I Agree With David Corn

I agree with David Corn in believing that appointing a special counsel to poke at the terror debacle makes no sense.  Prosecutors are not looking for "the truth" - they are looking for crimes they can indict and successfully prosecute, and most of what they find ends up hidden behind grand jury secrecy rules and never presented in court.

That said, Corn and I differ here:

Fitzgerald, of course, was the tough and relentless US attorney who was named special prosecutor to investigate the CIA leak case. He spent years on that beat, trying to determine who in the Bush administration had done what relating to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's classified CIA identity. He investigated forcefully and thoroughly...

Fitzgerald didn't investigate "the Bush Administration" "forcefully and thoroughly" - he put the White House under a microscope and gave the State Department a pass.  Come on - Richard Armitage confessed early on to leaking the Plame info to Robert Novak, yet the forceful Patrick Fitzgerald never even looked at his appointments calendar for the preceding month to see what other reporters had been spending time with Armitage.  Oh boy, were there red faces when Woodward came forward after the Libby indictment.

Which was fair enough - Fitzgerald knew that the Plame leak was not, in itself, a crime, so he focused on probably perjury in the White House rather than puzzling over whether Ari Fleischer had leaked to John Dickerson and David Gregory or whether Andrea Mitchell had also received a leak from her State Department sources, which include Richard Armitage and Colin Powell. 

For Fitzgerald's purposes, the truth would have been a distraction.

Comments

[verner]

The truth was a bit of a distraction for David Corn too--as in, he didn't tell the whole and nothing but.

[Neo]

If they are looking for an investigation, perhaps they should look into "homeowner.gov".

Seems persons that fill out the forms on the Obama .. err .. government run web site are solicticed by lawyers who scam these poor "cash-starved" homeowners.

[clarice]

"Fitzgerald didn't investigate "the Bush Administration" "forcefully and thoroughly" - he put the White House under a microscope and gave the State Department a pass"

But he did buy Corn's lying scenario of an uncover CIA chick deliberately outed to punish her truth seeking husband and that's exactly what Corn the fabulist wanted, isn't it?

[Neo]

And could a prosecutor win cases in which his targets would obviously argue that they were providing what they believed was good-faith legal advice, even if it turned out that their advice was wrong?

Think of the case that could be made against the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for judicial malfeasance.

[Original MikeS]

Libby case juror Denis Collins: “There was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury. It was said a number of times (by jurors): What are we doing with this guy? Where’s [top White House political aide Karl] Rove, where are these other guys?”

Well, Rove and "these other guys," were not charged with lying to investigators or a grand jury. There was no evidence given at the Libby trial that would cause a juror to think Karl Rove or anyone else ought to be also on trial for lying about that case.

The only reasonable explanation for the juror comments reported by Dennis Collins, is that the jurors did not understand the scope of that trial and the jury's obligation.

[Porchlight]

Original MikeS

Original MikeS, thanks for adding that to your tag - I got confused for a minute with troll Mike S a few days ago. Glad you are you and not him.

[Original MikeS]

That troll MikeS sounds like one of those cyber-terrorists.

[Danube of Thought]

Why a special counsel? If the investigation will not involve either the Clinton or Obama administrations, why can't the AG do it?