I haven’t written about the Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial before now because — quite frankly — I didn’t really care. And as long as nobody was putting Sandy “Burglar” Berger on trial for stealing and shredding incriminating documents from the National Archives, then I wasn’t going to get too excited about a trial for crimes that didn’t happen.
Today, Libby was found guilty of obstruction, perjury, and lying to the FBI.
And I still don’t care.
In fact, my feelings on this entire charade can be summed up by this comment found on Ace of Spade HQ:
>>>Libby’s crime wasn’t in outing Plame, it was in lying to the grand jury.
True. But here Libby was put under oath and forced to testify when NO CRIME HAD CONCEIVABLY BEEN COMMITTED.
Look at it this way: It sure would be nice to put Hillary Clinton under oath, or Dan Rather, or any other figure on the left, and compel them to answer politically embarrassing questions honestly or else face jail time, but prosecutors aren’t allowed to just put someone under oath and question them for shits and grins. there has to be an actual crime being investigated. There was none here, and Fitzgerald knew that from the start.
Hence, his claim that he was investigating “a possible conspiracy to violate civil rights,” which rights, again, he could not name specifically, because all of the specific laws that could possibly imply a violated civil right were inapplicable.
Whistlelblower law? Doesn’t apply. Espionage Act? Doesn’t apply. Covert agent protection act? Doesn’t apply.
So WHICH civil rights? Apparently none named in the constitution or any statute.
There’s no such thing as a general, nonspecific catch-all “civil right.” You either have the right from the constittuion, from previous court opinions, or from statutes (either explicitly giving you a civil rights cause of action or, more frequently, “implied” by such a law).
Fitzie couldn’t name what law gave Wilson and Plame created this “civil right” to be named later whose violation he was supposedly investigating — because no such law existed.
Not that this reasoning will persuade an appeals court. But I think it’s accurate.
Clinton lied about something that did happen (a blowjob in the Oval Office), but nobody had to go to jail. Libby lied about something that didn’t happen (an alleged and rather vague “civil rights” violation), and he might end up behind bars.
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