WP: Inquiry as Exacting As Special Counsel Is

Inquiry as Exacting As Special Counsel Is
A Tough Investigation Is Also Praised as Nonpartisan

By Peter Slevin and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 24, 2005; Page A03

CHICAGO, Oct. 23 -- Patrick J. Fitzgerald's final witness was behind bars, refusing to testify, and no one was budging. Hunting for room to maneuver, the special counsel talked with one side, then the other. He drafted a letter that nudged the witness and needled I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.

Three days later, Libby put fingers to keyboard and told New York Times reporter Judith Miller that she was freed from her promise to protect his identity. He praised her mightily and urged her to "come back to work -- and life." Satisfied, she quit jail after 85 days, testified to Fitzgerald's grand jury and surrendered details she had vowed never to reveal.

Miller's testimony carried Fitzgerald one step closer to the climax of his investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's name, an inquiry that a federal judge termed "exhaustive" and President Bush called "dignified." In typical fashion, the Chicago prosecutor interceded personally, with a blend of toughness and flexibility, and pocketed what he needed.

-snip-
News organizations have complained bitterly that Fitzgerald fractured the special relationship between reporters and their sources. White House allies have warned that he will criminalize routine Washington political transactions or impute a coverup where no provable original crime occurred. But federal judges have strongly backed Fitzgerald, who presented secret evidence to persuade an ideologically diverse appeals court that someone committed "a serious breach of public trust."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/23/AR2005102301028.html

remember, he's a cat owner. They lean left.

Furthermore - reported that he went to considerable trouble to adopt a cat.
Furthermore he has an untidy office.

Fitz at all. So they will have to take their lumps.
Sweeeeet!

These people don't care. They're train to attack anyone and everyone who dare cross them.

<snip>

Someone present when Fitzgerald questioned a witness said he was glad not to be a target.

"He's that really strict judge that everyone fears, not because they think he's going to do the wrong thing, but because they're afraid he might do the right thing," said the source, who has ties to the White House and requested anonymity.

<snip>

Washington political transactions or impute a coverup where no provable original crime occurred."

Why, thank you for the preview of your defense. That's mighty fair-minded of you.

:)

...under the Bush**ler regime.

Does that mean that it shouldn't result in criminal proceedings?
It's a stupid arguement.. childish
"EVERYBODY is drinking at the pro-o-om, Mo-o-om."

Miller testified, and Fitzgerald prepared to wrap up his inquiry, but not without a final surprise.

A lawyer familiar with Miller's grand jury testimony said the special counsel asked her to discuss all relevant conversations she had with Libby before Novak published Plame's name. When Miller detailed two July 2003 discussions and said she could not remember any others, Fitzgerald begged to differ.

He showed her a page from a White House logbook that recorded a June 23 visit by Miller to Libby at the Old Executive Office Building. Miller corrected herself and soon produced for the grand jury her notes from that meeting.

He knew! He knew when she was still in jail! And he knew she'd try to deny it! :rofl:

A critical early success for Fitzgerald was winning the cooperation of Robert D. Novak, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist who named Plame in a July 2003 story and attributed key information to "two senior administration officials." Legal sources said Novak avoided a fight and quietly helped the special counsel's inquiry, although neither the columnist nor his attorney have said so publicly.

I feel as though the clockwork of the universe has slipped a gear--does this mean that Novak isn't entirely evil? (Well, maybe it's a combination of being less than 100% evil and not wanting to go to jail... I would never suspect him of cooperating just to do the right thing.)

There's a lot of information in this article. I have a feeling indictments are coming very soon.

That's why he did this, IMO.

not because it was the right thing. And yes Novak has been way too quiet, he flipped right away.

NOVAK: A couple of points here: The first place, don't be too sure she's going to lose. All the establishment's against her and I've seen these Republican -- anti-establishment candidates who do pretty well. Ronald Reagan, I guarantee you that the establishment wasn't for him. We just elected a senator from Oklahoma, Senator Tom Coburn, everybody in the establishment was against him. She might get elected -- So, wait. Just let me finish what I'm going to say, James. Please, I know you hate to hear me, but you have...

CARVILLE: He's got to show these right wingers that he's got backbone, you know. It's why The Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you. Show 'em you're tough.

NOVAK: Well, I think that's bullshit. And I hate that. Just let it go.

(Novak leaves set.)

he just plays tough on t.v.

like when he claims "that's bullshit" when he was just about to get asked about his involvement in this debacle. He rolled faster than elizabeth taylor discovering her $24,000 versace gown is on fire.

the complete lack of accountability in Washington DC and in the Bush junta, and for the war and the deaths of tens of thousand innocent people, and for the torture of prisoners, and for the utter corruption of our democracy, as is the New York Times, and the rest of the war profiteering corporate news monopolies.

