The Libby Fallout
By Dan McLaughlin Posted in Law — Comments (53) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Patterico offers up criticisms of the Libby commutation. Now, I should start by saying that I'm not necessarily a huge fan of the decision; I still think there was an arguable case for prosecuting Libby and that he was probably guilty, but the decision to commute his prison sentence nonetheless strikes me as a reasonable call, and maybe the right one. I mostly enjoyed the spectacle of the brain-bending hypocrisy of the people who think anything less than years in prison is too small a price for perjury...but also that being guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice should be no obstacle to staying president and even being returned to the White House in 2008; people who think that this pardon is some horrible abuse of power, yet pardoning fugitive traitors for cash and terrorists for votes is no reason not to vote Clinton again in 2008.
Read on . . .
My two cents on the Libby verdict itself? First, I think Libby's conviction will be overturned on appeal due to the limitations on his ability to impeach the star witness against him, Tim Russert. Second, I do think Libby was trying to hide the truth, but I also think he suffered from a lousy memory and that Russert was untruthful - I doubt very strongly that he intended to tell a story that much at odds with the chronology, I think he misremembered what happened and tried to shade it further. That's not a defense of Libby, it's just what I think happened. Also, I have never ripped Fitzgerald, and I'm not joining the caucus that says he was horribly abusive, but I do think all things considered he should probably have pulled the plug on his investigation once he knew who the leak had come from. He didn't prosecute Armitage, which strongly suggests that he knew that there was no legal basis for a prosecution based on the leak. Instead, he called Libby and Rove and others repeatedly to the grand jury for no other reason than to investigate their statements to the FBI. Under the circumstances, that strikes me as a waste of resources and poor prosecutorial judgment. And I do think the people in the media he chose not to question strongly suggests there were answers he wasn't interested in hearing.
That said, Patterico - who was in favor of the prosecution - offers three main criticisms of the commutation. One is that Bush didn't work through the usual pardon process (in fact, he seems to have reached the decision while fishing with Vladimir Putin). This strikes me as a minor quibble in this case; the main purpose of the process is to vet the submission that goes to the president to make sure that he gets a fair presentation of the facts rather than the slanted perspectives of one side in a criminal case. Here, Bush was already familiar with the players and the facts (we all are, by now, but Bush knows them personally). Granted, the process also provides another benefit (the professional staff can provide perspective on how similarly situated defendants are sentenced), but fundamentally, this was a judgment call Bush was well-entitled to make himself.
The second criticism, from Orin Kerr, is a little more substantial: that Bush has scarcely used the pardon power at all (no doubt in large part due to the bad odor from the previous Administration), and thus this is more in the nature of special treatment than is usually the case for presidential pardons of associates of the President.
That's a fair argument, but at bottom I think the motive here is Bush's belief - as has been the belief of past presidents, fairly or otherwise - that Libby would never have been prosecuted in the first place were it not for his political position (it was only the political firestorm over the Plame leak that forced the appointment of a Special Prosecutor in the first place). High executive branch appointees do get special treatment the rest of us don't, but they also face a risk of criminalization of their daily activities that ordinary people don't. It cuts both ways. On some level, letting Libby go to jail would have been a legitimazation of the kind of criminalization of foreign policy that the Democrats specialized in during the 1980s, and that is a kind of calculus that makes this decision wholly unlike the situation of ordinary criminal defendants.
Third, Patterico argues that the GOP will pay a terrible political price. Maybe I've grown more cynical after the 1990s, but I doubt it. Bush is unpopular, to be sure, and the Democrats have had great success with the "culture of corruption" mantra in convincing the public that the Republicans are up to their eyeballs in shady land deals and defense contracts and freezers full of cash, plus Democratic candidates are busy working to mislead the public about what Libby was actually prosecuted for. But first of all, this is an instrumental argument - that Bush should have let the electoral impact of the decision govern his judgment. Second, I think political people consistently underestimate the built-in cynicism of the average voter with regard to politicians. Third, this story hasn't had nearly the cache with voters that it has with bloggers, who have obsessed about it endlessly since July 2003 (I've certainly posted about it enough, and I'm far from one of the most obsessed bloggers), and there will be a lot of other water under the bridge by November 2008. Fourth, the Democrats remain highly likely to nominate Hillary.
