Clarice Feldman On "The Potemkin Prosecution"

Regular readers here will recognize frequent commenter Ms. Feldman immediately - she writes at The American Thinker about the problematic prosecution of I. Libby Lewis.

Comments

[kim]

There's much amiss,
Do not dismiss.
============

[maryrose]

Kudos clarice!
What an excellent article! You have tied all the threads together and put Fitz on notice.Take that Fitz!

[Jake - but not the one]

Well, I read the article, and I thought it well written - for a polemic. Clarice certainly points out flaws and failures, while neglecting all successes. The very heart of polemicism!

Anyway, I think it intersting that she referred to the accidental disclosure case without mentioning that what was disclosed was an illegal federal wiretap. I also think it interesting that she opines on Fitz's attorneyhood without ever commenting on Libby's illegal exposure of Plame and his subsequent lies to the grand jury.

Shoot, the right pilloried Clinton for the same thing, but LibbY? Errrm, not so much.

Ok, Lieberman piled on with Clinton, but it's hard to call him anything but a Republican.

Anyway, it's still a good article, as such things go.

Jake

[kim]

Jake, you're imagining illegal exposure, and making lies out of ambiguities. Your fantasies are theatrical.
=========================

[Sue]

Jake,

You can legitimately discuss perjury charges, since they are on the table, so why throw out something he wasn't charged with and in fact, no one was charged with? Unless you just needed a forum to throw something.

[maryrose]

Jake: Get your facts straight Libby did not Lie-Armitage outed Plame.

[topsecretk9]

--Libby's illegal exposure of Plame---

Please cite this in indictment and please cite where Fitz has provided classified status and please cite why UGO, Novaks source- the first leaker, is not subject to indictment.

Thank You

[Harry Arthur]

To this simple non-lawyer it would appear that our DoJ is out of control. Scary, at the very least.

[Harry Arthur]

...without ever commenting on Libby's illegal exposure of Plame and his subsequent lies to the grand jury...

In fairness, both yet to be proven and the former not charged.

[topsecretk9]

Sue-

I left a question in the latest PDB thread. What do you think?

[TM]

The very heart of polemicism

The Potemkin Prosecution polemic. Pile on.

Sorry, I have time right now for wordplay but not opinions.

[Neo]

Nice.

I noticed that in the NSA leaks case, that the word is that the lawyers started with trying to figure out which, if any, laws may have been broken. If Fitz had done the same, the case would have ended two months after his initial appointment. Rather than trying to get his authority expanded, he would have dropped it all, but then there is politics.

[boris]

His post was, in sum, a hybrid creation which could not have been better designed to create a loose cannon. Only in that respect has Fitzgerald lived up to his assignment.

Ouch! Good one C.

[clarice]

Thsnk you all..for your kind comments and for your contributions which are legion to my piece.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

'...without ever commenting on Libby's illegal exposure of Plame...'

Because, as others have said, it was no such thing. But, we're supposed to pretend otherwise. Else, St Patrick has no reason to exist as a Special Counsel.

[windansea]

good work Clarice...even I understand it

Jake..here you will get hammered into the ground even faster than at Protein Wisdom

[clarice]

windansea,thanks! I can't tell you how hard it is for me to accurately describe legal proceedings in --um--actual English..for real people.

[Dwilkers]

Very well written, always a pleasure to read your stuff over there Clarice. As I've said, I don't think that challenge is going to fly, but I think you've laid the case out quite well for why it very well may work.

[Larry]

Can't wait for the sequel, Clarice. You da bomb, girl.Though this appointment business is an outrage, it'd be a shame if he got off on this "technicality". Kind of hoping the case goes to trial and Scooter's team systematically nails Fitz' hide to the wall. Do you have any sense of whether they want to proceed or not?

[clarice]

Thank you both. Larry no one in his right mind wants to go thru one of these ordeals if it can be avoided.The cost and stress is enormous.Don't ever say "got off on a technicality"..If the motion to dismiss is successful it means he was wrongfully charged with wrongdoing. Period.

I'm taking a breather and then will work on The Motion to Compel.

[Larry]

I see what you mean. I guess my investment in popcorn futures was ill-thought-out.

[Appalled Moderate]

Clarice:

There are times when you sound like an aclu lawyer.

If Libby gets off because the independent counsel was improperly appointed, then the whole matter will end with one big question mark, and the conspiracy theories will multiply endlessly. The question -- whether Libby lied to a grand jury -- will be answered with a big "doesn't matter".

i think your side is better served if the case is thrown out on the grounds of materiality. That gives you: "Fitz was wrong" rather than "The Bush admin is incapable of investigating itself".

