Thursday, March 09, 2006

More CIA Shenanigans

So the CIA is worried that producing documents already read by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr. will impair their ability to further advise the President?

Say what?

So says CIA officer Marilyn Dorn in an affidavit unsealed in the court on Tuesday. Dorn's quote: "The job would divert ... precious time and effort away from [the] primary task: preparing breaking intelligence for the president's immediate attention."

But aren't the reports already prepared and in a CIA hard drive somewhere?
Or the dead-tree version in an old-fashioned file cabinet?

And didn't Libby already read them as part of his duties to advise the Vice President?

And Justice Department Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald didn't seem to have any worries about impairing the presidential staff by indicting Libby on charges related to the outing a covert agent when that agent was not covert in the first place.

So, let me get this straight - we worry about the CIA but not about the President?

It's not like the CIA has such a glowing record, right? The politicization of the agency is shameful.

Was anyone at the CIA worried about Michael Scheuer writing books attacking the administration?

Was anyone at the CIA concerned enough to get Joe Wilson to sign a confidentiality agreement before sending this highly political individual to Niger?

How about all those politically harmful leaks to the New York Times and the Washington Post?

Unless Fitzgerald can produce evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Valerie Plame was a covert agent, and prove some real harm here, I think he should drop the bogus case against Libby and go back to Chicago where he can be useful in prosecuting some street criminals.

Or looking out that the terrorists don't blow up the Sears Tower.

Fitzgerald, if you are really interested in giving the President the best information possible, give him back one of his best team members: Scooter Libby.

2 comments:

Charlie Martin said...

Yesh, what you said.

A PDB is a couple-three pages. They're worried that the have to zeroz ≤ 1000 pages for discovery.

They should be glad they're not a drug company or covered by Sarbanes-Oxley.

Charlie Martin said...

Knuck, I wouldn't be surprised; it's also my impression, however, that the default answer to *all* discovery requests is "No, absolutely not, too hard, too much stuff."

We'll know more when we see what the judge's response is.