Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Rove Will Not be Indicted Regarding Plame
I've been writing about the Plame kerfuffle since I started this blog. I predicted nearly a year ago that Karl Rove would not be indicted or fired, here. Now it's true for sure (despite the lunatic ravings of Truthout recently). What a monumental waste of time and effort on something we political tyros could see was not a crime nearly from the beginning. And now the traitorous leakers of secret information can be prosecuted and other reporters made to finger them. Good job, NYT. Really super.
UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh had an interesting take on one Democrat's reaction to the news. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said this:
No matter what the outcome is of the final investigation, I am renewing my call on Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald to issue a report detailing his findings and explaining his charging decisions. In this type of case I think that's the prosecutor's obligation to the American people.
[...]
I have asked for a report. Clearly the name was leaked, and there is a different standard between leaking a name, which is wrong, and a criminal standard, which is a statute that's been on the books since 1982. It's prosecutor Fitzgerald's decision only to prosecute if the criminal standard is met. But that doesn't absolve the White House or the leaker of culpability and there ought to be punishment for them as well, an appropriate punishment even if it's not a criminal punishment in a trial.
But as Victoria Tensing pointed out, the report at the end of the investigation was the statutorily mandated speciality of the Independent Counsel law which both sides of the aisle were eager to let lapse. Grand Jury testimony is secret. So without an enabling statute (and there is none now) Schumer is soliciting Fitzgerald to leak secret testimony, soliciting him to commit a crime. Way to go, cooling saucer boy. Fortunately, no one listens to Schumer anyway.
By Schumer's thinking it's wrong, but not criminal, to name the head of the CIA. What a maroon.
UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh had an interesting take on one Democrat's reaction to the news. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said this:
No matter what the outcome is of the final investigation, I am renewing my call on Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald to issue a report detailing his findings and explaining his charging decisions. In this type of case I think that's the prosecutor's obligation to the American people.
[...]
I have asked for a report. Clearly the name was leaked, and there is a different standard between leaking a name, which is wrong, and a criminal standard, which is a statute that's been on the books since 1982. It's prosecutor Fitzgerald's decision only to prosecute if the criminal standard is met. But that doesn't absolve the White House or the leaker of culpability and there ought to be punishment for them as well, an appropriate punishment even if it's not a criminal punishment in a trial.
But as Victoria Tensing pointed out, the report at the end of the investigation was the statutorily mandated speciality of the Independent Counsel law which both sides of the aisle were eager to let lapse. Grand Jury testimony is secret. So without an enabling statute (and there is none now) Schumer is soliciting Fitzgerald to leak secret testimony, soliciting him to commit a crime. Way to go, cooling saucer boy. Fortunately, no one listens to Schumer anyway.
By Schumer's thinking it's wrong, but not criminal, to name the head of the CIA. What a maroon.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:15 PM 