Bush had a tough decision to make. I think he made a reasonable call, given the nature of the underlying prosecution and the political origins of the entire investigation.
UPDATE: WSJ Law Blog says that some criminal defendants will be asking judges for the same treatment Libby got. But judges are not the president; the pardon power has always been the exception to the rule of law.
Bush is already about as low as he can go in approval ratings-he is all but a lame duck.
He isn't running for another office.
He is going home to Texas.
His VP isn't running for the '08 presidential post.
None of the GOP candidates are connected to this scandal-and they had no power of pardon, so any lefty outrage from the left can't easily be hung on them other than to stir up already outraged lefties, who weren't going to vote GOP anyway.
The people most angered by this move are the lefties that aren't voting the GOP anyway.
The ones angered, but not rabid lefties would be petty to hang this move on other GOP candidates-they will get over their anger, and consider real issues.
In the end-I think this was a good move by Bush.
And I think it was good timing.
By the time the primary elections start, this will be all but forgotten, and the DNC candidate most glad it played out this way is Hillary-she is hardly in a position to do too much criticizing over the commutation, and she will be more than happy to make her statement in opposition and take her hits now, and never bring it up again.
I have very little problem with the verdict, or even the sentence. The process and prosecution were over the top, though. Once no underlying crime were found and Fitzgerald moved forward in the hope of bringing some related charge, this morphed from the legitimate into a political prosecution. President Bush did the right thing. Legal ethics classes and continuing legal education apparently spend little time on prosecutorial discretion these days.
And as for fall out, there will be none. As a matter of fact, in about five months most people will think "Scooter" refers to a transport or someone who had an affair with Paris Hilton. Not that I like that reality, mind you, but it is the state of the world.
Of course, Chris Matthews still will devote months on end to the subject, which means roughly .00000001 percent of the population will remain aware.
1) What a silly argument - that he just pulled the commutation out of the blue during a fishing trip. Come now. There were calls for pardon starting the day of the conviction, and I guarantee you that Bush was hearing those messages from day one and was considering his options beginning that day. And I am not aware of a formal "process" for considering a pardon...but I'm no expert, of course.
2) Number two is even sillier than number one. So since Bush hasn't been handing out pardons like candy at a 4th of July parade, he can't hand one out now? Ridiculous. That's a classic "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. It's not a fair argument, it's an idiotic one.
3) As I posted previously, in 9-12 months, no one will care about Scooter Libby or the pardon. It'll be past history - something else is bound to come up and trump the current hand-wringing over this one. It's a non-issue.
"Second, I do think Libby was trying to hide the truth....."
Libby was not hiding the truth! You are either ignorant of the case or you one of those who have bought in hook-line-and-sinker to the whole media/Left mantra that the Bush administration wanted to punish Joe Wilson and his wife. Three weeks into the investigation by special prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald he knew who the leaker was: Richard Armitage. The whole case was to determine who leaked Plame's name to Bob Novak in a July 2003 column about how Joe Wilson was picked to go to Niger to investigate the whole yellow-cake uranium thing. Armitage was the leaker; he even admitted to doing so. Libby has been caught up in a special prosecutor wanting to become a celebrity. Go read some Joe Kline and get the story. There was no hiding of "the truth."
Standing athwart history yelling stop!!!! http://nationalwhig.blogspot.com
Trust me, I've been writing about this story for years, and I don't buy a word of Joe Isuzu's story. What I mean by hiding the truth is that Libby told a story very far from the truth in terms of when and how frequently he was told, and told others, about Plame's CIA employ. Yes, those statements were not material to the point of Fitzgerald's investigation by the time Libby went before the grand jury, but be that as it may, I do find it implausible that he misremembered quite that much. I think he believed that he had had fewer conversations on the subject and tried to fudge his way through to minimize his boss' involvement in the push-back. Either way, there's no excuse for him speaking to investigators or the grand jury without having carefully reviewed his office's records for the time period in question.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
Fitzgerald was able to get away with letting the jury think that there were underlying crimes involved without having to prove that angle. The judge made it a moot issue, so we don't really know whether Libby THOUGHT there was a crime he needed to cover up, whether he was doing it purely for SPIN purposes to avoid embarassment up the chain, or whether his memory is really that bad. The only thing we know is that there was NOT a crime being covered up, though I bet if you polled the jury they believed there is.