I urge you to distrust everything they say, to sniff out planted material and Bushite and corporate agendas in every fact, characterization, and every emphasis. For instance, there are no "routine political transactions" in Washington among Bushites that are not criminal, and there are almost no non-criminal transactions of any kind within the DC political establishment. This is an illegitimate regime that routinely violates the Constitution, national and international laws, the principles of democracy, and ethical principles, shoves asides laws and principles that it doesn't like and invents its own, and is massively looting the federal treasury, as well as killing and torturing people, and subjecting our own citizens to criminal neglect and highway robbery.

There has never been a more brutal and vicious White House regime in the history of the country, and everyone associated with it in Congress and throughout the political establishment is aiding and abetting its crimes, and conspiring in them. And this is ON TOP OF the routine SELLING of our laws and our resources to private and foreign interests, and the routine purchase of virtually every politician in DC by global corporate predators and other military/corporate interests and the super-rich.

By giving any credibility at all to this view that, a) Fitzgerald, in trying to bring these outright traitors to justice, is "criminalizing routine Washington political transactions"; and b) that there are other political transactions in Washington that are not criminal, is shilling for these predatory interests, and for the Bush junta, the apotheosis of Corporate Misrule.

The Washington Post, like the NYT, is part of the problem. They "stovepipe" news just like Liddy and Feith "stovepiped" intelligence. They cover up, they lie, they prevent any real political discussion; they represent only the rich and powerful, and no one else; and nothing gets onto their pages of so-called news that does not contribute to the further disempowerment and disenfranchisement of the American people.

Re-read the article with these caveats in mind, and ask yourself, why is this news in the Washington Post? You can be certain that the answer is neither to inform you or to enhance our democracy.

Just 'routine political transactions' for this Administration. Very Orwellian, but I guess were not the first to notice that.

Hope more people (especially the media) notice this soon.

That was a beautiful thing to read.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9798347/



complete story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9798347/

It wasn't so long ago, was it, that bush was described as "steely-eyed." Bwahahahahaha!

I'll gladly alert on myself.

By the way - when I was half-way through my post - my daughter called me in to tuck her in for the night...so I would have been first... :P

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1872269&mesg_id=1872269

I just checked - I posted it directly from the WP website and MSNBC has the same article but with a different headline.

Patrick Fitzgerald: The steely-eyed sleuth
CIA leak probe and its prosecutor seen as tough, but fair
Image: Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald


Kevin Wolf / AP
Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has Washington guessing whether he will bring indictments against top Bush administration officials over the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

By Peter Slevin and Carol D. Leonnig
The Washington Post
Updated: 10:52 p.m. ET Oct. 23, 2005

CHICAGO - Patrick J. Fitzgerald's final witness was behind bars, refusing to testify, and no one was budging. Hunting for room to maneuver, the special counsel talked with one side, then the other. He drafted a letter that nudged the witness and needled I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.

Three days later, Libby put fingers to keyboard and told New York Times reporter Judith Miller that she was freed from her promise to protect his identity. He praised her mightily and urged her to "come back to work -- and life." Satisfied, she quit jail after 85 days, testified to Fitzgerald's grand jury and surrendered details she had vowed never to reveal.

Miller's testimony carried Fitzgerald one step closer to the climax of his investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's name, an inquiry that a federal judge termed "exhaustive" and President Bush called "dignified." In typical fashion, the Chicago prosecutor interceded personally, with a blend of toughness and flexibility, and pocketed what he needed.

Even-keeled from the start
Fitzgerald's most difficult and contentious choices -- whether to seek criminal charges -- remain to be announced, possibly this week. Yet in a case with huge political stakes for the White House, a portrait is emerging of a special counsel with no discernible political bent who prepared the ground with painstaking sleuthing and cold-eyed lawyering.

snip>

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9798347/

and one day, far in the future, when I'm old and watching it on TV with my grown up kids,

Explaining it to them..

You can almost see how sharp he is, just from that picture. He looks like he's thinking very hard about what he's hearing. And he looks pretty steely-eyed, no?

You GO FITZY!!!

This is a man we can trust to be non-partisan in his investigation.

...and leak-free... takes his job seriously....

I know he already has the authority in this investigation, but I think I'd like to see him actually be Attorney General.

I hope it isn't a whitewash and I don't think it is. Apparently he has already shown Partisan judges of both stripes that he has serious evidence of crimes, and they have agreed..