Libby Indictment - Long Winded But Short On Substance

J.J. Jackson* | October 28, 2005

pg 8, 21 says that Libby was told that Novak had information about Wilson’s wife and would be writing an article about Valerie Plame and her involvement with the CIA and getting her husband sent to Niger (source)

Count 1 of the indictment claims that Libby obstructed the grand jury by not being truthful about when he learned about who Valerie Plame was but the indictment does not address the issue of whether this was material to the issue which was who leaked Valerie Plame’s name.

Count 2 of the indictment claims that Libby lied when he made misstatements to Tim Russert but does not address if there was an actual crime committed by Libby (ie that he leaked the name of an undercover agent)

Count 3 of the indictment claims that Libby lied to Timothy Cooper about Reporters telling the white house that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. Which was actually true … reporters were indeed coming to the white house with that information so this count makes little sense. (read the indictment for info)

Count 4 of the indictment is a confusing array of claims that Libby lied to the Grand Jury about the conversation cited in count 2 but once again no evidence that Libby was the source of Valerie Plame’s name.

Count 5 of the indictment is a claim that Libby lied to the Grand Jury about the statements in Count 3.

But the question remains, was there a crime in the first place.

And there is something even more troubling. Page 3 says only that Valerie Plame’s status was classified and that her status of employment with the CIA was “not common knowledge” outside of the intelligence community.

“Not common knowledge”? Shouldn’t that say “not at all known”? “Not common knowledge” indicates that someone, somewhere outside of intelligence knew about her and what she did. And if that is true the question still remains as to who leaked her name and was she in fact a deep cover operative which would have made disclosing her identity a crime.

These answers are completely vacant from the indictment against Scooter Libby but are material parts of this case that one would think would need to be looked into.

Maybe it will ultimately be shown that Libby committed some crime here but the evidence is still lacking on that conclusion.

Liberals are salivating over this (mostly without reading the indictment). And they are now equating “indictment” with “guilty”. Of course they have to because otherwise they don’t have their scalp that they have been searching for ever since Bill Clinton got up and admitted that he perjured himself before the grand jury and incited others to commit a conspiracy to cover-up his affair with Lewinski.

If Libby is actually guilty of something he should be punished. But only after a trial and being found guilty. And that is more intellectual honesty that you will ever hear from the rank and file liberals who still defend Bill Clinton over his own self admitted act of perjury.

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