Watch the cons spin the criminal indictment of the vice president’s chief of staff as no big deal. Ha!
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Of course it is a big deal. Hopefully the Admin. will do the right thing and immediately suspend him pending trial. Of course any indictment of Rove would be an even bigger deal, particularly if it were for the leak and not perjury. An indictment of Rove could have kept this story going. Libby? No one outside of D.C. is really going to care.
Isn’t this the highest ranking member of the Executive ever to be indicted while still in office?
Nixon, Agnew,etc. resigend before being indicted. No one as high up in the Clinton administration was indicted – it would be like Stephanapolis or Begala or Carville being indicted.
This is a pretty big deal.
They were responding to the second comment in the thread. Funny how that works.
Don’t order the party hats yet…
BTW, for some big time scandals, you need to look at the Tammany Hall Democrats, Mayor Jimmy Walker (a Democrat), and half of Chicaco’s (Democratic) politicians.
Reagan’s Labor Secretary was indicted while in office and Clinton had a few cabinet secretaries who resigned in advance of their indictments. Excluding Clinton’s impeachment, I say that the indictment of a sitting cabinet secretary would outrank the indictment of a VP’s chief of staff or a President’s deputy chief of staff (Rove’s present title?) on the “pretty big deal scale.”
By the way, how come Boris Badenov hasn’t killed Valerie Plame yet?
Because that was never Boris’ desire. Boris wants to sell off some leftover Russian nukes for quick cash. Valerie–or other “associates” of Brewster-Jennings–might have been around to learn about that had the true nature of the company remained secret.
“Isn t this the highest ranking member of the Executive ever to be indicted while still in office?”
Um, no….that would be President Clinton. Impeachment is the same as indictment.
Don’t forget Abscam, Frank.
“Money talks, bullshit walks.”
BTW, for the terminally offended here, I’m not saying Abscam was as serious as outing an allegedly covert agent, so save your righteous indignation for another time.
I love how Frank and PSU94’s first response is to point to the Dems.
Jesus, couldn’t you guys have waited a full DAY before ignoring the criminal activities of the current Bush administration?
Uh, Laurence has already judged this whole affair to be “as shallow as a rain puddle.” So’s Powerline. So’ve tons of other winger blogs. So the cons have already said it. Get with the talking points, Tuco!
The wingers posting here seem to be eager for Fitzgerald to continue his investigation of conservative criminalizing, so that we can get beneath the surface. I agree there is probably much more to be uncovered.
Too bad the WH was not really all that forthcoming in their early testimony. Had they simply told the truth the first time around it may not have taken so long. Also Fitzgerald should have not waited until after the 2004 election to really start investigating. He need not have been so magnanimous.
It’s already clear how the right wing media is playing it: since Rove wasn’t indicted, it’s a victory. Drudge, for example, puts his siren on high alert last night, but what’s today’s top story? Not that Scooter Libby is indicted b/c he found out about Plame from Cheney. It’s that Rove is NOT indicted. Pathetic. “But we’re not as bad as al-Qaeda!” “It’s only one indictment!” Fucking shameless.
For all the mentions of Rove’s name, where’s the indictment against him?
Furthermore, the indictments appear to be related to *responses* to Fitzgerald’s inquisition, not the actual Plame name-mention.
Some could say that this is just scratching the surface, but I think all this is as shallow as a rainpuddle.
TomY;
I sense a vast right wing sigh of relief as well, yet the celebratory windfall they expected from the other side is no more than a sigh of consternation at the mute nature of white collar crimes. Look at Watergate and Iran-Contra and you can see “obfuscation to power” is a strategy which works. That strategy turns criminal acts into ‘trivialities’ and diffuses the public rancor.
They treat the perps with ‘kid gloves’ . Where is the ‘perp walk’ for Libby?
Special treatment for white collar criminals makes their dirty deeds appear trivial.
No, Tuco, an indictment isn’t a conviction.