Nothing would have happened prior to appellate review if Libby had not faced immediate imprisonment.
Libby was not the leak, there was no underlying crime, naitonal security was not compromised, and Fitzgerald knew this from the first day or so.
If Libby was outing classifed information, it was under orders of the person authorized to release it.
The real story is that Fitzgerald was Marc Rich's prosecutor and was ticked at Libby's representation of Rich in lobbying for a pardon. This was a personal vendetta, not a lawful prosecution.
Fitzgerald needs to be Nifonged.
that Fitzgerald should be "Nifonged."
Fitzgerald may have been overly aggressive in pursuing the case against Libby, but I agree with Dan that Libby was probably not completely honest under oath. That probably pissed of Fitzgerald and he went after Libby too hard because of it. Whatever fault there is I find more with the overall special prosecutor concept, with its total lack of oversight and accountability.
Remember, Fitzgerald was reasonable with how he treated Rove, who came close to tripping up in his testimony, but Fitzgerald ultimately let him off the hook.
Also, being overly aggressive with going after Libby hardly outweighs the great work Fitzgerald has done for this country in his work as a US Attorney, prosecuting John Gotti, Omar Abdel Rahman and Gov. George Ryan, amongst others. IMO that's worth keeping in perspective when you start trashing Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald should be Nifonged. He found out who the source was and continued his witch hunt. I find it to be similar to an illegal search. If you have no business looking, what you find cannot be entered into evidence.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
Regardless of whatever motive ("that probably pissed off Fitzgerald") or his previous "great works", several of his actions are reprehensible:
--during pre-trial activities, Libby lawyers tried in vain to get the prosecution to turn over any discoveries related to Plame's covert status. Fitzgerald gave them the hand, saying that such matters were irrelevant to the case.
--in both opening and closing statements (where lawyers are free to say many things they could not say during examinations) Fitzgerald made strenuous efforts to hang "leaked national secrets" around Libby's neck. During the trial proper, nothing regarding Plame's status was brought up by the prosecution. Yet in closing statements, once again that dishonest (i.e., LYING) canard was brought up in full force, as Fitzgerald argued for the strongest penalty allowable, claiming Libby had compromised national security for the sake of a vendetta against Joe Wilson [fully aware that the leak was from Bush-hater Dick Armitage].
--oh yeah, his public statements announcing the charges -- same assertions.
You know what that is? LYING. Publicly accusing a person of charges that are manifestly untrue (that Libby did the leaking).
Illegal? Probably not. Shameful, vindictive prosecution and public lynching? Yes.
Nifong his sorry, lying butt.
It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?
sound to me like typical tactics of both prosecution and defense attorneys in just about any case- playing hardball, putting their own spin on things, pushing the envelope with what they can say in court.
You want to go after every lawyer who behaves that way? Ok- they pretty much all do.
Like I said, I think Fitzgerald was too aggressive in going after Libby. But not because he is some sort of out of control villian, but because this is where these "special prosecutor" situations inevitably lead.
Special prosecutor situations are basically witch hunts and fishing expeditions to start out with, and John Ashcroft put this one in motion. I guess Fitzgerald could have said he wanted no part of it, but his superior in the DOJ asked him to do it, so its hard to expect someone to say no to that. Once he, or whoever else would have taken on this role, went down this road, it was inevitably going to end with the special prosecutor going after too many people too aggressively. Like I said, I actually though Fitzgerald showed some relative restraint in the situation by being reasonable with Rove. A Lawrence Walsh type definately would have indicted Rove just for the hell of it.