[Patton]

Makes you wonder about the accuracy of Fitzgeralds Ex-Parte communications with the appeals court that allowed the journalists to be questioned.

Shouldn't we know if Fitz claimed he had information showing that Libby ''was the first to disclose Plame outside government'.

Is that what the court hung their hat on to allow the subpeonas?

What would have happened if Fitz said...well, we know Libby wasn't first, UGO was...but he's not sexy enough to prosecute and the press will hate us for it.

[Patton]

I take it then I can go arrest and prosecute Appalled Moderate for murder and when he points out I'm just a janitor that was appointed by Dog......we'll all be able to say he just got off on a technicality.

[Jake - but not the one]

Windandsea;

I'll say this much. There are some good commenters at PW.

Jake

[clarice]

AM,Materiality is something to be resolved at a later date, I think, and in any event is not to my knowledge yet contested in the pleadings though it certainly will be.

There is a kind of choreography that lawyer's are bound to. In this case because it goes to the entire indictment and is obvious from the outset and can be resolved without an evidentiary hearing, Libby was compelled to file the Motion to Dismiss first.
I think it is compelling.And I've said so.

We are dealing with a criminal case and no matter how the politics of it may play out, the lawyers are not utterly free to discard the normal methods of proceeding.

I haven't considered it in depth , but in line with the Lee and Hatfill cases, if the case is dismissed without trial, perhaps Libby should consider civil suits against the NYT, Kristof, the WaPo and Pincus for initiating the false reports which led to this case.(Then we can see why Kristof and Pincus ignored Wilson's "I was misquoted" claims.)

[Jake - but not the one]

Not to confuse the issue, but as has been pointed out, Fitz isn't actually accusing Libby of outing Plame - that laundry list is very long and way suject to "exective privilege" - just of lying to the grand jury. You know, like Clinton and the defintion of "is". And while it is probably true that Libby isn't the only member of the administration to lie to the grand jury, he is the one about whom Fitz believes he has the goods.

You know, the thing I like about this whole Fitz thing is that while you can certainly argue either side of the issue from lots of viewpoints, we are actually going to get a court to look at it. Now if only GW would take the same approach with the FISA thingee, that would be so cool.

Not to mention adult, farsighted, forthright and responsible.

Jake

[TM]

Makes you wonder about the accuracy of Fitzgeralds Ex-Parte communications with the appeals court that allowed the journalists to be questioned.

Judge Tatel's opinion, with the once-redacted grand jury stuff mostly back in, is available.

Off the top of my head, Fitzgerald would stand up OK (on this) - his point was that Miller and Cooper were needed to resolve puzzling aspects of Libby's testimony, and others (Cooper had testified about Libby by then, but was holding out on Rove).

[clarice]

Patton, we do have portions of Fitzgerald's presentation to the Miller Ct of Appeals (everything but the gj testimony IIRC). In his fn he indicated that he had no reason yet to believe that the Espionage Act or IIPA had been violated by Libby and that was in August of 2003 when he'd said he was virtually finished with the investigation and needed only Cooper's and Miller's tesimony to wrap it up.

Therefore, logically, he regarded Miller's bafflegab testimony about the June 23 conversation as dispositive.

[clarice]

Correction--August of 2004--

[maryrose]

All this legal jargon can be confusing to the non-law populace. You have made it understandable and comprehensible to the average layman.

[clarice]

Thank you. I try to.

OT: Moussaoui just testified that he and shoe bomber wanna be Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth plane on 9/11 and fly it into the WH. http://www.foxnews.com/

[PeterUK]

Jakie,
If you believe this:-

"I also think it interesting that she opines on Fitz's attorneyhood without ever commenting on Libby's illegal exposure of Plame and his subsequent lies to the grand jury".

Why bother with this? It is not germane.

"Not to confuse the issue, but as has been pointed out, Fitz isn't actually accusing Libby of outing Plame "

[cathyf]

One little quibble, Clarice. I think I was the first person to point out the Texas Holy Land prosecutorial fiasco, so I can also point out that there is at least one more degree of separation between that one and Fitzgerald than in the Cowles fiasco, which really was directly under his authority. In the Muslim charities case, there are two prosecutions, of the Holy Land Foundation in Texas and the Global Relief Foundation in Illinois, that have arisen from one investigation. The Texas staff (prosecutors and FBI) were all busy working on other cases last spring, and so some temp agents came in who were not familiar with the case and they are the ones who handed over the classified docs.

