Mr. Libby's attorneys should have some fun with Fitz on this issue. According to the article:
Negotiations between Fitzgerald and the Post resulted in a three-page agreement that listed questions the prosecutor could not ask. In short, the agreement walled off questions about the actual conversations and allowed the reporters to keep their notes—and their promises to not reveal their sources. By September 2004, the Post had reached an agreement with the special prosecutor, and its reporters had complied with Fitzgerald’s requests without revealing sources or violating confidentiality.
Doesn't it just warm the cockles of your heart to know that the fearless prosecutor in this case was able to reach an accomodation with the poor little WaPo in order to allow them to protect the 'anonymous' sources that we've all come to love? The only teeny, tiny problem with the accomodationist position is that it is antithetical to an investigation whose purported purpose is the discovery of all facts surrounding the incident being investigated.
Mr. Libby has also engaged some very sharp and competent attorneys. They are undoubtedly sharp enough to produce briefs concerning discovery issues that are going to bring the Sixth and the First Amendment into sharp conflict. Fitzgerald's accomodation with the WaPo bends over backwards with regard to the First Amendment.
We'll see what the court thinks about his contortions having abrogated the defendants Sixth Amendment rights. How in the world can it be determined that the WaPo agreement may not have prevented discovery of exculpatory material concerning Mr. Libbt? And how in the world can a claim be made that Fitzgerald is prosecuting in good faith when he has kowtowed in this manner to the press?
An investigation that excludes questioning the press about leaking to the press - and especially Pincus - is simply ridiculous.
*Exculpatory authors note: Since IANAL all references to Rights are based upon plain text reading. I lack the necessary training to discern the penumbras of any emanations from either amendment.
13 comments:
Rick
I still don't get this. Fitz made accommodations with the other reporters in the case too. I just do not understand why Fitz would do this. He seems to be saying, if someone outside of the WH told (even before) you I DON'T want to know.
Also Rick, how does this jib with Libby have voluntarily testified, but the reporters having to be compelled. I know you have been suspect of fitz for a time...but I am so surprised he would shape a case that would be so easily exploitable.
TS9,
Patrick Fitzgerald has a well earned reputation as a dedicated and tenacious prosecutor. I do not doubt that he is an intelligent man nor do I believe that he has done anything in this instance that is beyond the bounds of prosecutorial discretion.
I do believe, however, that in the instance at hand, involving an investigation as to who "leaked" Plame's identity to the press, a grant of limits to his investigation to persons who may, in fact, have information relating to a complete resolution of the matter is ridiculous on its face.
Pincus' livelihood and reputation rest on his use of and reliance upon anonymous cowards possessing the courage to whisper in the dark but lacking the courage to have their names known. I am aware that it is common practice and I would never claim that Pincus was anything but common as a man and a journalist but I consider the "press shield" to be a coward's shield and I am completely unimpressed with Fitzgerald's lack of backbone in forcing the anonymous vermin into the light.
If some of the vermin happen to be Republican and working in the WH, that's their tough luck. If whatever you are doing in the dark is something that you would ashamed to be seen doing in the light, then perhaps you should reconsider doing it at all.
Joe Wilson is a liar and a cheap hustler. It would have been better to have publicly said so from the beginning rather than letting this matter become such a waste of time and energy. Ignoring the preening jerk would have worked as well.
Come now< Mark. Wilson's trip was a boondoggle arranged by his wife to support his faltering "consulting" business. He allowed himself to be used by Dem operatives based upon a desire to be included in an administration that might have come to power if only the candidate selected had shown any character.
The WH gave the pipsqueak too much attention because of the Times "lending" the Kerry camp the e-page for a little fun and games. Wilson's story was so weak it didn't even meet the Times low standards regarding what constitutes 'news'. The WH should have taken another week and squashed Wilson like a bug.
Considering the fact that Wilson and Plame started all this I think they are the ones who should go to jail, if anyone does.
For instance, did Plame suggest to her husband that lying to reporters [or even talking to them] about a secret mission might not be a good idea?
Why did Wilson lie about who sent him on the trip?
Why did the CIA confirm Plame's employment to Novak?
Why didn't the CIA kill the story?
Why didn't Wilson have to sign a confidentiality agreement?
