I. Lewis Libby
Arthur Herman, in Commentary, notes that reporter Judith Miller’s recent memoir (published in April) identifies some previously unnoted prosecutorial misconduct in the partisan-motivated judicial lynching of Vice Presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby even beyond the mere fact that Fitzgerald prosecuted Libby, knowing perfectly well that Libby was not guilty of the supposed leak.
Fitzgerald began his work already knowing who had promulgated the leak, for Armitage had confessed as much to the FBI in October. “I may be the guy who caused this whole thing,†he reportedly told a State Department official.
But Fitzgerald declined to prosecute Armitage. Indeed, he told Armitage to keep his mouth shut. … He was after bigger fish. If he could catch either Rove or Libby lying to his investigators or making misstatements that could be portrayed as perjurious, he might be able to get them to turn on their bosses and “expose†a conspiracy reaching up to the president and vice president to punish Wilson by outing Plame.
This was a classic prosecutor ploy in cases involving the Mafia or other RICO-style investigations. It was a new and disturbing way to proceed against men with spotless, even distinguished, public records.
But with the media firestorm about the Plame story and the war in Iraq, Fitzgerald felt free to press ahead. Throughout the 2004 election cycle, the White House and Office of the Vice President were locked in a routine of reviewing and providing thousands of documents to the FBI, Justice Department, and then Fitzgerald; providing hours of sworn depositions in front of investigators; and long bouts of grand-jury testimony for both Rove and Libby. With the violence in Iraq growing and the occupation strategy flailing, with WMD investigator David Kay’s January 2004 report to Congress on the absence of stockpiles seeming to confirm Wilson’s claims that the administration had twisted intelligence about Saddam’s WMDs, and with Democrats who had supported the war now arguing that “Bush lied and people died,†Fitzgerald’s investigation had taken on a new importance. Its very existence was a way to portray the Bush policy in Iraq as not only the result of incompetence, but deliberate wrongdoing.
Read the whole thing.
SDD
But to paraphrase Harry Reid, “The Democrats won the Congress in 2006, so it worked.”
mysterian
a rebuttal of some of the facts cited:
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2015/05/19/judith-millers-trial-and-error-approach-to-journalism
Maggie's Farm
Wednesday morning links
Scientists find way to create supersized fruit In ‘Tomorrowland,’ We Get a Glimpse of the Left’s Vision for the Future “Get over it, grammarians.†Why It Pays to Be a Jerk – New research confirms what they say about nice guys. Dining with Big Gov
gonewiththewind
Bush naively encouraged all his people to fully cooperate with the investigation in the belief that some crime had been committed and justice would be served. But it was a witch hunt, Fitzgerald was gunning for Cheney. Libby simly had the misfortune of misremembering his schedule of a year ago while under oath. Libby should have taken the Hillary Clinton approach to testifying; “I don’t recall”.
Assistant Village Idiot
@Mysterian. Not really. The writer twists and reinterprets her words, then states an entirely plausible explanation is somehow impossible. He then speculates “perhaps,” with no evidence, that it was her NYT byline being offered.
He may be correct about the details in the second half of his article, but I am not motivated to accept these at face value.
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