Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com
Recent court filings by Patrick Fitzgerald indicate that Bob Woodward may have audio tapes that of who leaked information about CIA operative Valerie Plame to him. Woodward’s source may also be Novak’s second source. Novak’s first source is already known to be Karl Rove.
Novak’s second source has always been a matter of great speculation. Up to this time, Novak described his second source as “no partisan gunslinger”. Jeralyn at TalkLeft guesses that Novak’s second source may be Stephen Hadley or Richard Armitage.
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wouln’t it be nice if Mr Redacted was Bush or Cheney
Rove is just the piss boy for these guys anyway, if they go down, so does Karl
When are more indictments coming down Fitz?
Or have you been compromised?
I bet you, the former grand jury members, the current grand jury members, the judge, and all the rest have been spied upon by the NSA.
They know everything you plan to do so they take steps to cover up as soon as you make plans.
Debug your offices, get special communication devices, and talk in codes.
Otherwise you might as well copy Big Brother as to all all of your plans and tactics.
Fritz, the prosecutors in Concord are ready to do their 4th indictment of republican criminal behavior (link here).
Come on Fritz, stop playing catch-up before catch-22 catches-you.
Serious question:
Will someone who has thought about the legal ramifications give a rundown of the consequences to Bush and Cheney if and when the new "source" is identified?
I was under the impression it might actually help Libby’s case. He can suggest he wasn’t obstructing anyone if people besides him were blabbing about Plame.
If that happens, then the question moves on to Cheney. Did he authorize declassification of this information? Suppose so–then what? Fitzgerald has to locate a motive that will hold up in court, but doesn’t he also have to let Libby off the hot-seat? He can get Libby for making false statements under oath, but that is about all.
And suppose Cheney comes back and says, "I declassified the information, I just didn’t expect these guys to go around telling everyone. How should I know why they did it?"
I just don’t see how having another source advances the case any. Let’s suppose it is a person from another agency–State or Defense or maybe the Owner of the New York Times— doesn’t that mean Fitzgerald is in the harder position of "proving" a co-ordinated campaign of injury against Plame?
I need some help grasping this.
Suds #4
Point taken.
Remember that a lot of law is social engineering. Good behavior is rewarded or at least not punished, but bad behavior is punished.
We have become sophisticated to the point that we even punish dishonesty criminally in some cases.
Perjury is an ancient concept which still survives. That is the ancient law that got Libby.
More recently we have developed a concept that the people cannot lie to the government when the government is doing a prosecutorial investigation.
Somehow the republicans lost the notion that the government cannot lie to the people. They think it is ok so long as it is done in public … like Bush does.
Anyway, any lie that is prosecuted in any situation is not founded upon any notion that the lie does not matter if the original reason for starting the investigation ends up being a situation where no charges are brought.
There is no nexus between lying or perjury to anything else. If you lie to a federal agent on official business or commit perjury, nothing else matters except the facts that set up the lie.
That is where Libby and anyone else who lies to federal investigations act stupidly.
It is like a person being pulled over to get a speeding ticket. And they decide to run. They end up getting a felony on top of the speeding ticket.
That is what happened …. Libby decided to gun it and run … but he had no where to hide.
So, in our culture that values truth over falsehood and deceit as a policy matter, he goes down whether what he lied about was legal or not.
I often held back from punishing my children while they were growing up if they told the truth in a difficult situation where telling the truth exposed them to potential punishment. That is the culture of America.
Dredd #5 – Well said!
Rove will make a good jail house bitch.
Re: Dredd #5
I have been out and am returning to this topic. Let me play it back and see if I hear it the way you meant it.
Libby’s situation is like one of your kids who decided to lie to you. That makes it worse. He not only feared punishment , but he chose to lie to you (parent) and that amplifies his culpability. So he is punished for (a) not truth telling and (b) not truth telling to you… the charge-on-top-of-charge scenario.
One then presumes Fitzgerald uses this leverage over Libby to address other aspects of his investigation. Libby is no longer an obstruction.
All of these court cases will tell exactly where this country is headed…for the truth or continuing down the shitter.
And, what is up w/Bob Woodward?
Suds #8
That works.
The difference between a lie and perjury is that perjury is a lie during an official inquiry where truth is a civic duty. And some oath or affirmation is the heads up that this is not the everyday situation.
Libby knew full well what he was doing, and practiced how to lie, even under oath.
It is the very worst form of dishonesty. And he was mentored by a masterful deceiver, Dick "Hot Shot" Cheney.
If the feds are investigating the alleged theft of an aircraft, and someone lies to them or to a grand jury investigating the alleged theft, it does not matter if it later turns out that the aircraft was not stolen after all.
What matters is that the person knew the truth but told a lie. That is enough to convict.
Big Dan #9
I stick to my original theory posted some time back on a thread that has rolled into archive land. That theory is that Woodward was overcome by the toxins that are in power. Power corrupts, and he gained much power over the years. It got to him and he is now corrupt … he works for the regime rather than for the people like he once did.
How could Cheney declassify information? My take is he and Bush just said it’s o.k. Same as Cheney doing training exercises on 9/11. It seems bizarre.
woodward is an ass hole who has sold out his country for a few pesos and obviously what he thinks is power…but actually ass kissing.
Jason Leopold Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11
I also oneself something would want to find out on this theme. Very attentively I will read every post.