I would say, though, that when the stakes are this high and involve such prominent figures–a federal prosecutor isn’t going to seek indictments without what he or she feels is an airtight case–unless it has a political motive behind it.
Given that Fitzgerald is a GOPer, appointed by a GOPer, in a GOP administration–I think we can dispense with the political motive angle.
That said, if you’d care to make a wager on Libby escaping conviction–I’d be pleased to take your action.
If you’re even asking me that, it’s obvious that you didn’t read my post for comprehension.
Oliver, did you flunk your civics classes in school by any chance?
Let me explain it to you slowly:
An indictment is when someone is charged with a crime.
In America, people who are charged with crimes are considered legally innocent until a jury find that they are guilty.
You, on the other hand, have already decided that Libby is guilty.
You’ve also decided that–even though they have not been indicted–Rove, Bush, and Cheney are guilty.
You’ve also decided that the “cons” (how juvenile) are going to say that it’s no big deal.
Some of us will actually read the indictment,listen to the prosecutor, and wait for the evidence before we decide that it’s “no big deal.”
If you ask me, Soros isn’t getting his money’s worth.
BTW, for some big time scandals, you need to look at the Tammany Hall Democrats, Mayor Jimmy Walker (a Democrat), and half of Chicaco s (Democratic) politicians. >>
Thanks for the relevant perspective. I knew all along we should have been comparing the Cheney Administration with Tammany Hall, fer chrissakes. Tammany in the 1880s. And Jimmy Walker in the 1920s.
Tom Y:
I’m elated. Let the wingers spin it any way they wish–the fact is they’ve been wrong on just about everything regarding this crime. Each and every one of their talking points has been shot down. They’re reduced to trying to make the argument perjury is a victory. Read the indictment–it’s very clear.
Make no mistake, this absolutelty devastates the WH. The indictment shows very plainly this administration was engaged in lying to sell the Iraq war. This undercuts every pro-war winger who claims to have a principled stand on the necessity of going into Iraq. That, coupled with the fact Iraq is going poorly will push AWOL George into even poorer poll numbers. This will dominate the news cycle for a year. It will push missing pretty white girls off the cable news shows.
Further, Rove is still out there–that’s going to keep the story alive and buzzing.
Can we please ignore the trolls for today? They’re just trying to obfuscate the matter at hand.
Let’s step back for a minute. What does this all come down to?
The neo-con agenda is for this country to use its considerable military might to force democracies on the Arab despots of the Middle East. Their first experiment to this end was Iraq, a nation that satisfied the neo-con checklist for forced democracy. It was 1) Arab, 2) Ruled by a despot; and 3) in the Middle East. It also had the further benefit of being oil-rich.
However, this agenda could not be plainly stated. After all, you can’t convince a nation to go to war because Michael Ledeen says you need to pick up a country and throw it against the wall every ten years or so.
So, this administration had to look for other rationales. It had been widely suspected (though never verified) by the previous administration that Iraq had WMDs. The administration thought it would pursue this line of argument for war.
However, as they tried desperately to prove Iraq had WMDs, they kept running into the nuisance known as truth. Iraq, it turned out, really did not have WMDs. This was a slight hindrance to the march to war; after all, the administration thought, we just have to get our forces on the ground there. Once that happens, we’ll be greeted as liberators, they’ll put statues of Bush up in Baghdad, and no one will remember why we went there in the first place.
But you have to get the troops on the ground. So, when individuals show up who question the administration’s grasp of reality, their credibility must be destroyed…
Fast forward…
… and you have a two year investigation and indictments that have just started today.
I used to think it was impossible in today’s world to have a scandal as big as this can potentially be. The aristocracy is too entrenched, the watchdogs are in their employ, the populace is defined by apathy.
But sometimes, very rarely, a wave of relief washes over you. The system, however flawed, works.
For as much as the spin is going to be that “it’s only Libby” and “it’s only five counts of perjury, obstruction, and false statements,” the indictment of Libby itself answers some questions and raises others.
Note Count 1, Section (f) which states once and for all that Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA employee was considered classified information. Trot that out next time somebody tries to claim she wasn’t covert enough for all this trouble.
