The AP had three articles about the Plame case today. The first one by Locy via Forbes
reports
that Libby wants Fitzgerald fired because Comey didn't have the authority to hire… … because Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was not appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate.Well…Ashcroft recused himself and Bush might graduate to the investigation list – what else was an ethical civil servant supposed to do?The defense attorneys also said Fitzgerald's appointment violates federal law because his investigation was not supervised by the attorney general. They said only Congress can approve such an arrangement.
A potential smoking gun or perhaps just a ruse fell fairly low in the AP article:
Libby's lawyers warned U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton that he may need to require the Justice Department to turn over records - including a secret letter from Comey to Fitzgerald - to determine whether the special counsel's appointment is legal.What secret letter? Has anybody heard what it says? Dailykos thinks it might be this
Meanwhile, the very busy AP reports via The Southern Standard, that Tennessee's Senator is preparing for the worst:
Thompson joins effort to fund defense of Cheney's former aide
Actor and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has signed up to help raise at least $5 million for the legal defense of …"Scooter" …Then on the strikes for and against, Locy reports via Salon - Identity of Official to Be Kept From Libby
Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, charged with perjury in the CIA leak case, cannot be told the identity of another government official who is said to have divulged a CIA operative's identity to reporters, a federal judge ruled Friday.At the same time, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said Libby could have copies of notes he took during an 11-month period in 2003 and 2004 while serving as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
The judge also set the stage for a showdown in late April over the defense's plans to subpoena reporters and news organizations for notes and other documents in the leak of Valerie Plame's identity.... ...
The judge put off deciding whether Libby can have access to highly classified presidential daily briefs, ... ...
Walton said he is concerned that Libby's request could "sabotage" the case because President Bush probably will invoke executive privilege and refuse to turn over the classified reports.
"The vice president -- his boss -- said these are the family jewels," the judge said,
On the Libby’s such a busy man to bother swatting at a simple fly like Plame/Wilson defense, Salon’s Tim Grieve provides a very useful timeline as to just how important they were to Scooter at the time. Talkleft provides links to all of the flurry legal activities –the order, the response, and this letter. Thanks so much for sharing this valuable research. In this same post Talkleft also discusses the defense memory argument further:
One thing I noted in a brief review of the Libby's pleadings on the document issue is the continued emphasis on Libby's faulty memory. Team Libby says it has spent months researching the principles of memory. It sounds like there could be a battle royale at trial between psychological memory experts discussing the three phases of memory -- the acquisition stage, the storage phase and the retrieval phase. I'm looking forward to this, having studied it extensively with two of the nation's leading experts, Elizabeth Loftus and Gary Wells, as it relates to eyewitness identification.
Firedoglake .explains in unlegal legalease why she thinks Libby’s motion is utter BS and she cites the National Review Online Corner’s cogent argument based on experience. Byron York hashes it out with McCarthy as well. Firedoglake also points to the WaPo which gives another legal perspective:
"I think it's a nice try, but I don't give it much chance of success," said Scott Fredericksen, an associate independent counsel during the Reagan administration who helped investigate scandals at the Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentExperts said the Libby defense claim is similar to a challenge the Supreme Court rejected by a vote of 7-1 in 1988. In that case, Morrison v. Olson , the Justice Department sought to quash subpoenas of its officials by an independent counsel. They argued that the law that allowed the appointment of independent counsels violated the president's authority under the Constitution and gave such independent investigators inappropriately broad powers.
I've said this previously, but it is worth repeating: prosecutors and law enforcement investigators get incredibly annoyed with people who lie to them or otherwise obstruct their case -- precisely because the lying and obstruction is designed to derail a criminal investigation and thwart justice. We are a nation of laws, and no one should be exempt from accountability for breaking them. Period. Justice is blind for a reason -- and trying to cheat her is conduct for which one should pay a penalty.
I’m sure there is more. Pressing engagements press on me right now…
