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Fitzgerald ''better" have Proof for "original" indictment

scottyz said:
We should know for sure tomorrow if there will be any charges. What truth am I hoping to get? The point is the Starr wasn't able to get Clinton on the orignal charges but he was able to get him in a perjury trap. Sounds like Stu is saying that this strategy is an unacceptable way to get Rove or Libby indicted. I'm sure he didn't feel this way when it happened to Clinton. He sounds like Kay Bailey Hutchison atm.

I'm sorry that is false, as far as Monicagate he DID get him on the original charges. Evidence was brought to Starr's office that Clinton and Lewinsky were engaged in a plot to commit perjury and obstruction of justice in a federal court. That Clinton was using his office to reward Lewinsky for committing these crimes to cover up his own judicial problems. This tied into the fact that they were investigating the same thing vis-a-vis Webb Hubble. Did Clinton promise both of them financial gains or jobs if the engaged in these crimes and the fact Vernon Jordan was involved in both. He took this to Reno who told him to add it to his investigations, he didn't want it, he urged her to appoint someone else to handle it but she refused and gave it to his office.
 
scottyz said:
So when Whitewater didn't pan out Lucienne Goldberg got them a new charge to work with, what is your point? Why is it wrong to use a perjury trap to get Rove or Libby?

So you are claiming Fitzgerald laid a perjury trap and caught Libby? That would be unethical, are you calling for him to step down?
 
Kandahar said:
You're the one who's claiming that any possible charges (when you don't even know what they are yet) are false, when you have no idea what you're talking about.

I have remained neutral as to whether or not a crime was committed since I don't have access to Fitzgerald's evidence.





It is BECAUSE I listen once in awhile to YOUR media heroes like Chris Mathews, who is so colorful in what HE SAYS is going on.

What, ..you think Mathews is as full of shyte as I'am now, ...naw! :smile:
 
Simon W. Moon said:
So, we should hold Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey for any of the "secondary" charges that stem from this case(pdf) being investigated by his "close friend" Fitzgerald?
I don't know if the word "hold" is the best word to use...as in "hold accountable"...

But if you were to say that Comey gave the greenlight for Fitzgerald to widen the investigation, that sounds about right...

I would imagine that Comey first had to go through the Court of Appeals like Reno did, but I don't know if that is a "must do"...
 
cnredd said:
I don't know if the word "hold" is the best word to use...as in "hold accountable"...

But if you were to say that Comey gave the greenlight for Fitzgerald to widen the investigation, that sounds about right...

I would imagine that Comey first had to go through the Court of Appeals like Reno did, but I don't know if that is a "must do"...





Janet Reno allowed the investigation to move further because she had NO clue that Willie was getting his regular blow job services!

Sorry,.. but its true as was Willies DNA that proved he lied about everything, & the reason Clinton was NOT indicted, is because he was too big a fish to go after, ..the democrats were crying 'foul', & afteral....it was just about sex they all said!

Suborning perjury through known FALSE affadavits, & lying to a federal judge as Slick Willie DID does not constitute a crime to the democrats IF its about sex, ...BUT charging Libby with lying to the grand jury because he might not be actually able to remember something "IS", ..if one is a democrat.

Willie said; "I cannot remember 267 times, ..but of course that ain't lying!:smile:
 
Stinger said:
So you are claiming Fitzgerald laid a perjury trap and caught Libby? That would be unethical, are you calling for him to step down?
Nope. Perjury traps are perfectly acceptable. Why is it unacceptable for Fitzgerald to get Rove and Libby on perjury charges? Libby has already been indicted btw.
 
Stu Ghatze said:
It is BECAUSE I listen once in awhile to YOUR media heroes like Chris Mathews, who is so colorful in what HE SAYS is going on.

