The Bush Administration’s Dilemma Regarding a Possible Libby Pardon
And How Outsiders Such as Fred Thompson Appear to Be Working on a Solution
by John Dean
“Thompson, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Tennessee, gave an audience his assessment of the prosecution against Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice in a speech on May 12, 2007. He claims that the investigation was a sham from the outset: that there should have been no Special Counsel selected, and there never was any violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Indeed, he claimed “that there was no violation of the law, by anyone, and everybody - the CIA, the Justice Department and the Special Counsel knew it. Ms. Plame was not a ‘covered person’ under the
statute and it was obvious from the outset.”
This is a remarkable charge - suggesting that the CIA referred the matter to the Justice Department knowing that Plame was not covered by the law; that the Justice Department commenced the investigation even though it had the same knowledge; and that the Special Counsel continued the investigation even though he, too, knew she was not covered. Yet why would Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Justice Department have undertaken a baseless investigation? Why would a busy and highly-respected U.S. Attorney from Chicago take the assignment of Special Counsel if the law did not apply? And why would that same highly-respected U.S. Attorney make representations to a federal judge that the law did cover Valerie Plame, if it did not? It seems Fred Thompson has made a remarkably irresponsible charge.
“Furthermore,” Thompson claimed, “Justice and the Special Counsel knew who leaked Plame’s name and it wasn’t Scooter Libby.” Yet, Thompson added, “the Beltway machinery was well oiled and geared up so the Special Counsel … spent the next two years moving heaven and earth to come up with something, anything,” and finally “came up with some inconsistent recollections by Scooter Libby.” Inconsistent recollections? Apparently Thompson does not have a clue about the evidence that was presented at the trial, which proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Libby concocted a complex lie to explain away key behavior.
Nonetheless, based on his two-plus years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Thompson informed the audience, “In no other prosecutor’s office in the country would a case like this one have been brought.” Apparently, other prosecutors tolerate perjury and obstruction of justice. In addition, later in his speech, Thompson explained, “I have called for a pardon for Scooter Libby. When you rectify an injustice using the provisions of the law, just as when you reverse an erroneous court decision, you are not disregarding the rule of law, you are enforcing and protecting it.”
That twisted report of the Special Counsel’s investigation, and disturbing view on what to do about it is a bit frightening - especially coming from a man who wants to be president. But it is arguments like this that are the basis of the drive for leniency from Judge Walton, for a pardon, and, more broadly, for a change in public opinion regarding this case.
John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to the president.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/01/1601/