A Farce And An Outrage

by Mona Charen - February 2nd, 2007 - Townhall.com

We are in the midst of a criminal trial concerning the leaking of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame's name to the press. The man on trial did not do the leaking. The man who did the leaking is not on trial. The woman who is the subject of the fictional leak was probably not covert. The person who leaked her name did so in the course of gossip and almost certainly did not, as the law requires, "know that the government had taken affirmative measures to conceal" her identity (because if she wasn't covert, the government would have taken no such steps). Accordingly, there was no crime. And yet, a prosecutor presents evidence, a jury lobs questions and "Scooter" Libby may go to jail for 30 years. This charade competes with the Duke "rape" case for prosecutorial misconduct, brazen defiance of common sense and unbelievable jeopardy to the innocent.

On top of this there is compelling evidence that Fitzgerald has perpetrated this persecution as a personal vendetta against Libby, a man he has been angry at for years. Certainly, the evidence for that is strong enough that any judge with a brain would have made Fitzgerald recuse himself.

Our court system is nothing but a politically motivated system of blackmail as used by the liberal bigots who dominate the system.