What, ..you think Mathews is as full of shyte as I'am now, ...naw! :smile:

What does Chris Matthews have to do with ANYTHING I just said? Stop bringing irrelevant names into the debate in an effort to bait me into a different discussion. We're talking about this case. How in the world can you claim that the charges are false when you haven't seen the evidence? I'm certainly not claiming that they're true without seeing the evidence. The only logical conclusion is that you're a party hack, and are more concerned with loyalty to your guys than you are with justice.
 
Every single one of Stus posts are attacking the liberals or the democrats. Its almost as if he thinks the republicans and conservatives are gods that cannot do anything wrong. Seriously I'm a liberal (though not a democrat) and I'm willing to admit a lot of liberals are assholes so why can't Stu admit that a lot of conservatives or republicans are assholes?
 
Kandahar said:
What does Chris Matthews have to do with ANYTHING I just said? Stop bringing irrelevant names into the debate in an effort to bait me into a different discussion. We're talking about this case. How in the world can you claim that the charges are false when you haven't seen the evidence? I'm certainly not claiming that they're true without seeing the evidence. The only logical conclusion is that you're a party hack, and are more concerned with loyalty to your guys than you are with justice.
Given Fitzgeralds reputation I highly doubt the charges are false.
 
One thing I think most of us can agree on is that Fitzgerald did an excellent job avoiding leaks to the media, as opposed to Ken Starr's leak fest.

All prosecutors could take a lesson from Fitzgerald on this one.
 
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Kandahar said:
What does Chris Matthews have to do with ANYTHING I just said? Stop bringing irrelevant names into the debate in an effort to bait me into a different discussion. We're talking about this case. How in the world can you claim that the charges are false when you haven't seen the evidence? I'm certainly not claiming that they're true without seeing the evidence. The only logical conclusion is that you're a party hack, and are more concerned with loyalty to your guys than you are with justice.





:2razz: Okay, ..so IF I admit that I'm a party hack, ..can YOU admit that Joe Wilson was too?
 
FinnMacCool said:
Every single one of Stus posts are attacking the liberals or the democrats. Its almost as if he thinks the republicans and conservatives are gods that cannot do anything wrong. Seriously I'm a liberal (though not a democrat) and I'm willing to admit a lot of liberals are assholes so why can't Stu admit that a lot of conservatives or republicans are assholes?






No non,..no! I recognize very well that us republicans have our share of as.sholes in the congress, ..believe you me!

I also know quite well that when repubs get caught in a grand jury probe, ..they are NOT quite treated in the same way, or by the media at large as in the fashion the dems are.

In fact, ..I do not doubt for a second that Libby probably DID tell the media of Plames CIA connection.

BUT, I will ALWAYS believe that "some" in the MEDIA already knew of it before Libby did.

I also have a problem with this so called, COVERT label....& it appears that Fitzgerald is ASSUMMING that she was covert, & in actuality it has NOT been proven that she was.

Fitzgerald made it a point in "HIS OWN WORDS" to more or less say , TO THE MEDIA afterwards....its still a serious charge. I understand his words, ..but it might not be that she was actually covert!

Some have said she was NOT covert, & some have said she was????

I believe that Fitzgerald is walking a fine line with that, & its only assumption, & I suspect any good defense attorney that LIbby gets will try to establish it as hearsay!

IMO, ..the prosecutor wants that fact to not matter, ..but IT is relevant as Libby can be counted as doing something unethical, & morally reprehensible....but it still might NOT be crime IF that "covert" business is established to be fact, or not!

THe trial might be interesting, ..& "I do not think, although I could be wrong, that Libby is gonna try to cut any deals".

His criminal INTENT is going to be kind of hard to prove by the prosecution, ..in a court of law, ..which is quite different than what powers the special prosecutor has to bring indictment.
 
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Stu Ghatze said:
I also have a problem with this so called, COVERT label....& it appears that Fitzgerald is ASSUMMING that she was covert, & in actuality it has NOT been proven that she was.

