Plamegate - A Crime?

-- by Dave Johnson

The right's talking point on the "outing" of Valerie Plame is that there was no crime. They say that Fitzgerald would have brought charges for the outing if the outing were a crime.

I would like to remind everyone that Fitzgerald said that he indicted Libby for obstruction of justice BECAUSE Libby obstructed - "threw sand in the eyes of" - the investigation which kept it from finding out who committed the crime. That is what "obstruction of justice" means, and that is what Libby was convicted of. He blocked the investigation into the crime.

Transcript of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's Press Conference

And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.

... This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.

I suggest reading the entire transcript.

Posted by Dave Johnson at March 7, 2007 10:46 AM