Fitzgerald was prejudicial and a biased judge permitted arguments without evidence.
Fitzgerald lied like Nifong.
He is no hero. He is a creep.
He seemed to have no interest in Richard Armitage, did he now?
He found out on Day Uno that Bush-hating commie suck-butt Armitage was the leaker. That should have ended the investigation, except for the question of "was Plame covert" and it's sister question "did a crime actually occur".
All the other stuff is just fluff. He exercised audacious prosecutorial abuse of power by going on a 2-year perjury-trap "investigation", then publicly, knowingly slandered a person -- speak of the press conference announcing the charges against Libby.
It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?
Do we now know that Brewster Jennings is/was a CIA front company?
How effective do we think all the NOC's that handed out Brewster Jenning's business cards have been since the revelation?
that the CIA's own culture of incompetence and the leaks of the MSM are truly damaging.
And since what you ask was not part of the scope of the case, I have no way to answer that.
I do know that Plame was not a legal NOC, and that outing her broke no law, and that Fitgerald's own actions underscore this.
Additionally, we know that Libby was not the source of the leak that outted her.
So we have no crime, and we have Libby in no way materially obstructing the investigation to establish if there was a crime.
What we have is a bad faith prosecutor - Fitzgerald.
I see what you're saying, which is that it might not have been Libby's fault that the whole world now knows that everyone that once worked for Brewster Jennings is a CIA spy. I was simply responding to your statement that no damage has been done. The level of damage is certainly debatable, but there is definitely damage. Whether that was caused by Libby or someone else with access to that information is clearly in doubt.
I'll not argue that the CIA is incompetent but they didn't out Plame and with her Brewster Jennings.
I don't like the argument of "it's the media's fault". No member of the media has authorized access to classified government documents / information. Such information that gets reported is reported because someone that does have access has decided to leak it. Are you suggesting that it should be OK to tell a reporter something classified but it should not be OK for that reporter to report?
part I am talking about the fact that the NYT has outed real programs that really effected national security. That the MSM when they outed the CIA air transport system put real CIA coverts at risk by listing where the planes were based and the name of the front company flying them, ,making deducing the employees child's play.
And don't forget that the MSM knew from day one the entire leak was from Armitage.
So my blame is specific in both action and in philosophy.
they just did it by omission rather than comission. The CIA, with Plame as a key player, handed her husband a plum job and either failed to have him sign the usual non-disclosure agreement or failed to enforce the agreement when Wilson sent his article to that bastion of spook protection the NYT.
Even a rookie RPG player doesn't make that kind of mistake.
How do you know Plame was not a legal NOC? Everything I have seen from the CIA has always maintain that she was a valid NOC at the time. What is your source of information?
Because by statute definition she was not one?
Because after a very lengthy investigation where it was established many people leaked her name at different times, no one was charged?
The CIA lawyers, who understand the statute better than you or me, brought the charge to the DOJ so in their understanding she was.
Absence of charges does not mean absence of crime. Only that chance of conviction was poor to none given the obstruction that was occurring.
Victoria Toensing's written testimony before the House Committee on Oversight.
(pdf)
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“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
Here is the memo
The memo you cited is nothing more than a weak attempt to bolster Plame’s standing in her civil suit.
From the memo.
On 1 Jan 2002, Valerie Wilson was working for the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations (DO). She was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) at CIA Headquarters…
NOC status requires Foreign Station. Traveling overseas on "official business" does not satisfy this requirement. Therefore, Valerie Plame was not "covert" according to the law.
What part of Toensing’s detailed explanation of the law was not clearly understood?
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“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
"Valerie Plame Wilson was NOT a covert agent." Toensing hints at her feelings with phrase such as "If Plame really was covert" and "If Plame was really covered by the Act", but she never unequivocally states that, in her judgment, Plame was not covert. Its all inferences and lawyer speak which ultimately provides no conclusions on Plame's status.
However the CIA memo, approved by Gen. Michael Hayden DCI, does give such a statement:
"At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson's employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."
Clear English, definitive, provided by President Bush's appointed head of the CIA.