Fitzgerald made it a point in "HIS OWN WORDS" to more or less say , TO THE MEDIA afterwards....its still a serious charge. I understand his words, ..but it might not be that she was actually covert!
Some have said she was NOT covert, & some have said she was????
After all of this time, why do you suppose Fitzgerald and the CIA have not addressed the issue central to the entire investigation?
Surely the CIA would be able to answer the question of whether or not her relationship to the Agency was classified or not. When the CIA reviewed the case and made their decision whether or not to turn it over to the DoJ do you think that they "forgot" to check and see if Mrs. Wilson was an operative?
Or do you disagree with the idea that the CIA would know this sort of thing?
After all, one of the folks who has said she was a covert opperative was a CIA spokesperson. How much credence do you give CIA statements about the status of Mrs. Wilson's relationship to the CIA?

It looks to me like the folks who are saying that her relationship w/ the CIA was not classified are a combination of liars and dupes.


from Transcript of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's Press Conference

Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.
Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.
The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security.
Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.
It's just mindboggling that Fitzgerald and the CIA would not have consulted one another re this essential and important fact.
Do you suppose that Team Bush selected a liar and a political hack to investigate this affair?


Stu Ghatze said:
I believe that Fitzgerald is walking a fine line with that, & its only assumption, & I suspect any good defense attorney that LIbby gets will try to establish it as hearsay!
Are you sure of what "hearsay" means in a legal sense?

Stu Ghatze said:
His criminal INTENT is going to be kind of hard to prove by the prosecution, ..in a court of law, ..which is quite different than what powers the special prosecutor has to bring indictment.
Please provide a source for this limitation on Fitsgerald's powers.
From what I've seen he has all the powers of the Attroney General of the US in this matter. I take you've seen something to the contrary?
 
Stu Ghatze said:
:2razz: Okay, ..so IF I admit that I'm a party hack, ..can YOU admit that Joe Wilson was too?

I don't know (nor care) enough about Joe Wilson's personal politics to make a judgment like that. Joe Wilson is not the subject of this scandal. Stop changing the subject.
 
hipsterdufus said:
One thing I think most of us can agree on is that Fitzgerald did an excellent job avoiding leaks to the media, as opposed to Ken Starr's leak fest.

All prosecutors could take a lesson from Fitzgerald on this one.

There were not many leaks. Also what did not happen was Bush sending out his minions trying to destroy the case by destroying the prosecutor. Which is exactly what Clinton did to Starr...from the beginning.

Had Bush done what Clinton did...Rove would have been indicted and Bush and Cheney would be un-indicted co-conspirators!
 
scottyz said:
So when Whitewater didn't pan out Lucienne Goldberg got them a new charge to work with, what is your point? Why is it wrong to use a perjury trap to get Rove or Libby?

Originally Posted by Stinger
So you are claiming Fitzgerald laid a perjury trap and caught Libby? That would be unethical, are you calling for him to step down?



scottyz said:
Nope. Perjury traps are perfectly acceptable.

Nope, trapping someone into a perjury is unethical for the prosecutor and if the court ruled it was a perjury trap he could throw out the evidence.

Why is it unacceptable for Fitzgerald to get Rove and Libby on perjury charges? Libby has already been indicted btw.

So are you now trying to twist what you said from a perjury trap to a perjury charge?
 
Stinger said:
Originally Posted by Stinger
So you are claiming Fitzgerald laid a perjury trap and caught Libby? That would be unethical, are you calling for him to step down?





Nope, trapping someone into a perjury is unethical for the prosecutor and if the court ruled it was a perjury trap he could throw out the evidence.



So are you now trying to twist what you said from a perjury trap to a perjury charge?
Do you consider asking someone a question you know they wont answer truthfully a perjury trap?

It appears there was no perjury trap at all. Libby just kept on telling bogus stories to the prosecutor and got caught, so sorry.
 
scottyz said:
So when Whitewater didn't pan out Lucienne Goldberg got them a new charge to work with, what is your point? Why is it wrong to use a perjury trap to get Rove or Libby?

