Mr Fitzgerald, Where's the Beef??

[Bonnie]

by Jim Kouri
1 November 2005

The Scooter Libby indictment provides more questions than answers in that not one person has been indicted for the crime of divulging the identity of a covert CIA operative.



Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney as well as a trusted White House security advisor, was indicted Friday by a special grand jury with five felony counts of perjury, obstructing justice and making false statements in the Valerie Plame-CIA Leak case. Libby wasn't immediately arrested, but he did resign from his White House post.

The two-year grand jury investigated allegations that someone in the Bush White House leaked the identity of a CIA covert agent to the press, a criminal act if proven true.


Plame is the wife of former US Ambassador Joe Wilson, who publicly cast doubt on Bush's case for invading Iraq -- that Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear weapons. Mr. Wilson intimated at first that it was Vice President Cheney who dispatched him to Africa, something that turned out to be false. As facts slowly came to light, it became obvious that Mr. Wilson has a casual relationship with the truth. For instance, it was discovered that indeed it was his wife who pushed for Wilson to be sent to Niger to investigate intelligence regarding Iraq and uranium. Wilson repeatedly denied it until a memorandum written by Plame was discovered showing she highly recommended her husband for the fact-finding mission.

Ironically, it was British intelligence which made the claim that Iraq sought the capability to develop nuclear weapons and during Bush's speech in 2003 he mentioned it was a British allegation. To this day the British continue to stand by their intelligence and analysis. And the so-called "16 misleading words" are really a fabrication of the mainstream news media.


The Libby indictment -- the only one after two years of investigation -- provides more questions than answers in that not one person has been indicted for the crime of divulging the identity of a covert CIA operative. In fact, during prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's press conference and subsequent question and answer session with gleeful news reporters, he continuously used the word "classified." But leaking classified information is not a crime, or else people such as Senator Patrick "Leaky" Leahy would be serving several prison sentences and keeping house for his new jailhouse boyfriend.

One could make the case that the indictment of Scooter Libby is actually a victory of sorts for the Bush Administration. Karl Rove, the so-called political genius in the Bush White House, was not indicted Friday as many hopeful reporters, pundits and Democrat operatives had predicted. However, Mr. Fitzgerald did give the reporters attending his dramatic press conference a ray of hope that perhaps the Democrats and the mainstream news media will eventually succeed in fulfilling Joe Wilson's dream of seeing Rove, "Frog walked in handcuffs out of the White House."

Prosecutor Fitzgerald claims that Libby knowingly misled the grand jury about his role in the exposing of Valerie Plame, a CIA secret agent whose cover was blown when administration aides leaked her name to reporters. Of course, no one asked about the fact that Joe Wilson mentioned his CIA wife in his bio posted on a seminar website well before the Robert Novak article "outed" Plame.

Fitzgerald, playing to the cheap media seats, went into a tirade about the seriousness of divulging classified information and its risks to national security. That is true. However, Mr. Fitzgerald's grand jury did not indict Libby for anything having to do with divulging classified information. He's charged with perjury and obstruction in a case of leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent, and if the charges be true then Libby deserves the appropriate punishment.

Once the celebrating denizens of America's newsrooms calm down, perhaps they will begin to take this case as seriously as they wish Americans to take it. As stated earlier, there are more questions than answers in this case. For instance, did Valerie Plame testify before the grand jury? Did Joe Wilson? Was Valerie Plame indeed a covert CIA agent? Who in the CIA sent Wilson, a man with no intelligence experience, to Africa to investigate the British claims that Saddam attempted to procure yellow-cake uranium? Didn't the US congress question the validity of Wilson's reportage?

And didn't congressmen report that Wilson lacked credibility? Where is Joe Wilson's CIA report? If Mr. Wilson's trip to Africa was classified, why was he blabbing about it in an op-ed piece in the New York Times? When Joe Wilson worked for the John Kerry campaign and was prominently listed on Kerry's website, why was his bio and information removed so quickly when it came out that Wilson was a liar? Yes, there are many, many questions that need to be answered.

Scooter Libby's indictment provided a day of celebration for the Democrat Party and the liberal news media. Soon, Libby will retain attorneys who will conduct their own investigation into this case. This is not a slam-dunk for the prosecution, the liberal-left media and the Democrat Party. They may want to re-think their plans of riding Joe Wilson to victory in the 2006 elections.

Libby's attorneys and their investigators will pursue answers to many questions that the news media feel they should ignore. They will also have the power of discovery, full disclosure, and will be able to dissect what went on in the grand jury room. They will be able to delve into Valerie Plame's and Joe Wilson's attempts to undermine the Bush war effort. Defense counsel will look into the purpose of the CIA sending a left-wing activist with no intelligence or investigative skills on such a sensitive mission. The defense lawyers will reveal what many already know: that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame had a hidden agenda. These topnotch lawyers will conduct an inquiry into the relationship Joe Wilson has with Senator Chuckie Schumer or other Democrat Party honchos.

In the days ahead the Democrat Party blowhards will repeatedly talk about the Bush Administration's "culture of corruption." The fact is there has been merely one White House staffer who's ever been indicted in five years. I suggest the Democrats look at the number of indictments and convictions during the eight years of the Clinton Administration before they start their vitriolic rhetoric. And if they want to discuss issues of national security, they should go talk to Sandy "Pants" Berger.

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article4702.html