innocent (meaning not even a majority voted in favor of that charge).

as for plame's status, i believe that our host has summarized it best: she may or may not have been covert by the Protection Act, but she worked in the operations side of the agency under a over and that wasn't known generally and was therefore covert under normal terms of usage.

i expect, come the revised indictment that i'm expecting, we'll learn more, as we will in the trial itself.

[A. Zarkov]

J. Thomas:

It matters whether Plame was “covert” or not, because the Intelligence Identity Protection Act applies to covert agents, not simply to employees.

“But the CIA has reported that the CIA was significantly damaged.”

The CIA is a profoundly political organization, so until I know how they have been damaged, I am withholding judgment. I’d like to know what operations were compromised, what foreign terms got “rolled up,” what front organizations got closed down. Remember the Wen Ho Lee matter? We were told the most valuable weapons information got compromised. The New York Times did a hatchet job on him, and the FBI lied about his interrogation. Note that the FBI as a matter of policy never video tapes interrogations like many municipal police departments (e.g. LAPD). As it turned out Lee was innocent, and even got an apology from the presiding judge. Not only that there has been a decades old war between CIA and FBI, see the book “Wedge.” The journalists writing about this matter know so little about the CIA, they think it’s in a place called “Langley VA” Headquarters is in McLean. There is no such place as “Langley.” I live near McLean and I can tell you from first hand knowledge there is no Langley. A long time ago there was a small community called Langley, and there is still a Langley High School.

If you’re looking for people who really damaged CIA then try Frank Church.

Randall:

Until you know what Plame was actually doing, you can’t say she was “protecting America.” The CIA is not a person. Parts of it do protect America; other parts are wasting our money. I don’t know which part Plame is (was?) in.

Howard:

A Senate trial is not like a real trial, the outcome is purely political. Do they follow rules of evidence? The whole Clinton matter was purely political and should never have happened in the first place. Nevertheless just read the transcript of the grand jury hearing, and ask yourself is this man telling the truth and the whole truth? I blame the Supreme Court as they should never have forced a sitting President into a civil suit.

Now here we go again. This matter is already making a dysfunctional administration even more dysfunctional. Sometimes you just have to try and work with what you have no matter how bad it is.

[Randall]

Have you no shame, have you no sense of decency? Even were Valerie Plame the most minor or employees of the CIA, what was done to her was a disgrace and is profoundly undemocratic, profoundly harmful to American decency. Shame, shame, shame.

[cymack]

cb upthread says:

--- Fitzgerald could have very well used his visit to Bush's personal attorney last week to make clear that he would view a pardon at this stage of the game as an attempt to obstruct justice and that he would not hesitate to seek an indictment against the President. He may have made clear that a pardon after Libby were to testify fully would not result in an indictment. ---

That seems reasonable enough to me in my ignorance---but as the exercise of Presidential powers is concerned, wouldn't the White House Counsel have been the lawyer that Fitzgerald wanted to inform, rather than Bush's personal lawyer?

[Bruce Moomaw]

A. Zarkov: "This matter is already making a dysfunctional administration even more dysfunctional. Sometimes you just have to try and work with what you have no matter how bad it is."

Not if the fact that they were motivated to do something this idiotic and destructive was due to the fact that (as with Watergate) they were trying to cover up something worse. Note:

(1) ...that if the Senate Intelligence Committee report (pg. 44-46) is actually correct in saying that Wilson changed his story about what his report to the CIA actually stated -- and that the latter was actually noncommittal on the subject of whether Sadddam was trying to acquire Nigerien uranium -- then why did the White House feel it necessary to smear Wilson by outing his wife, as opposed to simply pointing out that Wilson was dishonestly changing his story? The only likely explanations are either that the Intelligence Committee report is wrong, or that the White House was deathly afraid that Wilson (or the CIA) was in a position to expose something more and needed to be discredited first.

(2) Murray Waas' recent, very important National Journal article, which backs up the latter idea: http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1027nj1.htm

(3) Barton Gellman's new Washington Post article ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/29/AR2005102901478_pf.html ), which also suggests the same thing:
"Wilson pressed himself fully into the spotlight in the late spring and early summer [of 2003], a vulnerable moment for the president. The occupation of Iraq had turned unpredictably perilous, with casualties rising in an as-yet unacknowledged insurgency and strong signs emerging that search teams were at a loss to discover evidence of 'weapons of mass destruction.'