Why didn't anyone at the CIA check his work before he published so that obvious lies would not be included?
Why did he say one thing to reporters and something else to Senate investigators?
Why was it that he was still saying weapons would be found in Iraq even after the invasion and then suddenly change his opinion?
Why lie about seeing the forged documents and then say he "mispoke"?
Why not submit a written report of the trip?
Why change the story of the findings of the trip?
If he was concerned about his wife being outed why leave her name in his online bio after the wrote his infamous oped?
If he was not lying why did the Kerry cmapaign drop him?
Why are the lefties so desperate to enslave the Iraqi people and destroy the president that they would try to make a hero out of a man that is an obvious fraud?
Why is it no big deal that Hillary Clinton said 'I can't recall' more than 200 times under oath but a faulty memory is an obvious lie if the person in question is a Republican?
Why would WaPo make a deal when their man Pincus helped get this ball rolling in the first damn place?
You know from now on if a story is based on an "anonymous" source, I am just going to have take it with a big fat grain of salt.
Mark
He didn't endorse Kerry until that fall. He officially joined the Kerry campaign as an advisor in February 2004
your just dead wrong:
Boston Globe 10-2-2003:
"Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who said a Bush aide disclosed that his wife is a CIA operative in retaliation for his criticism of the Iraq war, has worked since May as an unpaid adviser to Senator John F. Kerry, offering foreign policy advice and speechwriting tips to the Democratic presidential candidate from Massachusetts. Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie said Wilson's work for Democrats may have motivated him to attack the administration...
...Kerry's advisers acknowledged yesterday that Wilson, who has also donated $2,000 to Kerry this year, told them about his allegations against the White House involving his wife before going public with them this summer. But Rand Beers, Kerry's top adviser on foreign affairs, said the campaign has not played a role in coordinating Wilson's charges."
Terrye,
You ought to turn that comment into a post. It's really great. I take everything I read in the Demsm with an acre of the Bonneville Salt Flats - maybe I should cut down to just "a hege grain of salt".
Mark,
You need to ask yourself "Why the e-page?". The NYT just mebbe had a seaking suspicion that Wilson wasn't precisely working from fact. 'Cause, ya know, he wasn't.
Here's the real dilemma I think. The SP and Court tried to accommodate the press to get around their claim of a right to protect their sources, but Libby has a right under the 6th Amendment to fully defend himself and cannot be bound to the same restrictions Fitz was.
I agree that the accommodation limited the SP's inquiry, but I am not sure in accepting this accommodation as a means of avoiding a bigger issue, anyone took it no account the fact that it would not be sufficient if the case actually came to trial.
Peter
Mark admits defeat
Yeah but lack of knowledge has never stopped him before.
Or much of anyone on the left. I mean even if they read a debunking of something they pretend they didn't see it and go to another blog and post the same damn thing that got debunked already.
Someone just posted a long tirade about Niger at another blog and demanded Bush admit his mistakes and resign. LOL
Not one sentence in his Niger/Wilson tirade had even a grain of truth in it.
It's really pathetic.
Not only did Wilson work for Kerry, he also worked for Gore back in 2000. In fact he had a relationship with Al Gore that went back to 1985.
It is also true that Tenet was a buddy of Gore's.
small world doncha think?
"Will Fitzgerald accomodation tie the hands of Libby's lawyers,or can they subpoena journalists?"
Sorry for the delay in response, Peter, but I had to do a thorough job of studying and researching the Sixth Amendment. After hours of study I believe that I can state conclusively that the answer to your question is "beats the hell out of me".
The legal answer is: "That depends. Thorough research is required and our hourly rates are..."
Why do you think Andrea Mitchell tried to change her story? You don't suppose her first statement set Russert up for some brutal cross examination?
You don't suppose her first statement set Russet up for some brutal cross examination?
Well know her second has set herself up for some too!
Mitchell's backpedal had nothing to do with anything but distancing herself from MEDIA SCORN for speaking the truth, she is merely trying to side step a Judy...she could see that her ,media colleagues were not happy.
It seems to me there is the issue of oepning doors here.
And of course the reporters themselves have opened the door, I don't see how they can avoid discussing it.
The truth is people in power use reporters to go after each other, but in this case it may have backfired. It is just one more reason not to trust a journalist.
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