Where do you get the idea that when Starr was presented evidence that Clinton and Lewinsky were involved in a scheme to commit perjury and obstruct justice that it precluded all the other investigations?

And don't you believe perjury and obstruction of justice charges are very serious matters?
 
scottyz said:
Do you consider asking someone a question you know they wont answer truthfully a perjury trap?

No.

It appears there was no perjury trap at all. Libby just kept on telling bogus stories to the prosecutor and got caught, so sorry.

Perhaps, or indeed he did hear it from a reporter first or indeed it is a matter of 3 year memory of events that were not very memorial. What he told them had no bearing on anything.
 
Stinger said:
Perhaps, or indeed he did hear it from a reporter first or
indeed it is a matter of 3 year memory of events ...
He said that reporters were his only source, not merely his first source.
He remembered part of more than one conversation that is not remmbered by the other participants in the conversations.
The conflicting reports from Libby began three MONTHS after, not three years.

Stinger said:
... that were not very memorial.
He had a converstaion about it at least twice a week for a month, and requested documents be faxed to him at the Office of the VP from the CIA regarding the matter. A mere three months after this month long period, he forgot and 'mis-remembered' it.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
He said that reporters were his only source, not merely his first source.

Yes and we'll wait to see what he says in court. If you read the indictment he is telling reporters that this is new information to him and he doesn't know if it is true. If in fact, as it appears he did know it and it wasn't new to him, that would not be a crime. I want to see in more detail exactly what he told the FBI.

"
What he told the FBI is that essentially he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter Tim Russert, and during the conversation Mr. Russert told him that, "Hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Mr. Wilson's wife works at the CIA?""

His word against Russerts on whether they discussed it and it was not against to law to feed Russert a phoney story if that's what he did.

"And he told the FBI that he learned that information as if it were new, and it struck him. So he took this information from Mr. Russert and later on he passed it on to other reporters, including reporter Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, reporter Judith Miller of The New York Times."

"as if" that's a key, he may have known but pretended "as if" he didn't to the reporters. Not against the law. I want to see more about this.

"And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on on July 12th, 2003, two days before Mr. Novak's column, that he passed it on understanding that this was information he had gotten from a reporter, that he didn't even know if it was true."

Understanding with whom, the reporter? Nothing illegal there either.

"And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on to the reporters he made clear that he did know if this were true. This was something that all the reporters were saying and, in fact, he just didn't know and he wanted to be clear about it."

Fine, make them go out and prove the story so that when they write they back it up with facts they have uncovered. Nothing wrong with that.

"Later, Mr. Libby went before the grand jury on two occasions in March of 2004. He took an oath and he testified. And he essentially said the same thing."

THAT is where he might have a problem and until we see all the testimony............

He remembered part of more than one conversation that is not remmbered by the other participants in the conversations.

Which is not evidence he did not hear what he claims.

The conflicting reports from Libby began three MONTHS after, not three years.

Actaully about 5 months June to October.

He had a converstaion about it at least twice a week for a month, and requested documents be faxed to him at the Office of the VP from the CIA regarding the matter. A mere three months after this month long period, he forgot and 'mis-remembered' it.

The prosecutor will have to prove otherwise. I'm not defending him in the least. The indictment still leaves a lot to be answered and a lot to prove beyond doubt. If he purposely lied to obstruct justice he deserves to be punished. Can Fitzgerald prove that, why did it do it since it served no purpose, what was the justice he was obstructing, we'll see. Look how hard it was to prove Hillary lied about her various "gates".

But the interesting point that is being overlooked is that Wilson is being lauded for lying and Libby is being presecuted for getting the truth out. As far as the core issue that is.
 
Stinger said:
Yes and we'll wait to see what he says in court. If you read the indictment he is telling reporters that this is new information to him and he doesn't know if it is true. If in fact, as it appears he did know it and it wasn't new to him, that would not be a crime. I want to see in more detail exactly what he told the FBI.
The crime is not what he told reporters, but what he told the FBI and the Grand Jury.

