Libby Indicted On, Well, Nothing Involving National Security

For making a false statement, perjury, and obstruction of justice... all charges which could very well arise from the same misstatement.

The Threshhold Question: The first question Fitzgerald needed to answer was whether or not there was even a possible crime committed, even assuming the facts to be the most harmful to Libby.

This is a question of law, not fact. You don't need to empanel a grand jury to decide if Valerie Plame was a covert agent, or if any of the various national security laws were broken.

This question could have been, and should have been, answered in the first month of legal investigation, using no greater investigative resources than a law library.

And yet, two years later, Fitzgerald apparently finds there was no violation of the IIPA, the Espionage Act, or any act involving the dissemination of classified information.

And during those two years he's had people in jail for contempt and questioned many witnesses before the grand jury.

Why was he doing all that when month's work of legal research should have told him there wasn't a crime committed?

And so here we are. No crime was committed BEFORE the investigation, so he indicts someone on five charges (?) for statements made in the course of the investigation.

Without an investigation, no possible crime, apparently.

Straight shooter? I don't think so. Andrew McCarthy says he's "non-partisan," and perhaps he thinks of himself that way, but I can't help thinking that he knew what the New York Times and the rest of the media & university-club swells would have said had he wrapped up the investigation after a month. Their opinions matter to him, so he kept at it for two years, until he finally came up with what I'm guessing will turn out to be a rather debatable and ticky-tack perjury claim.

Had these been Democrats under investigation, the inquiry would have ended a month in, as it should have.

posted by Ace at 01:21 PM

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