Rebutting the "no underlying crime" spin
Debate practice. The spin coming from the right that there was no underlying crime is laughable, but it needs to be countered. Offer up your best rebuttals in the comments. Here's some to get us started.
How is the prosecuter supposed to get to the underlying crime if he's being lied to? That's why they call it obstruction of justice. And if you believe in the rule of law, lying to a grand jury is not a "technicality."
If there's no underlying crime, why is Libby lying? It may be difficult to prove, but we all know Libby is lying to protect Cheney. As far as I'm concerned, either Cheney had to know she was covert, or he had to make it his business to know. The bottom line is the Vice President is involved in obscuring the true reasons they led the country into war. Is there any worse crime than this?
posted by Victor Laszlo @ 10/29/2005
9 comments
9 Comments:
Ok, as a form of practice, I'll take the other side.
"How is the prosecuter supposed to get to the underlying crime if he's being lied to? That's why they call it obstruction of justice. And if you believe in the rule of law, lying to a grand jury is not a "technicality."
He only brought those charges because he realized that Plame's status was not covert: the fact that she worked at the CIA was well-known. Additionally, since she had a desk job at the CIA for years, the laws about passing classified information wouldn't appply in her case. When Fitzgerald realized that he couldn't get anyone on charges related to his original mandate, the illegal passing on of classified information, he had to cover his tracks; he couldn't just come up with nothing, so he came up with these thin obstruction charges.
This is just a "he-said, he-said" difference of opinions about details of conversations held years earlier. The charges will be thrown out, because it will be impossible to prove that the conversations between Libby went one way in particular, or the other. They will all take the fifth when they take the stand.
"If there's no underlying crime, why is Libby lying?"
He didn't lie, he just "misspoke," (yes, I have actually seen that argument put forward).
"It may be difficult to prove, but we all know Libby is lying to protect Cheney. As far as I'm concerned, either Cheney had to know she was covert, or he had to make it his business to know. The bottom line is the Vice President is involved in obscuring the true reasons they led the country into war. Is there any worse crime than this?"
No, even if Libby is guilty of the crimes charged, he was just acting on his own, a rogue official (Yep, heard that one, too).
Valerie Plame's employment status at the CIA was classified. It was the CIA, in fact, that asked that a special prosecutor investigate this case. Are you saying the CIA doesn't know the employment status of it's own employees?
First of all, let me reiterate that "I'm" not saying anything, I'm only parroting right-wing talking points for the sake of brushing up debate skills.
What they say is that Plame wasn't "covert," and further, that the state of limitations on the law pertaining to going after anyone who revealed her "classified" status would have run out - because she had a desk job for more than five years, or something like that. Their argument is based on the distinction between "covert" and "classified."
They go on to say that Fitzgerald realized that he couldn't get any indictments related to the revealing of her status per se - and so, because he didn't want to be embarrassed about conducting two years of investigation and coming up empty, he pursued the obstruction of justice and perjury charges.
Of course, "I" think it is a bogus argument. The information, whether Libby could be prosecuted for revealing it or not, was still categorized as "classified," so, revealing it is something that the chief of staff of the vice-president shouldn't be doing even if it wasn't a prosecutable offense; and, you'd have to wonder why he would do it (duh!).
The right-wing talking point parroters say that it wasn't intentional, that Libby was only gossiping, and didn’t "know" that the information was classified: a contention which can't really be directly proven one way or the other, and further, that when Libby said that it was the reporters said that he was the one who told them about Plame's job (as opposed to the other way around), he "misspoke."
The job of the next prosecutor will be to show enough circumstantial evidence to convince a jury that Libby, in fact, did know that the information was classified, and so, even though he couldn't be prosecuted for releasing information that he knew was classified (because of the statute of limitations), he could be convicted for lying about whether or not he knew it. Further the prosecutor will try to show that there is enough circumstantial evidence to show that Libby also knew that he gave the information to the reporters rather than the other way around - so he lied about that also.
Whew! Pretty complicated.
