I would like to give you my idea of an answer to a question Senator Spector asked. Why was the investigation continued after Armitage was identified as the first leaker or the first leaker to Novak?

Mr. Fitzgerald was charged with investigating possible violations of two national security laws. The first was The Intelligence Identity Protection Act. That makes it a crime to make a covert officer’s name and operative status know to non-authorized persons. This law was passed after a covert operative, Mr. Welch was murdered in Athens in 1975 a couple of days after names was made public in a newspaper column by Jack Anderson. In addition some of the people Agent Welch was seen with in the area where he was working were killed or went missing and other sources were lost for important national security information. In addition in 1985 the incident was repeated when agent Buckley and some of his associates were killed after their status was revield in Beruit.
The second national security law involved in the Fitzgerald investigation dealt with leaking classified information to non authorized persons.

Three specific jobs were given to Mr. Fitzgerald in his commission as Special Council. Task two depended on task one and task three was independent of task one and two.

The first task was to find all who were involved in making Ms. Plame’s name and covert operative assignment known to unauthorized persons. This required the investigation of all potential leakers to find who may have violated the law by leaking, not just the first leaker or the person or persons who leaked to Mr. Novak. There were at least two who leaked to Mr. Novak, Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove Mr. Rove testified under oath to the fact he also outed Ms. Plame’s name and CIA status to Mr. Novak in verification of Mr. Armitage’s leak to Mr. Novak. Note the leak did not have to be published to violate the law. Weather it was published or not the leaker may have broken the law by leaking the classified information to unauthorized persons. In addition Mr. Novak sent a copy of this article to Mr. Rove a couple of days before it was printed in the various papers that carried Mr. Novak’s column. Mr. Rove did not object to Mr. Novak’s article.

Mr. Fitzgerald found several leakers. The White House press secretary, Ari Flisher who leaked to Mr. Cooper at Time Magazine after Mr. Libby leaked to Mr. Flisher. Mr. Libby also leaked the identity to Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller at the New York Times newspaper on three occasions, weeks before Mr. Armitage leaked to Mr. Novak. Mr. Rove also testified he leaked to Mr. Cooper of Time Magazine and to Mr. Novak who called Mr. Rove to verify Mr. Armitage’s leak to Mr. Novak.

Mr. Fitzgerald met this assignment well according to both Attorney General Gonzales and President Bush who both evaluated his efforts as excellent on television and commented that they thought he was an excellent prosecutor.

The second task, assigned to Mr. Fitzgerald was to prosecute those who enough evidence was available against to sustain a just prosecution. Mr. Fitzgerald did not find enough evidence to support a case against the leakers. He said that whiteness and suspect lying kept him from getting the necessary indirect or circumstantial evidence to show the intent required to sustain a successful prosecution of the law. But he kept trying to get such evidence till he was sure he could not get the truthfull cooperation he needed.
Mr. Fitzgerald did the correct thing. He did not make a false, illegal prosecution like one prosecutor, in North Carolina, has done on the state level recently for political purposes.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s third task required by his commission was to investigate and prosecute all those who interfered in the investigation by perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigative officers. This was regardless of whether enough evidence was available to bring leak prosecutions. This was made explicit in writing because it was believed that Mr. Fitzgerald would probably be questioning high government officials and people of some political influence. This was published on the Internet to remind all that the rule of law and the ideas of justice requires that all people be treated equally by the laws, the courts and the Justice Department no matter what their official status or political influence might be.

Mr. Fitzgerald accomplished this and was specifically congratulated in writing for performing this task in the Libby sentence commutation by President Bush. By the way both attorney General Gonzales or President Bush could have and still can remove Mr. Fitzgerald from his commission at any time with out cause. He serves at their pleasure as Special Counsel and as a political apointed employee of the Justice Departmen, being the United States Attorney for the first district of Illinois. He never was a special Prosecutor or an Independent Prosecutor.

All the best, God bless you and the United
States of America and everyone everywhere.

Comment by Lora — July 9, 2007 @ 12:20 am

“Do you mean to tell us that you protested the Starr investigation or Dan Burton’s several go-nowhere investigations of Clinton…”

When I found about them?….absolutely! Burton wasting tax payers money was just as ridiculous as Fitzgerald’s.

“If not, then STFU, boy; your party no longer controls Congress.”

Oh, the little girl’s got herself a potty mouth! LOL!

These questions are the very reason Libby was charged with Perjury and Obstruction. The Grand Jury found Libby was not forthright in his testimony about Who, What and When.

How very TREASONOUS…

No, actually it is about bringing the execTHUG branch to ACCOUNTABILITY…

God Bless America, the Democratic Party, SUBPOENAS and the WORLD!

What MUST be determined to prosecute him (and most likely others) is….did he do it intentionally and who gave him the information?

These questions are the very reason Libby was charged with Perjury and Obstruction. The Grand Jury found Libby was not forthright in his testimony about Who, What and When.

“Fitzgerald concluded he could not charge Libby for violating a 1982 law banning the outing of a covert CIA agent; apparently he lacked proof Libby was aware of her covert status when he talked about her three times with New York Times reporter Judith Miller.”

Could those on the wich hunt here consider that this was maybe just a boneheaded slip of the tongue?

Comment by Troll — July 9, 2007 @ 10:25 am

news.aol.com/elections-blog/2007/03/16/cia-director-hayden-valerie-plame-was-covert-agent/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11179719/site/newsweek/

Comment by willyloman — July 9, 2007 @ 9:26 am

Loman,
Could you please cite some source for these?

That’s why I do not get the lack of indictments.
We know she was covert, we know outing a covert agent is illegal, we know who leaked the information, and who published the information.
So, why no indictments? It cannot be just because Libby concealed evidence. We have seen the evidence. Armitage, Libby, Rove, Cheney, Novak, Cooper, Miller all had classified information. Bush authorized Cheney to un-classify enough to out Plame. So why no indictments. Miller even spent time in jail for protecting her leaker (Libby).
Where is Justice?

Alan Spector was a former prosecuting attorney; surely he would know this simple procedure. Even if he was not a prosecuting attorney, he is an attorney. He would have learn the law regarding conspiracies in law school.

Or maybe now the rules have changed and the authorities will no longer investigate after the first member of the conspiracy confesses. They can save the taxpayers a lot of money under this new method of investigation. Of course public safety will substantially decrease as the other members of the criminal conspiracy continue to commit crimes.

Clearly P. Fitzgerals doesn’t have a partisan aganda, nor does the CIA.

The “underlying crime” talking point is silly. No one was convicted of the “underlying crime” because Scooter committed purgery and obstruction of justice to thwart the investigation.

Comment by david

that would be like asking “Fredo” for a straight answer. “Uh, Senator, I cn’t recall if I remembered at that time, whether or not I did, in fact, have that conversation. And if I do recall, whether that conversation happened, who was there. I mean, I remember the conversation took place and who was there, but I cn’t recall if I remember it.”

And to all you fool trolls who use the “no underlying crime” talking point, please answer this question. If Valerie Plame was not an under cover agent, why did she have a cover company, Brewster Jennings?

The White House leakers not only leaked her name, they also leaked the name of her cover company, pretty much verifying that they knew she was under cover. By leaking her cover company, Novak put a lot of CIA agents in harms way. For all we know, some may have been killed or kidnapped. But we are not allowed to know that because the CIA’s investigation into the matter is “classified”, surprise…surprise.