Also, the bigger issue is that, if found guilty, it means Libby was willing to lie for two years about what conservatives have been trumpeting as a complete non-issue. So either the man is pathological, or there’s something that was worth that much effort and, ultimately, was worth his job. Neither option is reassuring. And it certainly puts “technicalities” like perjury into a much larger context.
Fitz made the point that witnesses can leak if they want (and they apparently do so, selectively, suprise, surprise) but everyone else can be arrested because it’s aginst the law.
That BS should be changed posthaste or the sociopaths who feel the end jusitfies the means will ply their ethically- challenged trade with the usual impunity.
FROM THE INTERNETS:
Overlooked in the current discussion.
Go to page 5 of the indictment. Top of the page, item #9.
On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson’s wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Divison. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.
This is a crucial piece of information. the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) is part of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, i.e., not Directorate of Intelligence, the branch of the CIA where ‘analysts’ come from, but where the spies come from.
Libby’s a long time national security hand. He knows exactly what CPD is and where it is. So does Cheney. They both knew. It’s right there in the indictment.
– Josh Marshall
I don’t see how “Perjury and obstruction charges are the first step in establishing whether the actual leaking is a provable crime. ”
Generally, perjury and obstruction are the last step or made in concert with the underlying act. If Fitzgerald believed he could make a case that Libby revealed classified information, he would have charged him with it now, not wait to see the outcome of the trial on the perjury and obstruction charges. If nothing else, he would have thrown it in just to get more leverage when it comes to a plea deal.
To use Martha Stewart as an example again, the prosecutors couldn’t get her for illegal trading, but rather got her for lying to investigators. Her conviction for lying to investigators did not make the underlying criminal act any more viable as a prosecution.
Also as per what BD says. It’s only logical to assume that Libby lied for a good reason or for what he felt was a good reason, which, in this case, would logically be to protect himself and/or others. Protect himself and/or others from what, is the question that Fitzgerald can’t answer precisely because Libby lied. The only other option is Libby lied because of some massive character flaw which, given his power and his proximity to power, is in itself troubling. Either way, it’s bad, bad, bad for this administration.
I’ve read the indictment and the prosecutor’s statement. The charges against Libby are about him lying about what he told the press.
It was a CIA official who told Libby about Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald also said the indictments were not directly related to the leak, so what is all this nonsense about Libby working with the WH, State Dept to commit illegal acts?
“All I m saying is that Fitzgerald himself said these charges were not directly related to the leaking of Plame s identity. ”
Wrong. Didn’t you get his baseball analogy? Fitzgerald said that Libby’s obfuscation makes it difficult if not impossible to know the real motives behind the leak which is why he considers these charges to be serious. Libby’s lies seriously impeded the investigation. The intention behind the leak is the key to the big picture and Libby apparently deliberately muddied the waters. WE can infer that it’s because he was working in concert with others who he is now trying to protect. Fitzgerald may think so too but he can’t comment on it because he won’t speak about people he can’t charge with a crime. He can’t bring charges because Libby lied. That’s my understanding of it.
Fitz also said that it’s impossible to know *intent* when it comes to proving illegalities so long as the suspect is *lying* to you. Perjury and obstruction charges are the first step in establishing whether the actual leaking is a provable crime.
Jay wrote: “The charges against Libby are about him lying about what he told the press.”
And from where he heard it. He said he heard it from Russert. In fact, he heard it from four sources.
Jay wrote: “It was a CIA official who told Libby about Valerie Plame.”
It was also Cheney, a State Department undersecretary (many have speculated John Bolton) and another official. Was it Rove?
I m curious to know how Jadegold reaches the conclusion that the indictment makes & pretty clear Libby was working in concert with the WH, State Dept, and senior levels of this illegitimate admin to commit illegal acts.
Read the indictments.
It’s clear Libby wasn’t acting alone; he was acting in concert with quite a few folks in the WH and other agencies. Libby didn’t operate in a vacuum.