"The uranium claims had never been significant to career analysts -- Iraq had plenty already and lacked the means to enrich it. But the allegations proved irresistible to the White House Iraq Group, which devised the war's communications strategy and included Libby among its members. Every layman understood the connection between uranium and the bomb, participants in the group said in interviews at the time, and it was the easiest way for the Bush administration to raise alarms."

(4) The growing indications that the White House may very well have known that the Yellowcake Memos were Italian forgeries, and that they may in fact have been consciously sent as such from the Berlusconi government to the White House (see Josh Marshall's string of recent notes on the subject).

In short, letting this sit because it would "make a dysfunctional administration even worse" is like proposing that Watergate should be ignored because it would "tear the country apart". And saying that it shouldn't be investigated because it's obviously a trivial offense is like saying that a certain "fifth-rate burglary" shouldn't be probed for the same reason.

[rea]

I think a case could be made that although the president has very broad pardon powers, he commits obstruction of justice if he promises to pardon an act of perjury before the perjury is committed. Very difficult to prove, though . . .

[howard]

A. Zarkov, of course you're right that the impeachment should never have happened, but the fact is, you can call it what you will: impeachment is a trial, and the jury is the senate, and they were unconvinced of perjury, and that's all that has to be said (other, i suppose, than that i watched the testimony at the time and followed the impeachment pretty closely, and no, i don't think clinton committed perjury. now, if you want perjury, look at bill gates roughly contemporaneous testimony in the microsoft antitrust case).

rea, i agree with both of your points.

[J Thomas]

"It matters whether Plame was “covert” or not, because the Intelligence Identity Protection Act applies to covert agents, not simply to employees."

So you're arguing in terms of one particular law, regardless of the others that were broken. Are you a lawyer? Why do you bother us with this red herring?

"The CIA is a profoundly political organization, so until I know how they have been damaged, I am withholding judgment."

So you're supposing that Libby might be innocent on the assumption that the CIA might be lying about it. Got it.

While you're at it, why not suppose that Libby might not be guilty of perjury because everybody else involved including Cheney might be lying about it....

"If you’re looking for people who really damaged CIA then try Frank Church."

How about Porter Goss.

I can understand how you'd take this stand as a partisan troll. But aren't you concerned about your reputation? You've been using this name for a long time, and you've gotten a certain reputation as being knowledgeable about some military matters that support your politics. Why do you risk all credibility now, defending the indefensible?

[A. Zarkov]

“So you're supposing that Libby might be innocent on the assumption that the CIA might be lying about it. Got it.
While you're at it, why not suppose that Libby might not be guilty of perjury because everybody else involved including Cheney might be lying about it....”

Absolutely not. I started off by accepting the fact of Libby’s perjury as evident on the facts presented in the indictment. But much of the invective directed against him has more to do with the substantive crime of exposing a covert operative, as opposed to obstruction of the investigation. If the CIA was somehow damaged, then let’s hear how it was damaged. After all he has not been charged under the Intelligence Identity Protection Act, and one has to wonder why. There are at least two possibilities: (1) Plame was covert and the CIA was damaged, but it’s too hard to prove; (2) Plame was not covert, and no damage resulted, so there is nothing to charge him with. If (1) is true, then the perjury indictment is like getting Al Capone on income tax evasion. If (2) is true, then I would suspect that Fitzgerald didn’t want to come up empty after two years of work.

“I can understand how you'd take this stand as a partisan troll … “

A troll is someone you disagree with? When you run out of stream, you start with the insults. Cite me one time when I have ever directed an insult to anyone.

[Ian Welsh]

I don't usually comment here and this will be an amusing experiment, but I'll make an exception for Zarkov.

If outting Valerie Plame were not a crime, there would have been nothing for Fitzgerald to investigate. The CIA had to complain to Justice, Justice had to accept that and assign a prosecutor. They did. If Valerie was not covered by the Act then there would have been no investigation. The only ways around that are to specify that the CIA and Justice under Ashcroft did a politically motivated hit job or that there is another statute which might have been violated.