I like my cigars Cuban, please.
"However the CIA memo, approved by Gen. Michael Hayden DCI, does give such a statement"
Your interpretation and Waxman's assertion are factually incorrect. Gen. Hayden "approved" the memo for release to the public (declassified). He did not attest to the memo's accuracy.
I reiterate, "NOC status requires foreign station." Traveling overseas on "official business" does not satisfy this requirement.
At the time of Novak's disclosure and under the statute (Intelligence Identities Protection Act) Valerie Plame was not entitled to NOC status and was not covered by the Act.
(4) The term "covert agent" means -
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an
intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency -
i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States;
(Note: During the course of this investigation, no one was prosecuted under the Act.)
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“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
You assume no improper motives by the CIA in initiating a criminal referral against bureaucratic enemies within the government.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
Has undermined this Administration and this war continuously.
After offering shoddy evidence and bad analysis.
They have played politics and still are.
That is in the record.
Pushing back by intimidating via a phony legal claim?
Ask Nifong about that.
Apparently the CIA lawyers are no better than the rest of the CIA - no crime occurred in outing Valerie Plame. She was not covered by the statute.
This was part of the CIA betrayal of this President and this war.
They hired her husband at her request. They gave him a nice paying empty consulting job.
His work was so worthless, or so casual, they did not make him sign a non-disclosure agreement.
They permitted him to talk about his work openly, and to lie about his work unchallenged.
But Libby, who did not leak her friggin' name is the criminal?
B.S.
You should ask Dick Armitage then, since he is/was the leaker.
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The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson
refighting this but let's, as they say, connect the dots.
1. Robert Novak got Plame's maiden name from Joe Wilson's entry in Who's Who.
2. According to Novak, a CIA spokesman confirmed that she worked at the CIA.
3. Brewster Jennings was exposed because Plame gave $1,000 to the Al Gore campaign and listed her employer as Brewster Jennings.
Doesn't any little part of this sound particularly sloppy?
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
While the timing was politically appropriate (slow Monday when most of America won't be watching), he once again tried to split the difference. He's angered the nut roots (granted, he only needs to continue to breathe to achieve this) but not made the people who have been calling for a pardon of Libby happy. He has made the MSM happy, because they will make sure the story lasts long enough to make it to the start of the next news cycle.
None of these things seem good to me. Had he granted a full pardon, he might have at least gotten some upside to it.
Frankly, I'm with the people who think you don't criminalize having a bad memory and a disagreement with Congress. Libby's been Nifonged, just like Robert was borked, and it's time to start putting a stop to this kind of nonsense. But commuting the sentence doesn't start to put a stop to the nonsense: it allows it to continue to exist like an undead zombie unthinkingly trying to destroy our political system.
If the judge had agreed to delay the jail sentence pending appeal, then Bush would have done nothing. I don't imagine he has the power to delay the sentence, so he either needed to let Libby go to jail or commute that part of his sentence.
Bush actually imposed his lawful power in the lest obtrusive way possible.
It permits the process to go forward, without the ridiculous aspect of jailing Libby while appeals are still underway.
The judge was completely out of line in not permitting Libby out on bail while the appeal went forward.
It wasn't just the judge that wouldn't permit Libby to stay out of jail. Didn't a 3 judge appeals court review or something also rule it was unlikely for an appeal to be successful and thus he should start serving his sentence while the rest of the appeal was processed?
Sandy Berger actually steals, destroys, covers up, and perjures on important specific matters of record, and walks.
Libby is convicted on a charge of perjury when there was no crime, no obstruction and the only evidence was a difference of opinion on memories and time lines.
I tend to have sympathy for those who feel there is Republican justive - which means jail time- and democratic justice, which means no jail and usually no trial.
1. Prisoner should be currently serving the sentence.
2. Prisoner should not be currently appealing his/her conviction.
3. Prisoner should have shown contrition for his / her crime.
sentence based on his specific powers under Article 2 of that arcane Constitution of ours, exactly what difference does DoJ guidelines make?
