Jun 06 2006
WSJ Publically Spanks Fitzgerald
In a very well structured piece, the WSJ notes the lunacy and weakness around Fitzgerald’s case against Scooter Libby. It is a great read, and exposes what could be the root problem here – The Grand Jury process. Fitzgerald obviously controlled the flow and substance of information going to the Grand Jury to get indictments – and the ones he got were flimsy and way off the topic he was supposed to be looking in to.
But Fitzgerald’s ego got the best of him. Fitz must have thought if he could only get the indictment, he could game the system and not have any real resistance from a defense team. Reality is striking Fitz about the head and shoulders. He has lost a lot of ground just in the pre-trial motions. He has admitted his two key witnesses (Wilson and Grossman) have major credibility issues. And the reporters are not helping him with any firm statements, they are as accurate in their recollections as Libby is.
Fitzgerald suckered himself. He did not use the Grand Jury to test the merits of the case, he used it to confirm his desire to get back at the Bush administration. That is the two edged sword of the Grand Jury. Since the prosecutor has control of the information going in, and there is no defense argument (which is why the process needs to be scuttled), the prosecutor can kid themselves into believing they have a case – if only they can control the flow of information in court! And that is not what justice is about.
Justice is about a fair hearing of all pertinent information. The judge in this case has made many mistakes assuming how other reporters heard of Plame is not germaine (which it is since Libby says we [the administration] heard about Plame from many reporters, and reporters were hearing about her all over the place and talking to all sorts of government officials). But those mistakes can be rectified.
The judge is trying his best, but the fact is this was a case where the administration attempted to communicate truths in response to lies, and the prosecutor is taking the liars side and charging the truth tellers. How this even got to court borders on criminal. But one thing is clear: Fitzgerald is an out of control prosecutor who duped himself in the Grand Jury process by shading justice – not practicing justice.
And our system needs to be fixed when people like him and Ronnie Earle can misuse the process to bring trumped up charges against good people. How is it charges on non-existant crimes can come out, and a Representative caught taking cash bribes in an amount most people spend one or more years working to earn is still in office?
We need to clean house it seems.
The answer is simple as to how this can happen. In this day and age, a (D) after your name means excuses and blame another. An (R) means guilty as charged, because the press says so.
Sad state of affairs we have today. I agree 100%, the Grand Jury system needs to be junked. If the criteria for guilt in this country is “you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich” then we certainly should afford our citizens better.
AJ
I have supported your position, if I got it right from the start, that perhaps rules of the courts need to be changed such that if the original prime crime being investigated is discounted, then there should be a filing of this conclusion by the prosecuter with the court and the investigation should be terminated.
To continue beyond the base charge being disproved or at least being unsupported can only have as a target gotcha justice.
Ethically I rate this somewhere close to ambulance chasing.
Also any judge who condones grand jury shopping is asleep at the switch.
“Fitzgerald obviously controlled the flow and substance of information going to the Grand Jury to get indictments – and the ones he got were flimsy and way off the topic he was supposed to be looking in to.”
This sounds a lot like the DA in the Duke Lacrosse team deal.
“Also any judge who condones grand jury shopping is asleep at the switch.”
This is of course how after “several” grand juries (GJ), they were finally able to get an indictment against Delay. If they had only gone to one, given all the incriminating AND exculpatory evidence there was absolutely zero chance of a indictment. Only with several GJ’s and NO exculpatory evidence were they finally able to get one.
In the Scooter Libby case, the fair(as we all know) press extolled all the virtues of Fitz when he was assigned this. Of course all of us, who knows how fair the MSM is, were highly skeptical at the time. I can’t stand these deals where no crime was committed, but in being questioned, someone says something that “might” not be true and they get indicted for that. Hell, I have a hard time recalling every little detail of something “that never happened”
FE,
Yeah, Duke is another prosecutorial disaster.
There seems to be a rash of prosecutorial abuses…imho, many planned by the DNC for this year…part of their “distortion of reality” campaign (constant).
We will see what happens…
I wish you would get an editor.
The word is “publicly,” not “publically.”
The Credibility Gap Widens…
It’s ironic isn’t it? The only charge Fitz could bring was perjury, and that was only after shopping for a Grand Jury he liked and contolling the amount of information given to that Grand Jury, when Wilson is the biggest liar out of this bu…
sgerber,
Are you kidding? You think this makes money?
ROTFLMAO!
I zip these out between meetings and documents I am reading. Sorry, but this is the best it gets.
This isn’t a new problem, but it sure seems to be taking on a life of its own. There has to be a way to get laws against prosecutorial misconduct enforced! But how do you get — probably in most cases — assistant prosecutors to file charges against their boss?
There should be something similar to say, internal affairs departments that most police departments have, so there isn’t a built-in conflict of interest? As it stands, one of the — I think — most flagrant violators just may use his own prosecutorial overreaching to springboard into the Governor’s mansion in NY.
Fitzgerald will likely pay no price for what he’s done to Libby — where does Libby go to get his career back? And, look at the automatic damage done to Vice President Cheney, losing (figuratively speaking) his right arm when there are some pretty important things cooking on all burners in his office.
And DeLay? He hasn’t been convicted of anything, but his name is tossed into every Dem “culture of corruption” lip-diddle as if he were Jefferson or Rostenkowski.
And that doesn’t even touch on private citizens, such as Rush Limbaugh, when a prosecutor/political hack zeros in.