Simply put, if Valerie does not fall under the definition of the Act there would almost certainly be no investigation.

You can parse all you want, but the strong preponderance of evidence is that Valerie was a covert operative under the meaning of the act. Slice fine and you can find some sliver of doubt, but not more than that.

And yes, that makes you a troll because you're good enough at logic chopping to know what you're doing.

[howard]

sheesh, it has come to this: i'm going to defend A. Zarkov, with whom i rarely agree.

He is most assuredly not a troll; he's often, in my estimation, wrong, but he's generally well-mannered and attempts to discuss concrete matters, not fling insults.

Ian, the IIPA is not the easiest statute in the world to prosecute under, both in terms of its specific definition of "covert" and in terms of having to prove a state of mind ("knowingly").

On the other hand, Fitzgerald wasn't tasked with seeing if the IIPA was violated; he was tasked with investigating the exposure of a CIA agent.

[AllenM]

Zarkov,
I have to agree with Howard that the entire investigation is predicated that V.P. was a N.O.C., and that compromising her status was very bad. Your logic has escaped you, though, because you are arguing around the point. The real point is who told NOVAK. Novak was spoon fed a line and he delivered it hook, line, and sinker from the administration. Now, further indictments will result with that revelation. Why did the journalism community *know* that V.P. was Wilson's wife? The first shoe dropped for obstruction of justice and the investigation, another shoe will drop with further indictments. Nobody has talked about violations of the Espionage Act of 1917, as of yet- but there is a new grand jury being impaneled as we type. The only purpopse behind Scooter lying was to bury this beyond November 2004 and the election.

As the old saying goes, something is rotten in denmark, like dead herring washed up on a baltic shore. Fitzgerald is shoveling up the sludge and pawing through it for nuggets of truth.

[J Thomas]

Zarkov, a troll isn't somebody who says things somebody else finds insulting, although you have done that.

A troll is somebody who attempts intentionally to derail the discussion by using bad logic, red herrings, insults, etc.

You have attempted to switch the topic to Clinton, to Martha Stewart, to obscure points about whether other posters are making minor misstatements, to abstruse interpretations involving one particular abstruse security law that might have nothing to do with Fitzgerald's strategy.

You apear to be trying to imply that Libby may have done nothing wrong in the first place, but only committed perjury for ... some unknown reason.

The original topic was as follows:

Libby committed perjury unless the indictment was severely misstated. Why did he do it? Was he crazy? Or was he trying to cover up a conspiracy to intimidate the CIA? AllenM has suggested a third possibility, that he lied to slow down Fitzgerald's investigation past the 2004 elections.

And what about a presidential pardon? Is there a time and place that discussing the details of a possible presidential pardon is itself obstruction of justice?

The answers provided so far are no, yes, and yes-but-hard-to-prove.

The discussion that isn't related to you has gone in various interesting directions. The discussion related to you has headed to various dead ends. Which time was Clinton lying under oath? Shouldn't we assume that Libby may be innocent of any crime except perjury until we see all the evidence? On this last multiple people have responded to you mostly out of indignation. They assume that you ought to be logical and so you really ought to understand the ahsurdity of your position if they just explain it one more time.

In short -- troll.

[tjallen]

Surely Bush The First pardoned people in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, and got away with it, right?

Read Lawrence Walsh (the Special Prosecutor)'s book Firewall - despite any claims of his bias, etc., Walsh makes it clear that the pardons prevented the prosecution of a number of Reagan-Bush officials, Weinberger, especially.

It's been a long time since I read it, but particularly I remember the issue of Weinberger's "copious notes." Photos of cabinet meetings show Weinberger taking notes, his fellow cabinet members all remember Weinberger taking notes like a madman, yet Walsh and the American people *still* have never seen these notes again. The public seemed way-tired of the investigation by then, and forgave Bush I's pardons, but in my memory, justice was not served, and the pardons closed off the prosecution of high-level cabinet members involved in a conspiracy.

My point? Bush The First already got away with an example of what Brad is asking about, so of course, Bush W can do it too (maybe even bigger and better!)