The Credibility Gap Widens

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After reading this editorial by the Wall Street Journal you just have to know ole' Fitz is in WAY over his head on this one:

"One of the mysteries of the recent yellowcake uranium flap is why the White House has been so defensive about an intelligence judgment that we don't yet know is false, and that the British still insist is true. Our puzzlement is even greater now that we've learned what last October's national intelligence estimate really said."

Those words appeared in this column on July 17, 2003, under the headline "Yellowcake Remix." Three years later they show we were right about Joe Wilson and his false allegation that President Bush lied in that year's State of Union address about Iraq seeking nuclear materials in Africa.

So imagine our surprise when Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald declared his intention last month to use that editorial as part of his perjury and obstruction case against former Vice Presidential aide Scooter Libby, who had also questioned Mr. Wilson's claims. It suggests that his case is a lot weaker than his media spin.

Mr. Libby wasn't a source for our editorial, which quoted from the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate concerning the Africa-uranium issue. But Mr. Fitzgerald alleges in a court filing that Mr. Libby played a role in our getting the information, which in turn shows that "notwithstanding other pressing government business, [Libby] was heavily focused on shaping media coverage of the controversy concerning Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Niger."

The prosecutor comes close here to suggesting that senior government officials have no right to fight back against critics who make false allegations. To the extent our editorial is germane to this trial, in fact, it's because it puts Mr. Libby's actions into a broadly defensible context that Mr. Fitzgerald refuses to acknowledge.

[…]There is all the difference in the world between seeking to respond to the substance of Mr. Wilson's charges, as Mr. Libby did, and taking revenge on him by blowing his wife's cover, which was the motive originally hypothesized by Bush critics for the Plame exposure. The more of Mr. Fitzgerald's case that becomes public, the more it looks like he has made the terrible mistake for a prosecutor of taking Joe Wilson's side in what was essentially a political fight.

Amazing isn't it?  A special prosecutor spends tons of the taxpayers money to investigate a "leak" that outed a desk jockey at the CIA.  But instead he finds that he cannot find any leak, as evidenced by the simple fact that no one has been charged for that. 

So he goes after Cheney intead via his assistant Libby for a trumped up Perjury charge.  And even that case is falling apart.  

AJStrata sums it up nicely:

Fitzgerald obviously controlled the flow and substance of information going to the Grand Jury to get indictments – and the ones he got were flimsy and way off the topic he was supposed to be looking in to.

But Fitzgerald’s ego got the best of him. Fitz must have thought if he could only get the indictment, he could game the system and not have any real resistance from a defense team. Reality is striking Fitz about the head and shoulders. He has lost a lot of ground just in the pre-trial motions. He has admitted his two key witnesses (Wilson and Grossman) have major credibility issues. And the reporters are not helping him with any firm statements, they are as accurate in their recollections as Libby is.

Fitzgerald suckered himself. He did not use the Grand Jury to test the merits of the case, he used it to confirm his desire to get back at the Bush administration.

It's ironic that the only charge Fitz could bring was perjury, and that was only after shopping for a Grand Jury he liked and controlling the amount of information given to that Grand Jury, when Wilson is the biggest liar out of this bunch

Other's Blogging:


It’s ironic isn’t it? The only charge Fitz could bring was perjury, and that was only after shopping for a Grand Jury he liked and contolling the amount of information given to that Grand Jury, when Wilson is the biggest liar out of this bunch

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