For instance:

Testimony Given on or about March 5, 2004 Regarding a Conversation With Matthew Cooper on or About July 12, 2003:
Q. And it's your specific recollection that when you told Cooper about Wilson's wife working at the CIA, you attributed that fact to what reporters –
A. Yes.
Q. – plural, were saying. Correct?
A. I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that because in my mind I still didn't know it as a fact. I thought I was – all I had was this information that was coming in from the reporters.
Q. The next set of questions from the Grand Jury are – concern this fact. If you did not understand the information about Wilson's wife to have been classified and didn't understand it when you heard it from Mr. Russert, why was it that you were so deliberate to make sure that you told other reporters that reporters were saying it and not assert it as something you knew?
A. I want – I didn't want to – I didn't know if it was true and I didn't want people – I didn't want the reporters to think it was true because I said it. I – all I had was that reporters are telling us that, and by that I wanted them to understand it wasn't coming from me and that it might not be true.So I wanted to be clear they didn't, they didn't think it was me saying it. I didn't know it was true and I wanted them to understand that. Also, it was important to me to let them know that because what I was telling them was that I don't know Mr. Wilson. We didn't ask for his mission. That I didn't see his report.
Basically, we didn't know anything about him until this stuff came out in June. And among the other things, I didn't know he had a wife. That was one of the things I said to Mr. Cooper. I don't know if he's married. And so I wanted to be very clear about all this stuff that I didn't, I didn't know about him. And the only thing I had, I thought at the time, was what reporters are telling us.
Stinger said:
His word against Russerts on whether they discussed it and it was not against to law to feed Russert a phoney story if that's what he did.
The crime is not what he told reporters, but what he told the FBI and the Grand Jury.

Stinger said:
"as if" that's a key, he may have known but pretended "as if" he didn't to the reporters. Not against the law. I want to see more about this.
The crime is not what he told reporters, but what he told the FBI and the Grand Jury.

Stinger said:
Understanding with whom, the reporter? Nothing illegal there either.
The crime is not what he told reporters, but what he told the FBI and the Grand Jury.

Stinger said:
Fine, make them go out and prove the story so that when they write they back it up with facts they have uncovered. Nothing wrong with that.
The crime is not what he told reporters, but what he told the FBI and the Grand Jury.

Stinger said:
THAT is where he might have a problem and until we see all the testimony ...
There are relevant portions in the indictment.


[Libby] remembered part of more than one conversation that is not remembered by the other participants in the conversations.
Stinger said:
Which is not evidence he did not hear what he claims.
It is evidence (as opposed to proof) that he was making stuff up. If it was just one conversation it would look different than multiple conversations where he remembered "extras"


Stinger said:
Actaully about 5 months June to October.
On or about July 8, 2003 to October 14, 2003 => ~98 days
IMHO, that seems closer to 3 months than 5.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
The crime is not what he told reporters, but what he told the FBI and the Grand Jury.

And when and what they already knew. For instance Andrea Michell went on national TV and stated, about a year ago, that all the reporters working the DC beat knew who she was, who she was married to and that she worked at the CIA. Guess who her boss was, Russert. He was in charge of the DC beat. So it brings into question HIS testimony as to whether he heard it from Libby or he already knew and perhaps Libby did hear it FIRST from him and then from Cheney or other sources inside the WH. This think was going like wildfire then.

The crime is not what he told reporters, but what he told the FBI and the Grand Jury.

About what he told reporters and when so what he told them and what they told him and when are important questions to that matter which IMO has turned into a non-story.

And the same goes to each or your multiple response which failed to address any of the points made.



On or about July 8, 2003 to October 14, 2003 => ~98 days
IMHO, that seems closer to 3 months than 5.

Wilson first began leaking in June and that's when the buzz started. Recall Wilson is the only one who really "leaked" in this matter.
 
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