One definition of absurdity
[Judge] Walton scanned the jurors’ queries and announced, “There is going to be one question I’m not going to ask. I’ve concluded that that question is not appropriate and therefore you should not speculate as to what the response would have been.”…”What Mrs. Wilson’s status was at the CIA, whether it was covert or not covert, is not something that you’re going to hear any evidence presented to you on in this trial.”…”Whether she was, or whether she was not, covert is not relevant to the issues you have to decide in this case”…”I don’t know, based on what has been presented to me in this case, what her status was”…”I to this day don’t know what her actual status was.”
We of course know what Mrs. Wilson’s status was, as does every sentient human being in Washington, DC. But that’s not the point (though we must note that the Judge himself has joined the long list of the forgetful or dishonest if he says he still does not know Plame’s status). If the base question is so uninteresting or unimportant, why does it matter who said what to whom about that subject? By comparison, Victoria Toensing’s questions and indictments are much more interesting.
UPDATE
A bit of the Toensing, to which we referred:
THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES PATRICK J. FITZERALD with ignoring the fact that there was no basis for a criminal investigation from the day he was appointed, with handling some witnesses with kid gloves and banging on others with a mallet, with engaging in past contretemps with certain individuals that might have influenced his pursuit of their liberty, and with misleading the public in a news conference because . . . well, just because. To wit:
– On Dec. 30, 2003, the day Fitzgerald was appointed special counsel, he should have known (all he had to do was ask the CIA) that Plame was not covert, knowledge that should have stopped the investigation right there. The law prohibiting disclosure of a covert agent’s identity requires that the person have a foreign assignment at the time or have had one within five years of the disclosure, that the government be taking affirmative steps to conceal the government relationship, and for the discloser to have actual knowledge of the covert status.
– From FBI interviews conducted after Oct. 1, 2003, Fitzgerald also knew that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage had identified Plame as a CIA officer to columnist Robert D. Novak, who first published Plame’s name on July 14, 2003….In violating prosecutorial ethics by discussing facts outside the indictment during his Oct. 28, 2005, news conference, Fitzgerald made one factual assertion that turned out to be flat wrong: Libby was not “the first official” to reveal Plame’s identity.
HT: Powerline
UPDATE II
Crimes often need means, motive and opportunity to be plausible. The defense takes on motive in its summation, via Jeralyn Merritt:
Libby didn’t violate the law. It only applies if agent is covert and the CIA is taking active measures to protect the agent. In all of the testimony, there has been no information about whether Ms. Wilson is covert.
We have previously noted that the Judge permitted no testimony on the question of Plame’s status, and it’s nice to see this coming back around at the expense of the prosecution. (JOM has further thoughts on this matter.)
February 17th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
If I’d been on the jury and heard that from the judge, my reaction would have been, “Sc*ew you. Not guilty.”
(Same with the OJ trial, btw. The prosecution’s star witness was touted as an Eagle Scout. When he was revealed to be a bigot, the prosecution’s response was essentially “Never mind, we have all this other overwhelming evidence.” I probably wouldn’t have listened.)
I’m not commenting on Libby’s actual guilt (or Simpson’s): I’m saying that in a criminal trial I give a strong presumption of innocence to the defendant. In practice I view any serious lapse of credibility by the judge or prosecution as strong and virtually decisive grounds for acquittal.