The Libby Trial: A Gigantic Travesty

RUSH: This Libby trial, when this is all over and when people are free to speak about this, I hope the country is made aware — I’ll do my part — of what a total travesty this whole thing is. This has never been about Valerie Plame. If it were about Valerie Plame and her covert or not covert — in fact, the judge told the jury twice, ?I don’t know what her status was and we’re not going to learn it in this trial because it doesn’t matter.? He told the jury they’re not going to learn what her status was, covert or not, and it doesn’t matter. Well, if that doesn’t matter, what was this case about? You know, the original leaker was never brought under oath, never pursued, Richard Armitage.
I’ll tell you what this was. This was an attempt by the CIA and the justice department to nail the Bush administration. I am convinced now, and I read a piece in the AmericanThinker.com posted by Clarice Feldman who’s brilliant and a lawyer herself. She’s been following the trial, blogging from the courthouse. It is obvious that this was a team-up between elements of the CIA and the Department of Justice to bring down the Bush administration. We’ll post the link to Clarice?s piece at RushLimbaugh.com. It’s at the AmericanThinker.com and you can read it. It is just stunning. It confirms the suspicions of many people all along that this had nothing to do with Valerie Plame and nothing to do with Joseph Wilson. The target here was Dick Cheney and Fitzpatrick, as much as said this in his closing arguments before the jury. It is really a travesty.
In fact, Clarice makes the point that what was really the focal point here was the National Intelligence Estimate. The National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE that made it plain the CIA had sent Wilson to Niger, not the office of the vice president. Libby wanted that declassified, to get it out there. Because if that had happened, that would have spelled the end of this whole thing, because this whole thing relied on the media getting all hot to trot and spreading the story that it was the White House that was outing Joe Wilson. They were trying to criminalize politics. Joe Wilson is out there lying through his teeth about what his mission to Niger discovered, claiming that the White House sent him. The White House said, ?Who is this guy? We didn’t send this guy. Who is he? What did he find?? His report was not even submitted in writing. He was suggested for this trip by his wife, the now infamous Valerie Plame. One thing just leads to another. Libby wanted to get this NIE declassified. He went to a lawyer in the White House, and said, ?Can the president do this? Can the president declassify a National Intelligence Estimate? Can he do this on his own??
Anyway this whole case was about that National Intelligence Estimate remaining classified so that throughout this whole trial, throughout the whole escapade leading up to the trial, it would never be made public by either the CIA or the Department of Justice that in fact the CIA had sent Wilson and not the office of the vice president. So there are now suspicious eyes aimed at George Tenet because he clearly knew this and left the White House hung out to dry. Maybe he was upset over being hung out to dry himself on Iraqi intelligence or what have you, but Libby was as high as Fitzpatrick could get. He was shooting for Cheney, hoping to get Bush, maybe, and Rove. He misled them into thinking they were not targets when they were. It’s a gigantic travesty. The piece that Clarice wrote makes me wonder how in the name of hell this can happen in the United States of America. So Fitzpatrick is sweating it out. Fitzrussert sweating it out. Fitzmatthews is sweating it out. Nobody knows what it means that the jury has yet to come back. Fitzsulzberger at the New York Times is probably sweating this out just a little bit.