Fitzgerald doesn't want to talk about Armitage

[DoYouEverWonder]

Oct 30, 2006

WASHINGTON - Without ever mentioning him by name, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, in a court filing Monday, argues that a jury in the CIA/Leak trial should not consider evidence concerning why he did not charge former State Department official Richard Armitage with leaking Valerie Plame's name to reporters. It is a crime to intentionally disclose the name of a classified CIA operative.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former top aide to Vice President Cheney, is the only one charged in the CIA/Leak case. Libby is accused of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about his conversations in 2003 with three reporters regarding how he learned of and what he told them about CIA operative Valerie Plame - but not with leaking the agent's name.

Fitzgerald writes, "The fact that no other person was charged with a crime relating to the disclosure of classified information says absolutely nothing about whether defendant Libby is guilty of the charged crimes."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15489180/

[Demit]

1. Because Libby's perjury, obstruction & lying happened regardless.

Despite the media's desire to conflate and confuse events by bringing up Armitage. Armitage is irrelevant to what Libby's actions here were.

[emulatorloo]

2. Probably because Armitage was cooperating w Fitz, at least thats MHO n/t

[Kagemusha]

3. Yeah, that's just stupid. Armitage isn't under indictment

Libby can't invent an indictment or unilaterally expand the narrow indictment against Libby to include Armitage.

[Demeter]

4. Maybe Not, But He Ought to Be

Perhaps in the New Year?

[Kagemusha]

5. If Fitz does that it'll be dragged into the Libby case.

As impatient as we all are, it's probably best for the prosecution if it nails Libby to the wall first. They don't have a choice because of the realities of the speed of the court system so they have to take the long view here. The long view says, nail Libby while denying potential targets as much information as possible by keeping the indictment extremely narrow, therefore dramatically reducing the amount of relevant information. One such piece of information is whatever happened with Armitage (or didn't happen). It's not like Fitz can tell us anyway; if Armitage isn't indicted, Fitz has a legal obligation under the grand jury system to not blab.

[Eugene]

6. Attorneys: No Backstory in CIA Leak Case (AP)

Explaining why others weren't charged apparently cuts both ways.

Attorneys: No Backstory in CIA Leak Case

By MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 31, 2006; 11:29 AM

WASHINGTON -- Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and former White House aide
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby agree on something: keeping Libby's perjury trial in the
CIA leak case focused solely on his actions. The two are separately asking a federal
judge not to allow three years of politically charged backstory in the case to seep
into Libby's trial starting in January.

In new court documents, Fitzgerald argued that he shouldn't have to explain why Libby
was charged while others, including the source of the leak, escaped prosecution. Libby
said jurors shouldn't hear about New York Times reporter Judith Miller's 85-day jail
term for refusing to discuss her conversations with him.

The court documents, filed late Monday, are an effort to keep the trial focused on
whether Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, lied to
investigators about his conversation with reporters regarding CIA officer Valerie Plame.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103100557.html