verbena-19

Tomgram: De la Vega, a Prosecutor, Considers Libby's Indictment

From: Tomdispatch.com

[Note to Tomdispatch Readers: Tomorrow, I'll be releasing on-line a major piece by Elizabeth de la Vega, the cover story of the next Nation magazine. It considers how to hold the Bush administration accountable for fraud for taking us into the war in Iraq on false premises. So consider the De la Vega piece below a teaser for tomorrow's foray into Bush administration skullduggery.]

Implosion update: And so they fall: Tom DeLay just weeks back. Harriet Miers yesterday. I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby today. Prepare yourself. It's going to be a long, hard dive into deep waters that should, sooner or later, lead us back to the beginning. Think of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of the Vice President's Chief of Staff as but a judicial wade-in-the-water; and yet the charges against Libby already bring to mind the cover-up charges that unraveled the Nixon White House during the Watergate era. With this indictment, Americans begin their official trip into the sordid history of the planning and selling of the invasion and occupation of Iraq via a shadow government -- what Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, recently called a "cabal," set up out of Dick Cheney's office and Donald Rumsfeld's neocon-ridden Pentagon.

If you want to bone up on this story, you might check out reporter Jim Lobe's August Tomdispatch piece on the timing and pattern of the Cheney-inspired propaganda for war, "a seamless, boundary-less operation to persuade the American people that Saddam Hussein represented an intolerable threat to their national security." And don't forget the Downing Street Memos either, or those mysterious, crudely forged Niger uranium documents -- Laura Rozen is on the case (scroll down) -- that led to the President's infamous 16 words in his 2003 State of the Union address. Now we know as well that the FBI (along with the Italian press) continues to investigate those forgeries, including a mysterious September 2002 meeting between Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service (who evidently brought the forged documents directly to the White House after they were rejected by the CIA) and then Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Before we're done, truth might find itself busting out all over. These days, even the New York Times, freed from its imprisonment in Judy Miller's jail cell, has been breaking front-page stories worth reading on the bum's rush to war this administration gave the American people and the machinations that followed.

Not so long ago, "tipping points" were things that Washington officials and top military commanders announced were about to happen or had just happened in embattled Iraq. Now, the "tipping points" that never quite tipped there seem to have made their way home. Already, as Thomas DeFrank, Washington Bureau Chief for the New York Daily News, reports, "some of Bush's most trusted advisers believe his political viability is dangerously near a tipping point." Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega brings her experienced eye to bear on the breaking events of today, putting them into perspective and suggesting what we should -- and should not -- expect as we await the Libby trial and as the Fitzgerald investigation continues. Tom


Smoking Guns and Red Herrings
What Should We Expect Now that Fitzgerald Has Announced the Indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby?
By Elizabeth de la Vega

The Grand Jury supervised by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has returned an indictment charging Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide and reputed "alter-ego" I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby with perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements to the grand jury. But this indictment does not end the story; rather, a close reading suggests that these charges are most likely merely a chapter in a long and tragic story. Here, from a former federal prosecutor, are thoughts about four things we should expect, four things we shouldn't, and one question we should all be asking.

We should not expect a final resolution any time soon. Complex cases usually take years to proceed through the courts. In addition, the indictment released today describes a chronology of close to two years and a complicated set of facts. Obviously, Fitzgerald is taking a "big picture" approach to this case. This mirrors his approach to previous cases. In December 2003, for example, Fitzgerald announced the indictment of former Illinois Governor George Ryan on corruption charges in Operation Safe Road, which began in 1998. In that year, the investigation of a fatal accident revealed that truckers were purchasing commercial licenses from state officials. Indictments were announced in stages, culminating in the indictment of Ryan, who was the 66th defendant in the case. In the Libby case, the allegations suggest he was merely one of many officials -- including an unnamed Under Secretary of State and "Official A," a Senior White House Official -- who were involved! in revealing classified information about Joseph Wilson's wife Valerie Plame. No other individuals are named as defendants, and they should not be considered so at this point, but the complexity of the indictment suggests that the investigation may follow a pattern similar to that used by Fitzgerald in the Illinois corruption case.

Click here to read more of this dispatch.

posted by Annamarie at 7:16 PM