Redstate

more of the gift that keeps on giving

By streiff Posted in The White House — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Yesterday we devoted a bit of space to celebrating our schadenfreude as the Plamegate nothingburger came to a shameful end (here | here). Our focus was on the Washington Post editorial acknowledging Joe Wilson's lack of credibility and central role in manufacturing a scandal out of thin air and on the less than honorable actions of Richard Armitage and Colin Powell in allowing the non-scandal threaten the political survival of the administration they purported to serve as they stood idly by.

We didn’t touch on the other question hanging fire from this sordid episode: the seemingly despicable actions of US Attorney Partrick Fitzgerald.

That looks to be changing as the New York Times, the news source most invested in Plamegate, begins the thorough proctological exam Mr. Fitzgerald so richly deserves.

Read on.

An enduring mystery of the C.I.A. leak case has been solved in recent days, but with a new twist: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, knew the identity of the leaker from his very first day in the special counsel’s chair, but kept the inquiry open for nearly two more years before indicting I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, on obstruction charges.

Now, the question of whether Mr. Fitzgerald properly exercised his prosecutorial discretion in continuing to pursue possible wrongdoing in the case has become the subject of rich debate on editorial pages and in legal and political circles.
Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, first told the authorities in October 2003 that he had been the primary source for the July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak that identified Valerie Wilson as a C.I.A. operative and set off the leak investigation.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s decision to prolong the inquiry once he took over as special prosecutor in December 2003 had significant political and legal consequences. The inquiry seriously embarrassed and distracted the Bush White House for nearly two years and resulted in five felony charges against Mr. Libby, even as Mr. Fitzgerald decided not to charge Mr. Armitage or anyone else with crimes related to the leak itself.

Moreover, Mr. Fitzgerald’s effort to find out who besides Mr. Armitage had spoken to reporters provoked a fierce battle over whether reporters could withhold the identities of their sources from prosecutors and resulted in one reporter, Judith Miller, then of The New York Times, spending 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify to a grand jury.

We can be confident that we will see a lot more stories on Mr. Fitzgerald by a lot more sources in the days to come and can only hope that he undergoes the same anxiety and financial loss that he inflicted upon people he knew to be innocent.

I’m not a lawyer and I don’t even play one on the internet. But if the law is to have any relationship, however tangential, with justice then we must rely on prosecutors to act in the interests of justice and not simply to build their resume or to improve their win-loss record. Fitzgerald, at this juncture, seems to have acted irresponsibly, vindictively, and with a disregard for the truth if his statement announcing Scooter Libby’s indictment is any gauge.

He should be the first reason any future administration gives for saying thanks-but-no-thanks when anyone demands that a prosecutor be appointed who acts outside the existing system of federal prosecutors supervised by the Justice Department.