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
but in the US DoJ works for the president, the DoJ doesn't set guidelines for the president, and the president has virtually unfettered powers "to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States."
So I'm not sure what the guidlines DoJ uses for its own purposes has to do with anything.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
On this topic the President can do whatever he/she pleases without regard to DoJ guidelies or established protocol. Starting to get a bit worried about how Queen Hillary might use/abuse that power when she claims the crooks in her administration were unfairly targeted.
this same sort of silly argument. "But how would ____ use this power?"
It is really a non sequitur because the issue is how the power is used. The answer to your hypothetical is that we've already had a preview of how another Clinton Administration would use the pardon power, like pardoning convicted terrorists to try to win Puerto Rican votes, and the republic didn't fall.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
Starting to get a bit worried about how Queen Hillary might use/abuse that power when she claims the crooks in her administration were unfairly targeted.
This really isn't a good argument. From experience I can tell you flat out that no Democrat needs a Republican to do something before them.
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The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson
during the appeals, I don't think Bush would have moved to have done anything.
Also, the commutation still allows Libby to appeal. And answering some of the appealate issues may be as much a vindication for Libby if he wins as a pardon right now.
but I'm of the opinion that the fix is already in and Libby's been selected scapegoat. Plame wasn't covered, but the prosecutor went on anyway. The trial judge ruled this abuse irrelevant, and the appeals court agreed. No way the SCOTUS takes the case, so it ends there.
Libby was Nifonged, but this time there is no general outcry against it.
during appeals is a very narrow one, that centers specifically around certain constitutional issues. Also, the actual appeal hasn't been filed or argued, the argument before the court and appeals panel was over the likelihood of prevailing on that narrow area.
There are other appealable issues, which also will be argued, and some of those (like the judge ruling evidence on memory couldn't be argued by the defense among them) may be winnable-but that kind of argument doesn't qualify for the "stay out of jail on bail until appeals is over" card.
Either way, in the end Libby doesn't go to jail, he remains convicted for now, and by the time the '08 election runs around most people will have moved on to something else.
that Bush is willing to give amnesty to millions of lawbreakers, but he won't fully pardon Scooter Libby? Something just doesn't seem right about that.
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Halls of Justice Painted Green, Money Talking.
Power Wolves Beset Your Door, Hear Them Stalking.
Why didn't he go after Richard Armitage? For those commentators who felt he wasn't overly aggressive, could you please give me a good reason why didn't he go after Armitage?
Does it make any sense for a prosecutor to go on a witchhunt for over three weeks, not bothering to charge a person who already admitted to being the source of leak, but another person who could have tripped up himself in giving the testimony under oath?
Therefore, with all due respect, it's Fitzgerald who should be charged with prosecutorial misconduct, he knew who did it, and yet went after Libby. Indeed, he doesn't deserve our sympathy, he needs to be "Nifonged" as somebody put it so eloquently.
Again, let me say this about Fitzgerald. I don't care about his personal great works in cracking down on some criminals, as far I am concerned, he did a terrible thing, and from my perspective, he broke the law by going after the wrong person. He needs to be Nifonged, period.
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Daniel 2:20 And he [God] changeth the times and seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding.
The President did not abuse his power. He did not violate the Constitution. If Libby wins on appeal, which I think he will, then the calls for his need to be jailed are seen as the venal bad faith calls they are. If he fails, then he is a convicted perjurer and will suffer about as much as clinton did for his.
That the MSM sees this as egregious and what Sandy Berger received as no big deal disgusts me.
The core problem is that the President has gone passive aggressive basically since the got slimed during Katrina.
Instead of confronting the outrageous lies and race baiting of the lefties and the MSM, he simply shut down.
But this long term snit impacts the war, and every other aspect of his Administration.
He needs to get over it, learn to stay verbally focused, and push back hard.
We need a call national honor, and he is the only one to do it.
He should have been in the face of Fitzgerald and he should have outed the fact that Armitage was the leaker from day one.
Everyone on the 'inside' of this knew it. which brings up some thoughts about the raw brutal vicious cynicism of our media and the democrats that should be explored at great length.