Libby indicted.Follow

Some people are wont to argue that if the investigation was successful, Libby wouldn't be indicted.

Others would do well to point out that if Libby hadn't lied under oath, Libby wouldn't be indicted.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1029-24.htm

A bit long to quote from a crappy laptop. Thought maybe it would be relavent to the thread. Back to lurkdom for me.

Only because you seem to ignore the fact that I said he lied on multiple occassions leading to his indictment for perjury and want to pretend I said "He's indicted on multiple counts of perjury" so you can prove me wrong. Too bad I didn't say that though. "Sigh".

Really? Find that for me because I seriously doubt it. He sure as hell didn't seem suprised at that conference when explaining the charges.

I'm a little amused at how it's been "Fitzgerald has to do this! Fitzgerals has to do that! Fitzgerald HAS to hand down indictments or else it's all a waste and he gets eaten by the No Indictment monster!" Then all of a sudden, it's "Well, HE doesn't hand down indictments. Golly, he was suprised to see any handed down at all!" Keep on spinning there.

Wow... if my best defense "Well, sure he lied multiple times and to multiple people but it was technically only one lie he kept repeating to everyone", I'd be pretty sad.

Pretty amazing, Di[/i]ck Tracy, seeing as how everyone was only predicting perjury charges back in July or so

Well, we'll see what the judge says and my prediction is that if he's found guilty, you'll keep blaming Fitzgerald, the judge, the grandy jury, the media, the liberals -- everyone on earth except for Libby. Someone take note 'cause I want to note how freaking amazing it'll be when you do so.

Edited because Detective Tracy has an obscene first name

[i]Edited, Mon Oct 31 09:59:09 2005 by Jophiel

Well at least you get a gold star for seeing the point of the post instead of spinning off into irrelevancies like Joph.



Yeah. Actually we can. At least legally we can. Remember. To be convicted, there can be no "reasonable doubt". The burden is on the prosecution. Libby, Rove, and numerous others all testified that there were lots of people talking about Valerie Wilson and her employment at CIA, and involvement in her husbands trip for some time before Novaks article (and long before the conversations that Libby has with Russert and Cooper).

The problem is that if there were no rummors, and it could be prooved that there were no rummors, then Libby could and *would* be indicted for passing classified information (the point of the investigation, right?). I'm pretty sure that if they thought they had a snowballs chance in hell of proving that these rummors did not exist until after Libby and/or Rove had various conversations with reporters, they'd have pushed that angle since that's the "brass ring" of the investigation.

They didn't. This means that they *cannot* prove that those rummors did not exist. Therefore for purposes of defense in a case, they *do* exist. Reasonable doubt, remember? Defense doesn't have to prove there were rummors. The prosecution has to prove that there *weren't* rummors. If they could do that, they would have. So since they didn't, we can conclude that the investigation could not find with any degree of certainty that there were not already rummors about the Wilson's prior to Libby and Rove's conversations with reporters. In the legal world, we call that "resonable doubt".


So. Given that fact, this makes the perjury charges against Libby difficult. For purposes of defense, his claim that he both knew from official sources *and* had heard some rummors cannot be contested sufficiently to rule out reasonable doubt. Thus, when he lies to Russert and Cooper, he's lying only about his knowledge of the official sources. He's absolutely legally free to pass on information he heard from a non-classified source. That's what he did.


Take this scenario. You are in a classified briefing. You are told "fact A" within that meeting. You walk out of the meeting, and run into a reporter. The reporter says "Hey. I've heard that "fact A" is true. What do you know about it?". You obviously say: "No idea. I've never heard that before" (you can't tell him classified information). 5 minutes later, you get a phone call from another reporter. That one asks "Hey. I heard a rummor about "fact A". What do you know about it". Well. You can't say you've never heard about it, because you have (from the other reporter), and if you try to deny knowledge of it, the reporter will guess that "fact A" is something classified (if you don't think Washington reporters play exactly this sort of game to see if they can ferret out information, you are incredibly naive), so you respond with "Yeah. I heard that rummor too. But that's all I know about it...".


That is essentially exactly what Libby did. The problem with the perjury charge is that he's saying that he acted and spoke based on the non-classified information he had, which is 100% legal unless the prosecution can prove that he had access *only* to the classified information (or passed something that he knew only from a classified source). It's only perjury if he's lying about that fact (acting on the non-classified information and "forgetting" the classified stuff). And that hinges on establishing the presence or absense of those rummors. And since they didn't charge him with outting Valerie Plame, those rummors must have existed (or they were unable to disprove them, which means the same thing in a court).

They are incredibly weak charges.




Except that the presense or absense of those rummors dramatically affects the case. If they existed, then Libby's conversations can be legally shown (or at least claimed by the defense) to have been restricted only to those facts already being dicussed in non-classified settings. If you can't disprove those rummors, then all the charges against Libby are incredibly hard to prove. How can you prove he lied when he claimed that he discussed only the stuff already being rummored, if you can't disprove the rummors?

That's why it's a weak case. It requires that the prosecution prove that Libby had not heard *any* information from a non-classified source about Wilson and his wife. Again. I'm betting that if the investigation could prove that, that they would have charged him with a hell of a lot more then just perjury and obstruction...

Edited, Mon Oct 31 17:36:03 2005 by gbaji

Lol. Um... hardly. It's not like I have anything personally invested in this. I'm looking at the facts as they've been presented to us, the indictment itself, and assessing the likelyhood that those charges can or will result in a conviction.

It's not hard to indict someone when you control the investigation and a sequestered grand jury is told to look over the interviews and find things to charge people with. There's a realatively low burden of proof required for an indictment, doubly so in these sorts of grand jury investigations. Cases that a DA might drop in an instant because he knows there isn't sufficient evidence for conviction will result in indictment because grand juries don't have the same degree of legal experience and don't have any sort of reputation to worry about (yes. I realize the second is exactly *why* we have grand juries, but I mention it anyway because it highlights the lack of incentive to "get it right" in grand jury cases).

There's no advocate for the defense in the grand jury's decision to indict. There will be in the actual court case though. And if I can see obvious legal means to attack the charges after one reading through the indictment, you can bet that a savvy defense attorney will do much better. All 5 charges are predicated on a very specific interpretation of Libby's testimony. One that the defense will undoubtably attack when they get a chance.


We'll see what happens. I personally think the charges themselves are weak. Weaker yet in the context of the investigation as a whole, but that's another issue.