Writing for The American Thinker, Clarice Feldman takes on special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and the Libby prosecution in a long an interesting follow-up to an earlier post. From “The Potemkin Prosecution: Part Two”:
At the heart of Libby’s procedural defense is the creation by then-Acting Attorney General James Comey of a special counsel cut free from all supervision and direction and all limitations on his conduct set forth in Department of Justice regulations (In Part One of this series I detailed that argument).
Today I will discuss new matters revealed in the February 24 hearing before Judge Walton and in the responsive pleading filed on the afternoon of March 31 by Libby’s counsel, countering Fitzgerald’s response to the Motion to Dismiss, both of which have received scant press coverage.
The information revealed in this hearing, and the filing and counter-filings, underscores why the established methods of proceeding in federal criminal cases should never have been scrapped in appointing the Special Prosecutor.
Read the rest.
I’m beginning to think it unlikely that Libby will be prosecuted successfully; between the troubles outlined by Ms Feldman and the CIA’s unwillingness to release documents requested by the defense, the case against Libby is looking every bit as weak and politcally motivated as it did on the day of Fitzgerald’s (unusual) news conference. And with apologies to Fitzgerald’s friend, NRO’s Andrew McCarthy, I don’t think Fitz is looking to be quite the disinterested prosecutor he was made out to be.
Of course, part of the importance of the Libby indictment was that it added a shell of substance to the Democratic mantra that Republicans are suffering under a “culture of corruption”—an ironic statement coming from just about any politician, regardless of party affiliation. And the Democrats continue the ploy: the charge is the thing. Because that’s what the American public will remember, Democratic leaders realize, especially given that the sensationalism and scandal attendant to the charges are what the major media are likely to give an abundance of their coverage to. A case peters out months later? Yawn. You’re not likely to see Nancy Pelosi giving a press conference on those occasions.
Sadly, I suspect the Republicans, when they find themselves out of power, are likely to respond in kind. Which is why the concept of a loyal opposition is, like a handshake after a first date, becoming almost quaint.
The did it even in power. Of course they’ll do it out.
Its all about the guilty pleas leading to leaders stepping down for doing no more than checking and balancing your slush fund.
Just which cases hyping are aided and abetted by the media? Libby’s indictment generated all sorts of heavy breathing – if his case craps out, see page 27C of the Saturday paper. Film not at 11.
A wrong act by anyone, just with more exposure and hype when done by one side.
Does this mean we won’t get to see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs? ‘Cause I really wanted to see what a frog-march looked like.
That Fitzmas holiday thing is turning into a bigger bust than Kwanzaa. Bet they won’t even celebrate it next year.
Kerry used a serial liar(Wilson) and a complicit press to falsely bruit that Bush lied.And now that it’s clear that is false, the press is uninterested in covering it. (Well their rears will be on the hotseat soon enough if the case isn’t–as it shoud be–dismissed.)
Seems the only real difference between us and Late Republic Romans is that our failed prosecutors still get a book deal while theirs got to fall on their own sword. Ahh, the good old days…
*Does this mean we won’t get to see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs? ‘*
They have 3 more years to pull this off. Democrats, if nothing else, are gluttons for punishment.
Libby should be Fitzpatrick in the sentence about McCarthy.
Whose slush fund?
And you claimed to be an editor of your HS paper? Your mangled syntax has ceased to be a source of humor for us and morphed into headache inducement. Guess I’ll have to go back to skipping over your comments.
Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go … In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
but we should all trust bush et al in good faith
WTF?
Has “bush” been indicted? I mean in real life and not one of your wet dreams.
Shall we then move the conversation to which abuses of executive power our dear friend Jefferson engaged in then durty beyotch?
Totally. What a loser. Long live john marshall.
Point of personal information…I assume prozacula is a woman because of the feminine ending of her nom de internet…do women have noturnal orgasms. I never thought to ask before…honestly!
Yeah, I’ve never really thought of the Constitution as a thing made of wax but more of an etch a sketch containing endless emenations from penumbras.
But then I’m not that old skool.
Fuckin’ A!
Noah: the answer is yes according to Mark Leyner’s book.
For what its worth…I thought actus’ balancing your slush fund comment was funny even if not directly OT or delivered free of grammatical errors.
Apparently it’s not pretty.
clarice feldman is great.
Exactly, Jeff. I was laughing about this last night as I listened to Howard Dean slinging that term around.
I also agree that sadly, this will continue even as power switches hands. I thought it would end with the expiration of the independent prosecutor law, but I had no idea how slight a frame was needed to hang a “constitutional crisis” on. I had naively believed that the Paula Jones thing never would have been pursued had the IP law not existed.
I don’t know if Libby’s prosecution will continue or not. I suspect yes. But I could feel better about it if someone would see their way to expose Wilson along the way. I suppose the idea of him is too useful.
Beginning to think he won’t be successfully prosecuted?
Try not to get too far ahead of the parade there, son…
Gee, Moe, the link doesn’t work.
Get it? The link doesn’t work … because of the CPE strike, see, and … OK, OK, I’m sorry.
Geez. Picky bastards.
Libby walks. The focus will shift to Wilson, who after all, outted his wife himself. I think Fitz is a decent guy and he’ll do the right thing—put Wilson away for a good long time.
You forgot your sarcasm tags, dear.
This whole episode will be so quietly slipped into the etherly nothingness.
Goodnight.
Clarice (and I really don’t know why we should trust someone who sometimes wears L’Air du Temps, but not today) (or maybe it was Maguire) links to a motions-hearing transcript, of whose 42 pages I read 27. I came away thinking, why are we wasting court time and money prosecuting this?
