Perjury and Obstruction . . . Not a Big Deal
Anybody else see Sen. Hutchison, on Meet the Press, say that there was more to the Clinton impeachment than perjury and obstruction of justice? Hmm. The House passed two articles of impeachment, one for perjury and one for . . . obstruction of justice. This is strange. Why does the good senator now think that these impeachable offenses are "technical," not real offenses? I don't get it . . . oh, wait. Rove and Libby are Republicans. Ouch. It must hurt to be hoist on your own petard.
Now, I agree with those, including Bill Kristol, that the criminalization of politics has reached a dangerous level, although that level was reached . . . back in 1998 . . . maybe Bill and I just disagree on verb tense? As in, "was reached"?
Waiting on the grand jury. Maybe there won't be indictments. But I wouldn't bet on that.
posted by Number Three @ 7:40 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Emery,
Being more familiar with legal nicities, maybe you can help me on this. Why is it that suddenly most folks assume that the case will only be about obstruction, lying under oath....? When Fitzgerald was first assigned this task, I do not remember anyone saying that leaking her name was probably not against the law. If this had been the case, wouldn't Fitzgerald have ascertained this relatively quickly and then ended the investigation? It seems to me that no one said this wasn't a crime until after it became clear that Rove and Libby were involved.
As far as I can see the White House and the Republicans are desparate. First they said no one at the White House was involved. When that was proven untrue, they latched on to the fact that Rove did not mention her by name, as if the law applied only to the leaking of a proper name rather than an identity. When that dog wouldn't hunt, they changed tactics and said it really wasn't a crime because Plame was not covered by the law -- and everyone is repeating this story now. So at this point, when it looks fairly clear that Fitzgerald will issue some indictments for crimes, they are now changing tactics once again and beginning to attack Fitzgerald and the office of the special prosecutor.
So my question is this: Is it really so crystal clear that Fitzgerald won't indict the leak as illegal? Seems to me, that the first thing he should have done was to determine whether Plame/Wilson was covered by the law and if he now says she wasn't, then he should have ended the investigation long ago. He does not seem to me to be a sloppy and terribly partisan man, so I look for indictments for both the leak and the cover up.
-Ivy
Post a Comment
<< Home