Five Against Libby

There are five counts against I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby in the Plame Game investigation, as brought by special council Patrick Fitzgerald and the grand jury today.  Strangely enough, none of them involve "outing" a "covert" CIA agent.

Vice President Dick Cheney's chief advisor I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted on five charges today in the CIA leak investigation. Top White House strategist Karl Rove will evade charges for now.

Libby has been indicted on obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of allegedly making false statements in the investigation into the disclosure of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. The grand jury investigating the case handed up the indictment this afternoon.

So the investigation of the matter itself produced the only criminal charges.  Libby and the White House are actually exonerated in the matter that was alleged - that the Bush administration deliberately and vindictively "outed" the "covert" CIA agent wife of diplomat Joe Wilson because of his statements contradicting the White House in the Niger uranium affair.  But that's not the way the press will report it.  For instance, they continue to refer to Ms. Plame as a "covert CIA operative" despite the lack of indictments for disclosing her identity.  ABC News' Jonathan Karl continues this canard later in the story.

With the outing, Plame's career as a covert CIA operative has ended. (ed: it was over well before this) The leak of her identity has sparked the questions: Who revealed Plame's identity, and why? These questions have dogged the Bush administration as weapons of mass destruction — the initial rationale for the United States attacking Iraq — have never been found and the death toll continues to mount. (ed: there's that death toll referenced again) Wilson has claimed that the leak was made in retaliation for his criticism of the Bush administration's argument for going to war in Iraq.  (ed: his fabrications criticizing the administration's argument)

Knowingly disclosing the identity of a covert agent like Plame could be a violation of the Intelligence Indentities Protection Act and could land a person in prison for up to 10 years.

Take a deep breath, Mr. Karl.  Plame wasn't "covert."  If she was then Libby and/or Rove would have been charged with that.  Regarding your questions, "Who revealed Plame's identity, and why?" there is one other question, since she wasn't a covert agent: Does it matter?  And you're going to have to stop pretending that WMD was the sole rationale for war with Saddam Hussein.  If you think that it was, you need to go re-read some of Mr. Bush's earlier speeches.  Finally, it would be helpful, for clarity, if you made clear in your story that it is Wilson whose veracity in this matter has been found most lacking.

So, as I surmised earlier, perjury and obstruction for investigation into a non-crime.  Priceless.  I wonder if the Sandy "I've got classified documents in my pants, stolen from the National Archives" Berger has any suggestion as to what should be the penalty for such transgressions, if they're eventually proven, given his feather-light sentence.

10/28/05 1355: Wizbang reporting.  I note that Kevin Aylward follows the proper convention, placing the word "outing" in scare quotes.  More reactions later.

10/28/05 1420: Newsbusters' Tim Graham notes that the networks all went "live" for the big announcement, and recalls that for Clinton cabinet members indictments (Mike Espy, Henry Cisneros) the press was far less civic-minded.

10/28/05 1530: I just got done listening to the press conference of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.  Here are a couple of salient points.

• He did outline the areas where Libby allegedly lied to the grand jury about his involvement, and called Libby the individual in the government who first "leaked" Ms. Plame outside confidential circles.  He intimated that the prosecutions for obstruction and perjury are being pursued because he believes Ms. Plame was illegally "outed", but he can't prove that, or even get an indictment for that, based on the statute.  This is interesting.  I thought that justice was based on what you could prove, and not on what you believe.
• Libby is in line for 30 years and over $1M in fines if convicted on all five counts.  Again, how does this relate to Sandy Berger's actions, particularly for an offense that the special prosecutor has so much as admitted he can't prove?
• Regarding interference with the investigation by the Bush administration or the Justice Department, Mr. Fitzgerald emphatically and unequivocally stated there was none.  None at all.  Again the Bush administration demonstrates that they don't know how to be Clintonian.

10/28/05 1800: Here are similar questions about Ms. Plame's "outing" at Stop The ACLU.

10/28/05 1810: The Political Teen has video from Joe Wilson's statement after the Fitzgerald press conference, noting that, according to the Wilsons they "didn't choose to be in the public spotlight."  Ian points out that they had a photo spread in Vanity Fair.  They must have been coerced at knife point.

10/29/05 1025: The Political Teen also has video of an explanation of the Plame Game investigation outcome from Stuart Taylor of National Journal.  Mr. Taylor agrees largely with my analysis above.  He notes several things: 1) There does not appear to be a conspiracy to "get Joe Wilson." 2) The "crime" used as a pretext for the investigation didn't occur.  3) It was reasonable for the White House to look into the circumstances of Wilson's visit to Niger and subsequent Times piece because he misrepresented the situation there so profoundly.