Although I would still maintain that Fitzgerald has a little indirect responsibility here -- if the Holy Land "A team" in Texas was swamped, the Global Relief people in Chicago would have been the logical "B team." Was the fact that they went to the "C team" (who screwed up) related to Fitzgerald being busy fighting the legal battles over the Cooper and Miller subpeonas last spring?

cathy :-)

[clarice]

He was over all the teams, wasn't he? And when Comey was asked whether Fitz' obligations under the other cases he was prosecuting as a USAtty didn't mean he was too busy to handle the Plame case properly, Comey denied that he was, didn't he?
Had Comey followed the regs for appointing a regular Special Prosecutor--someone outside the Dept who could devote appropriate attention to the matter and who'd be under DoJ oversight--would we have someone messing up three cases simultaneously?

Is he overworked? Undoubtedly..but that is because Comey and Fitz chose this extra-statutory (unconstitutional) way to proceed.
For most US Attys one big case like this at a time is a full plate.

[maryrose]

Fitz's ability to multi-task is under severe scrutiny here and so far he is 0 for 3 with me.

[Patton]

Jake ""Now if only GW would take the same approach with the FISA thingee, that would be so cool.""

They did...... ITS LEGAL

http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200603150741.asp

[Jake - but not the one]

Patton, your link is like short some - here is how you post a link in comments (I only have this because I always forget and then have to go look it up again)

< no_space A space href="chapter2.html">chapter two< slash no_space A no_space >

Where you replace the "chapter2.html" with your http url, and the >chapter 2< with your description of the link.

And I am truly interested to see where GW tested his unitary executive theory vis a vis FISA in a court of law.

Jake

[maryrose]

Remember Jake:
GWB is looking out for you and protecting you at all times. He doesn't want terrorists calling into the USA and arranging financing for their terrorist attacks. Your boy Fitz is prosecuting a case right now and in his inimitable way is blowing it big time.

[Patton]

Cut and paste it into your browser and read the article. Every court that has ruled has ruled in favor of the President (Executive) having this Constitutional power.

[Jake - but not the one]

Patton, I DID paste it and I got the dreaded http 404.

So, puhleeze, I wasn't chappin' your butt, I was asking for a working url.

Jake

[larwyn]

If case is dismissed, this is wonderful news:

Justices: Suit Against Times Can Proceed

A federal judge had thrown out Hatfill's lawsuit against The New York Times over 2002 columns by writer Nicholas Kristof that faulted the FBI for failing to thoroughly investigate Hatfill. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the suit, and the Supreme Court declined without comment to take up the case.
New York attorney David Schulz, who represented the newspaper, said the appeals court decision undermines free speech protections for reporters and invites more lawsuits over legitimate news reporting.

The Associated Press and some 30 other news organizations urged the court to use the case to clarify reporters' free-speech protections.

Asking you, the experts, who could Libby bring civil suits against?

Hope Wilson/s will be on your list.

[clarice]

Odd that Jake should raise this on the very day Moussaoui says he and Reid were to hijack a Fifth plane on 9/11 and crash it into the WH and the CIA agent is testifying that he couldn't get permission to warn the FBI about Moussaoui and the FBI agent is testifying he couldn't get to FBI hq to warn them about Moussaoui.

[Jake - but not the one]

Maryrose, I wouldn't trust GW to walk my granddaughter across the street. So don't EVEN ask me to trust him on something complicated like this kind of stuff.

Jake

[Jake - but not the one]

Clarice, clarify. Why is it interesting? Because his superiors refused to take his requests seriously?

Jake

[topsecretk9]

Larwyn

I have a sneaky tinfoil suspicion that Sibel Edmonds was source for Mr. Kristoff's slander.

The dates and the disgruntled.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Jake, please explain how Bush can 'test' his surveillance program in a court of law.

[topsecretk9]

the wall

[topsecretk9]

all in all it's just another brick

[clarice]

Because there was a wall which precluded the CIA from talking to the FBI--a wall made impossibly high by Gorelick and which reflects the same blinkered view Robertson formerly on the FISA panel espoused.

The same thing happened in the 1993 WTC bombing where the Wall prevented the CIA and FBI from sharing info--info that revealed that this was an Iraqi operation and the only people they caught were the dummies left to be caught on purpose. (I.e. the jerk they talked into returning the truck used in the bombing for the rental deposit--and he did it TWICE) as Abdul Rahman Yasin fled to the tender sanctuary of Saddam in Baghdad.