And from where he heard it. He said he heard it from Russert. In fact, he heard it from four sources.
Yes, he lied about how he knew, what he knew. That’s where the obstruction charge comes in.
All I’m saying is that Fitzgerald himself said these charges were not directly related to the leaking of Plame’s identity. Given that, I’m curious to know how Jadegold reaches the conclusion that the indictment makes “…pretty clear Libby was working in concert with the WH, State Dept, and senior levels of this illegitimate admin to commit illegal acts.”
Again, read the indictment.
The wingers cannot honestly say this was one guy behaving badly by himself. It’s pretty clear Libby was working in concert with the WH, State Dept, and senior levels of this illegitimate admin to commit illegal acts. The bottomline is it’s clear what Libby was doing was known to quite a number of folks in the administration and they approved or abetted it.
You know I’m correct, Jay C. The fact you see company b execs in your office is pure speculation and does not constitute non-public information. OTOH, if a VP from your company rushes down to your cubicle in the mailroom and says, ‘hey, don’t tell anyone–I was at a meeting with the board and they’re going to announce a merger in 2 weeks.’
However, insider trading is illegal when stock is bought or sold based on information that is not made known to the public. Tipping is common, but also illegal. Unfortunately, the law is shaky.
No. the law’s not shaky; your reasoning is. ‘Tipping’ can be legal if its based on speculation/research. It becomes illegal when you get info that’s not available to the public–such as a preliminary non-public earnings report or internal correspondence noting problems with a company’s product line.
Again, nobody’s in jail for the crime of insider trading. They’re in for fraud, conspiracy, perjury, false statements.
KOS;
Go to page 5 of the indictment [PDF]. Top of the page, item #9.
On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson’s wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Divison. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.
This is a crucial piece of information. the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) is part of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, i.e., not Directorate of Intelligence, the branch of the CIA where ‘analysts’ come from, but where the spies come from.
Libby’s a long time national security hand. He knows exactly what CPD is and where it is. So does Cheney. They both knew. It’s right there in the indictment.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html
Read the indictments.
I did.
It s clear Libby wasn t acting alone;
Acting alone to do what?
John Hindraker showing more integrity than most conservatives.
As to Libby, the indictment is devastating. If the facts alleged are true–and they are evidently based on the testimony of a considerable number of witnesses–they can’t be chalked up to inadvertence, misstatement or differing recollections. The indictment alleges that Libby had a number of conversations with various people in the executive branch, from Vice-President Cheney on down, about the fact that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. It alleges further that Libby had conversations with several reporters in which Plame’s CIA employment was discussed.
KOS doing the heavy lifting;
Go to page 5 of the indictment [PDF]. Top of the page, item #9.
On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson’s wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Divison. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.
This is a crucial piece of information. the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) is part of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, i.e., not Directorate of Intelligence, the branch of the CIA where ‘analysts’ come from, but where the spies come from.
Libby’s a long time national security hand. He knows exactly what CPD is and where it is. So does Cheney. They both knew. It’s right there in the indictment.
Reading comprehension skills, people.
I didn’t say “insider” trading, rather “illegal” trading — i.e., trading on information not available to the public. The prosecutors couldn’t get her for that but they got her for perjury, obstruction, etc.
Here, the original investigation was the leak of supposed classified information. To date, the prosecutor has not indicted anyone for that, and it looks like he is not going to. Rather, Libby was indicted for perjury, obstruction, etc.
If the prosecutor could have made a case for it (and maybe he tried but the grand jury didn’t go for it, which is doubtful but not impossible) he would have, in addition to the perjury and obstruction, etc. Of course, it doesn’t meand the crime wasn’t committed, although it could, it means that the prosecutor didn’t think he could make a case.
MORE FROM THE INTERNETS
In one of the boldest moves yet in the 22-month investigation into the outing of a covert CIA agent to a handful of top reporters covering the White House, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is extending his probe and pursuing much more serious charges against senior White House officials, specifically President Bush s Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, lawyers directly involved in the case told RAW STORY Friday.
