WHY IS SCOOTER LIBBY ON TRIAL, AND WHY ISN’T SANDY BERGER IN JAIL
WHY WAS SCOOTER LIBBY ON TRIAL,
AND WHY ISN’T SANDY BERGER IN JAIL?
by
Ken Eliasberg
Recent prosecutions have left me with a feeling that Lewis Carroll has taken over our justice system. As I watched 2 Border Patrol agents go to jail while a drug smuggling illegal alien, who they were attempting to apprehend, gets immunity to testify against them, and a seemingly incompetent prosecutor go after, and damage the lives of, members of Duke’s Lacrosse team and their families, I was reminded of Bruce Willis’s comment in Die Hard - who’s driving this car, Stevie Wonder? But the 2 prosecutions that have really given me pause are those of Scooter Libby and Sandy Berger. Specifically, why did Libby’s case ever go to trial (indeed, why was he ever indicted), and why was Berger’s case not taken a whole lot more seriously—a misdemeanor conviction for stealing (and destroying) original, classified documents from the Archives—documents for which there is no other record (resulting, in effect, in the theft of history—something which, I’m certain, enables Bill Clinton to breathe a sigh of relief). Give me a break!
At the outset let me make it clear that I am not blaming Democrats for these travesties (other than for the toxic environment that they have created and that they appear to need to provide cover for the fact that toxicity is the only real agenda they have to offer)—Bush’s Justice Department should never have allowed these results, and I would bet anything that they did not do so without the clear go ahead from on high. And I don’t think these decisions were made out of any notion of either throwing Libby under the bus or sympathy for a “fallen” Berger. I think they reflect your typical Republican fear of confrontation—with Dems, with the Press—hell, with their own shadow.
What we have in Libby’s case is a “process” violation, which, liberally translated, means that, since we could not find an underlying substantive violation—i.e. a crime—let’s see if we can do so by casting a larger net in the hope that we can catch someone tripping on his own tongue. In short, in this case a process violation means that we have no crime, so let’s give someone an opportunity to commit one, or, if that doesn’t work, let’s see if we can question someone for so long that, unless skillfully prepped, he’s bound to put his foot in his mouth. By the way, no excuse here, I think that either Libby was poorly prepped for the Grand Jury or disregarded his attorney’s advice. That is, since it has been clearly established that neither Libby nor anyone else at the White House was responsible for the leak that gave rise to this farsical fiasco, Libby had nothing to hide in this regard. Ergo, why get tripped up? As Bob Novack said on a Hannity & Colmes episode, his (Novack’s) attorney had advised him that in testifying before the Grand Jury, tell the absolute truth, and, if you don’t remember, say you can’t recall. That sounds like the only advice to give an innocent client. And it worked so well for the “innocent” Clintons. You’ll recall, I’m sure, how the world’s smartest couple (with the world’s best memory), when interrogated about various legal matters, used the words “I don’t recall” so often that you almost thought it was their middle name. Indeed, good ol slick willie seemed to have almost forgotten that chubby chick with whom he shared a cigar—you know, that woman, Ms. Lewinsky (some smoking buddy he is—although, to be fair, when it came to the ladies, good ol Willie was always smokin).
Why didn’t Libby follow that script? However, it seems clear—at least to 12 good and true jurors (and I believe they were good and true) that Libby either lied to the FBI or the Grand Jury or both. Ergo, a process violation.
This begs the question, why did this case ever go to an indictment, let alone a trial, when Fitzgerald knew before any testimony was taken that Richard Armitage was the “leaker.” To me, it almost seems like entrapment for him to have proceeded under these circumstances. Or, as Novack put it in a recent column in the Washington Times (entitled Scooter Libby should be pardoned—now):
On Fox’s