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PrintJuly 28, 2010
Blago, Scooter, and Fitz
The Valerie Plame affair can shed some light on Rod Blagojevich's trial. It was Plame's husband Joe Wilson who put the lie into the "Bush lied us into war" slogan. Bush rightly told the nation that Hussein had sought yellow cake uranium from Niger. Joe Wilson claimed he was sent by Dick Cheney to go to Niger to find out. Wilson was found to be lying in parts large and small. But the damage was done. The entire focus of the war shifted to the lack of yellow cake uranium and other WMD.
Turns out that Dick Cheney did not send Valerie Plame's husband to Niger to prove or disprove anything, it was Valerie Plame herself. Hoping to keep a "scandal" alive, the party apparatchiks in the media howled and complained that the Bush Administration "outed" Valerie Plame in order to punish her and silence others who might come forward to make fools of themselves as Joe Wilson did. Patrick Fitzgerald was placed in charge of an investigation to find out who "leaked" Valerie Plame's name.
Lewis Libby was convicted for having a different memory of the affair than the late Tim Russert. Valerie Plame was not a covert operative and Lewis Libby did not "leak" her name. It was Richard Armitage who told Robert Novak that it was Valerie Plame who had her husband sent to Niger to look for yellow cake uranium and not Dick Cheney. No actual crime was committed. The only thing that really happened in the whole affair was that the truth got out and it was damaging to the left's effort to criminalize the Bush Administration.
Patrick Fitzgerald knew all the relevant facts before he started his "investigation." He knew that no crime was committed because Valerie Plame was not a covert operative. Fitzgerald knew at the outset that Richard Armitage told Bob Novak that Valarie Plame sent her husband to Niger. But Fitzgerald had an "investigation" to lead and an unlimited budget to spend. Fitzgerald, whose only charge was to find out who "outed" Valerie Plame, wasted untold millions of taxpayer dollars on what amounted to "perjury traps." The media wanted to see Libby or Rove "frog marched" and Fitzgerald was willing to oblige them despite all the evidence to the contrary.
During Lewis Libby's trial all the relevant facts of the case were purposely withheld from Libby's jury. The jury was not told that no crime was committed. The jury was not told that it was Richard Armitage who committed the non-crime of pointing out the fact that Plame sent her husband to Niger. But these were inconvenient truths to Fitzgerald and the judge. Libby's defense lawyers were not permitted to tell the truth to the jury: There was no crime committed and therefore no motive for Libby to lie to anyone about anything. While the defense was denied these crucial truths, it did not stop Fitzgerald parading around the court room intoning that some heinous crime was committed and that Lewis Libby was caught lying about it to save his skin.
The jurors never heard the name Richard Armitage. The only obstruction of truth and obstruction of justice in the court room came from Fitzgerald himself. The foreman of the jury, Tim Russert's BBQ buddy and neighbor believed Tim Russert's memory and not Lewis Libby's memory. What did we learn from the Valarie Plame affair? Joe Wilson was a liar and Patrick Fitzgerald is a dangerous political hack capable of ruining the lives of otherwise innocent people.
After wasting millions of taxpayer dollars, ruining an innocent man's life, and obstructing justice in the courtroom Fitzgerald moved on to Chicago to set up shop. Federal investigators had Governor Rod Blagojevich's phones tapped. Blagojevich was in the process of naming Obama's replacement in the Senate. For the first time, the public might learn of the common and ordinary backroom deals practiced by Chicago politicians, the unions, and political hacks like Obama and Blagojevich.
Yesterday we learned that Blagojevich's defense lawyers are complaining that they, like Libby's lawyers, were not allowed to introduce relevant witnesses, names, and facts into the case. As in the case against Libby, could this information be inconvenient to Fitzpatrick's case against Blagojevich? Blagojevich's defense lawyers are under threat of contempt of court should they tell jurors what they feel is pertinent information to Blagojevich's defense.
Once the federal investigators learned that Obama chieftains were pressuring Blagojevich to name their choice, Valerie Jarrett, Senator, political hack Patrick Fitzgerald stepped in to end the investigation. Just when things were getting interesting! Fitzgerald claimed that so many crimes were being committed by Blagojevich that he had to stop things immediately! Why not let some money and jobs change hands Mr. Fitzgerald? Even Elliot Spitzer got that amount of due process. What is it that Blagojevich is charged with anyway?
On July 7th, 2008 we learned that 500 tons of yellow cake uranium was secretly shipped from Iraq to Canada.
I wonder what bombshells remain to be unearthed from the Fitzgerald Vs Blagojevich scandal.