While many people were left confused by news reports that said Rove wouldn’t be indicted Friday, the lawyers said that Rove remains under intense scrutiny and added that Fitzgerald is betting on the fact that he can secure an indictment against Rove on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, the misuse of classified information, and possibly other charges, as early as next week.
This investigation is not yet over, one of the lawyers in the case said. You must keep in mind that people like Mr. Rove are still under investigation. Rather than securing an indictment on perjury charges against Mr. Rove Mr. Fitzgerald strongly believes he can convince the grand jury that he broke other laws.
—-Raw Story
heh-indeedy, go read the whole thing
“If Fitzgerald believed he could make a case that Libby revealed classified information, he would have charged him with it now, not wait to see the outcome of the trial on the perjury and obstruction charges.”
I’m at work so I didn;t hear the whole press conference and haven’t had time to read the indictment but I did hear him say that, essentially, Libby’s perjury — and possibly the perjury of others — made it impossible for him to prove intent, which I assume is important to bring a crime of revealing classified information. We now know for certain, without a doubt, that Plame’s identity as a CIA operative was classified. I thought with his baseball analofy, Fitzgerald was speaking directly to intent, which is now difficult if not impossible to prove because Libby, in effect, “blocked the view of the umpire.” But as he said, the grand jury remains open to consider new evidence and new charges. Nothing is closed on the leak aspect of this yet. As far as I understand.
He can t bring charges because Libby lied. That s my understanding of it.
The indictment and the prepared 9 page statement fail to do one thing and that is make clear Libby’s motives for doing what he did and for good reason, as his motives seem to be irrelevant.
Libby lied about where he got the information. In reading the paperwork, it’s crystal clear Fitzgerald knows exactly where he got that information.
Libby also lied about what he told reporters. Since it was clear where he got his information, it was bogus when he said he told Cooper he heard from other reporters that Plame worked for the CIA.
Those lies, which presumably had Fitzgerald issuing subpoenas to Cooper and Miller is what brought on the obstruction charge.
Hedley is exactly right. If Fitzgerald had enough evidence to charge Libby with revealing Plame’s identity, he would have done so.
The fact is there is no such crime as insider trading. In fact, insider trading is legal.
Not entirely true. Insider trading is legal when corporate officers buy and sell stock in their own company like you pointed out.
However, insider trading is illegal when stock is bought or sold based on information that is not made known to the public. ‘Tipping’ is common, but also illegal. Unfortunately, the law is shaky.
For example, if I work for Company A, and somebody tells me that Company B is going to buy us out, and I purchase a bunch of stock based on that, I have just committed an illegal act.
However, if I happen to see executives from Company B in our offices, recognize them and draw a conclusion based on that, I can buy as much stock as I want and it’s not an issue.
To use Martha Stewart as an example again, the prosecutors couldn t get her for illegal trading,
Hedley is sooooo wrong.
The fact is there is no such crime as ‘insider trading.’ In fact, ‘insider trading’ is legal. It happens literally hundreds of thousands of times each day when an officer or principal of a company buys or sells his or her own company’s stock.
The action does become illegal is when that officer or principal falsely attests he or she has no information that is not available to the public. That’s where perjury and false statements enter into the picture.
WRT Libby crimes, Fitzgerald was crystal clear on this issue; obstruction of justice, false statements and perjury often make proving crimes difficult. It doesn’t mean the crimes weren’t committed.
Acting alone to do what?
Political retribution against Wilson; to hide the fact their case for going to war with Iraq was based on info they knew was very likely untrue. In their attempts to smear Wilson, they opted to attack his wife whose CIA status was classified.
From the indictment:
two things here; first, it looks like Unka Dick was up to his pacemaker in running some opp research into Wilson’s wife. Second, the CPD is in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations where the undercover agents are, as opposed to analysts or ‘desk jockeys.’
The wheels of justice grind slowly but inexhorably, whereas the sword of
FitzZorro…………………….is being sharpened as we speak.