Whatever. You guys keep mutually indicting each other if that’s what revs your engines…we’re just waiting for Bush’s war crimes tribunal and his televised execution thereafter.
Pie. Rhubarb, cherry, apple, hair, raspberry…yum, yum.
Whatever. You guys just pay for our defense and put your lives at risk so we can subsidize our failed welfare states and bitch and moan like the children we are.
We’re all Danes now.
Clarice also thinks mean ole Fitz abused his power when he put the Blink Sheik in jail for the first world trade center bombings. (Sniff. I feel so bad.) So consider the source.
The Danes are about the only Western Europeans who aren’t sniveling little bitches.
The Danes are about the only Western Europeans who aren’t sniveling little bitches.
Um, are you calling the Germans snivelling little bitches?
And if you are, are you saying the world would be better off if they’d re-learn their pre-1945 habits? Would that be better for the world?
I could recommend a few good textbooks if you’d like to read them.
Or perhaps you just don’t know much about either European history or European reality. You know, of course, that they have lots of guys in Afghanistan, yes? No? Bueller?
I’m sure that on some planet your style is impressive, stickler, but your weak link is: this is Earth.
No she doesn’t, but typical of a liberal to summarize to convenience (sniff – go to doctor an get some medicine for you anti-semitism), sort of like those Iraqi docs coming out.
Stickler,
Yeah, they have lots of guys in Afghanistan. Drinking beer at Camp Warehouse, or running pirate radio classic rock stations out of Konduz. As for doing much else besides filling up some billets in ISAF/KMNB….eh.
Of course, the Germans are doing some Afghan police training. Superb trainers, just a bit slow. I reckon Afghanistan will eventually have the best police in the world…sometime around the year 2480 at this pace.
Hey, those are our sniveling little bitches. But they can drink like a mutha!
Because of course those are the only two options for Germans, either sniveling little bitches or power-mad genocidal Nazis.
What did Churchill say about the Germans – always at your feet or at your throat…
According to Germans, they are just sooo tired of hearing about the imprecations of their fathers. After all, there is some impressive scholarship coming out of Iran that suggests, boldly, that the holocaust never actually happened.
And let us not forget Israel’s slow-moving Shoah or America’s in Iraq.
And Booosh is the new Hitler, doncha know? And his Reichstag fire was…9-11.
Germans…leave the beer and six-foot blondes at the doorstep, the rest of you go home. Tryin’ to have a classy party here.
*at this rate, Die Juden, ahem Jews, will have become demographically a minority within Israel by midcentury. WTF?
Jesus man, where were YOU during the Clinton administration?? Ever hear of Henry Cisneros? Lani Guinier? Mike Espy? Vince Foster? Republicans had the art of personal assasination down cold long ago, and compared to them, the Democrats are still rank amateurs.
Libby what?
Zen_less, the difference is that the persons you named, except for Lani Guinier, were all involved in actual wrongdoing. In contrast, the Bush administration has been literally the cleanest administration in a long time, perhaps in history.
Zen_less must be over from Tbogg. Let me repeat for his benefit what my post actually says, beings it’s clear he didn’t bother reading it, but rather followed Tbogg’s lead and assumed I was in a coma during the Clinton years. I wrote:
I’ve bolded the important part for you there, zen_less. Because I’m a giver.
Incidentally, I didn’t follow politics closely at all (outside of specific issues of importance to me) during most of the Clinton years. I lived in Italy during the impeachment period, and only really began turning on Clinton (who I supported in ‘96) because I was appalled by the way NOW and others rallied to his defense and tried to demonize his accusors.
This was the first hint I had that my party (I would have called myself a Democrat at the time—that’s just what we liberal arts university types did, by default) was nowhere near as ideologically pure as they claimed to be.
Then, when I began to realize that it was the Democrats who stood against what I stood for—a color blind society, personal responsibility, free choice and free expression, and classical liberal tenets in general—I began to take my leave of them.
I have as many problems with some of the social conservatives’ nannystatist agenda, and I’ve said as much. But the difference is, social conservatives don’t tend to try to force their prohibitions on my by judicial fiat, or by trying to present them as unbiased and objective truths.
Is that the same as corruption though? It could simply be a calculation that womens interests are furthered by clinton’s policies, furthered by defending him personally from the GOP.
the GOP doesn’t present itself as speaking the truth? wow.
How sad is this? I’m curious what sort of life one must be leading in order to allow this sort of moral abandonment to take hold. You are a true believer actus, the party must be proud.
Now tell me you learned it by watching the GOP.
yes, noah. good job. when someone quotes Jefferson to you, make sure you then attempt to insult that person by calling them a woman.
very butch of you.
Seriously, noah, it would have been much more appropriate to call them a plagarist for not noting it was a quote and giving it proper attribution.
Whoooooosh!!!!
Who is the dean there at ACME School of Law, actus, still Wile Coyote?
The prosecution against Libby is politically motivated?
He. perjured. himself.
Jeff’s opinion, of course, is based on ideological hackery, and not any understanding of the legal system.
Iffin’ you say so. You’re the Esq., after all.
We shall see, I guess.
Would you say the same about Clinton’s impeachment?
I promised myself not to post here again after the last time. Making racist jokes to show you’re not racist in some pseudo-ironic way is pathetic.
But dude, thanks for this. In light of the current news, this blog entry is the most hilarious thing I’ve read all day.
Glad I could aid you in your claims to be so bemused, Mr Silly.
Don’t click here, by the way.
pseudo-ironic, that’s like your name, isn’t it?
Those were politicians impeaching him no?
It never fucking ends.
Yup, this story is going nowhere fast.
Uh, okay. KEEP PADDLING, MR SILLY!
Ah ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha!
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/06/cia.leak/index.html
Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!