Oh yeah, and the other counter-argument that seems obvious to me is that Fitzgerald would be much more embarrassed by making an indictment that won't hold water when it goes to trial than he would by not coming through with any indictment at all. Further, if he didn't come up with an indictment, he would be the darling of the Republican party for life, and would have a great future career as a result. Also, having listened to the press conference, I think the guy was actually on the up and up.
Sorry, I reread what I wrote and realized it was even less undertandable than what I usully write - allow me to correct something there.
The right-wing talking point parroters say that it wasn't intentional, that Libby was only gossiping, and didn’t "know" that the information was classified: a contention which can't really be directly proven one way or the other, and further, that when Libby said that it was the reporters WHO REVLEAED THE INFORMATION TO HIM ABOUT PLAME, (as opposed to the other way around), he "misspoke."
Yes, I got that you were just taking their side in the debate. Thanks for articulating it so well. Maybe the Dems are smarter to not get entagled in the semantics of covert vs classified and instead call for resignation of Cheney ala Reid, or call for Bush to pledge not to pardon.
Here's my take. I highly doubt that Plame's outing really had any significant security implications. Yeah, she would have to get another job, maybe it could have jeapordized a few people (it isn't clear yet and the CIA supposedly hasn't done an anlysis of the impact), but I haven't been particularly concerned about CIA agents in the past, so why would I be now?
I think that the right-wing has a point when they say that the "liberal" concern about Plame has a bit of disingenuity to it. Maybe there are a lot of liberals for whom "security" issues are paramount, but to me, there is certainly an element of truth in the claims that some Democrats, at least, are focusing on this issue because they see it as a way to make political gain.
On the other hand, clearly the whole incident is important because while it isn't exactly proof, it sure provides circumstantial evidience that the Bush administration moved to undermine any intelligence that might have shown that their claims about the irrefutability of their intelligence re WMDs and imminent threat were bogus. (and, by the way Meta, also shows that they didn't really all believe their intelligence, otherwise why would they take measures to undermine contradicting information?)
So, I agree about forgetting the technical arguments, but think it should be taken one step further. I see arguing about the security issues vis a vis Plame's outing as also being arguing about relatively unimportant technicalities. I think that those are the terms of debate that the right-wing will want to dictate. It should be argued on bigger terms - they tried to hide contradicting intelligence - as Vic was suggesting.
Update, this thing is getting a stranger. I just read that the discrepency beteen Libby and Cooper's testamony apparently wasn't over who brought Plame up during their conversation. Cooper said that he asked Libby whether he had heard anything about Plame being involved in sending Wilson to Niger, and that Libby said, "Yeah, I've heard that too."
That's the conversation that Fitzgerald referenced in the indictments.
So, I guess the discrepency is that Libby told the GJ that he didn't know anything about Plame working at the CIA when he talked to Cooper? If Fitzgerald was going after Libby on charges related to divulging classified information, then his saying "Yeah, I've heard that too" might be relevant - in the sense that he was confirming classified information - but that isn't the nature of the charges.
well, truth be told, I have a hard time armchair legalizing on these issues. I think that the full nature of the GJ and the charges are never truly outlined in an indictment and that the reason for an indictment is to assure the public that charges are warrented. The real work begins now as the CASE is built around the information obtained. From my talks with criminal lawyers (ok, we are going back close to 15 years here), the cases are usually built less than 50% by the indictment itself. The real case is built on how the information is tested line by line, legality by legality.
The one thing that remains sharp in my mind is that criminal prosecuters are so mind-numbingly meticulous as to frame ever single piece of information such that they understand the likelyhood of how it will be viewed, attacked and picked apart and literally have different strategies based on how the judge/jury seems to lean.
So, I think there is a fair chance that both dumpling's and meta's premises could be part of the prosecuters argument, given the latitude of the indictment. For my money, I am looking at Russert to be the linchpin, with supporting meat from Ms. NYTimes. That said, I predict that Novick's testimony or help if it gets out will end his career. I also think that Cheney is marginalized and for all intents and purposes, dead to W now. My hope is that W taps the wonder twins brain trust of GHW and Bubba, but I live in an acknowledged world of dreams.
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