California Conservative

Based on a few things that I read this week, I’d answer yes. Reuters is reporting that he’s “suspected of being the first person to discuss the identity of a CIA official with reporters is expected to testify in the perjury trial of ex-vice presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a court motion says.”

Former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee told Vanity Fair magazine this week that it is reasonable to assume that Armitage told Post reporter Bob Woodward about Plame’s identity before other Bush administration officials mentioned her name to reporters.

When all is said and done, expect there to be alot of embarassment to go around, especially for the White House reporters.

Of course, that’s if there even is a trial. A while back, I wrote that Libby’s lawyers filed a motion that said Patrick Fitzgerald didn’t have the constitutional authority to indict or investigate this issue.

Lawyers for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby argued that Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald was improperly appointed by the Justice Department instead of the president to investigate the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

Fitzgerald filed a brief on that issue, asserting that he did have the legal authority to investigate, indict and prosecute, which is predictable. We’ll see what the men in black robes decide.

All in all, this isn’t a trial that’s going to make alot of people look good. The more I read about him, the less I think about Fitzgerald’s competence. I also think that a few reporters will get black eyes from this, with Andrea Mitchell’s name at the top of the list.

Cross-post at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 18th, 2006 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Law, Media, Washington, DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.