Is this all they could find...
It really looks like that special prosecutor found nothing. Here's an excerpt from David Frum's front-page article in the National Post today.
Under the "little" theory, there was no deception, no conspiracy, no punishment, and no compromise of security. All that happened was that Mr. Libby, as chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, called reporters to contradict a false story that Ambassador Wilson had told about his boss. A New York Times columnist had reported in May, 2003, that it was Cheney who had dispatched Mr. Wilson on his famous mission to Niger in February, 2002. Mr. Libby pointed out that it was Mr. Wilson's wife who had chosen him for the mission -- and that Mr. Wilson had grossly exaggerated his own role in the whole business. The "little" theory agrees that Mr. Libby disclosed that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the CIA -- but it denies that she was an undercover agent or that any important secrets were compromised. If Mr. Libby had only told the truth about what had happened, there would have been no crime at all.
Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has now almost formally confirmed the "little" theory. There will be no more indictments -- "I can tell you that the substantial bulk of the work of this investigation is concluded" -- which means there is no evidence of conspiracy. Nor did Mr. Libby betray national security secrets: "We're not saying that Libby knowingly outed a covert agent."
That's pretty much the end of the scandal isn't it? And that creates an opportunity for the President to put his administration back to work.
posted by GayandRight @ 11:39 AM
1 Comments:
Well, proponents of the "little theory" can deny that Plame was an under cover agent all they want. The CIA says she was a NOC, and if the CIA honestly didn't believe that publishing her status as a CIA agent was a crime, then there never would have been a two year investigation.
People seem to think that because Plame was living in the U.S. and not actively hiding her connection to the CIA that that means that it was alright to expose her as a former NOC in a nationally syndicated paper. Well, that's just not correct. Sure Plame's life was never put in danger. But what about her contacts? Everyone she knew in the countries she worked in (many of them quite dangerous countries with unsavoury governments) will now be suspected of being potential CIA moles. Those that actually ARE moles will probably find that they are no longer given any useful information that they can pass on (and they'll be lucky if that's all that happens to them).
The CIA has had to shut down front companies that Plame worked for, and has had to pull out agents who were working for those companies, so those agents have now been exposed (along with all of THEIR contacts). The main reason that the CIA isn't screaming to the heavens about how much this has damaged their operatives in the field is because (unlike White House staffers) the CIA knows not to talk about these things in the media for all to see.
Don't kid yourself. Every intelligence agency in every country Plame has ever visited is now going over her time in those countries with a fine tooth comb, trying to determine how a CIA NOC works, and whether they can discern any patterns that would help them expose agents currently in the field. And the CIA is not at all happy about any of this (of course, the list of things the CIA is ticked off about is as long as my arm under the Bush administration... which is certainly helpful to the war on terror, I'm sure).
Also, Fitzgerald has made it pretty clear that he had no intention of charging someone with the underlying crime unless the evidence was OVERWHELMING. You just don't charge major White House figures with crimes that fall just short of treason without OVERWHELMING evidence of guilt. And the statute is written such that one must knowingly and intentionally expose an undercover operative, and proving that intent is not easy, even when it's pretty clear.
It is funny to see Republicans now claiming that perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to federal investigators are not serious charges though. Welcome to the GOP era of personal responsibility!
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