May 20 2006

Fitzgerald Is A Poor Liar

Published by at 5:22 pm under All General Discussions,Plame Game

Fitzgerald is an incredibly poor liar, or poker player, or whatever. He spends all his energy trying to avoid turning over evidence he claims doesn’t exist!

However, as demonstrated below, neither Marshall nor any other case relied upon by the defendant supports the position that Rule 16 requires the government to produce documents on the ground that they relate to potential defense witnesses.

More fundamentally, the government has not withheld documents material to the preparation of the defense on the basis that the documents relate to individuals who may called as witnesses by the defense, rather than the government. For these reasons, the defendant’s Third Motion to Compel should be denied.

To paraphrase, the case law doesn’t apply, but if it did we don’t have the documents defense requests. Then why move to deny the motion if you are in compliance? What a moron. So, does Fitztgerald tip his hand to this apparent conundrum? You bet he does. First the defense witnesses in question:

The defendant has identified as potential defense witnesses Richard Armitage, Stephen Hadley, Bill Harlow, Colin Powell, Karl Rove, Joseph Wilson and Valerie Wilson and seeks documents from “the files of these witnesses – and others – that relate to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger” on the ground that they may aid in preparing to examine these witnesses.

I guess the prosecutor could be feigning confusion, but the request is about Wilson’s trip and anything about his wife’s role. Somehow Fitz forgot about Valerie – again. Seems he is always of target, wandering someplace else other than his original charge.  Anyway, Fitzgerald exposes his utter incompetence and the fact he had a pre-ordained target in mind and ignored all other possible aspects of this investigation:

The government has produced to defendant all documents received from the Office of the Vice President relating to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger, and all documents received from any source relating to conversations, correspondence, or meetings in which defendant was involved, or which relate to the defendant’s inquiries regarding former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger.

Too cute by half.  Fitzgerald is not providing any information from State (Powell, Armitage or Grossman), the CIA (Plame and Harlow) or the White House (Hadley and Rove).  And he is not providing anything these folks had regarding Wilson and Plame.  Only those things that involved Wilson, Plame and Libby.  If Fitzgerald did not investigate what was going on, but simply went right after Rove and Libby then he will deserve a serious reprimand, possibly more.  The judge has got to be getting tired of these half truths.

Fitzgerald admits there are such documents where people discussed Wilson and Plame – but he ain’t coughing them up.

Moreover, the government has gone beyond its obligations under Rule 16 to produce some additional materials from the OVP, CIA and the State Department that relate generally to Mr. Wilson’s trip. Id.; 5/5/06 Tr. 49. With respect to documents relating to Mr. Wilson’s trip, the government has declined to produce only documents that were created during the investigation and are protected from discovery pursuant to the Jencks Act, and documents which relate solely to individuals other than the defendant, including innocent accused, and have no connection with or relevance to the defendant.

“Some” materials.  Not all.  Just the ones he felt comfortable releasing.  The other information is being withheld because, while it includes Plame and Wilson, it doesn’t include Libby.  Well, that is going cause a lot of appellate fireworks, because anyone discussing Plame is someone who Libby could say was a source to reporters and support his claim he was hearing about her from the media.

Ftizgerald is just another slimy lawyer who doesn’t feel obligated to present ALL the evidence in order to determine the TRUTH regarding guilt and innocence.  Judge Walton better be careful.  Fitzgerald is on the verge of staining him and his views of justice the way things are going.  No one should have exculpatory evidence with held from their trial.

4 responses so far

4 Responses to “Fitzgerald Is A Poor Liar”

  1. MerlinOS2 says:

    Too cute by half. Fitzgerald is not providing any information from State (Powell, Armitage or Grossman), the CIA (Plame and Harlow) or the White House (Hadley and Rove).

    Seems that Fritz is between a rock and a hard spot here.

    Let us just take the situation that no such paperwork exists in his investigative runup.

    Even if you were to believe that he somehow ignored 85% of the case background and has no evidence or docs it would call into the whole validity of this witch hunt.. a dire situation indeed

  2. elendil says:

    Sooner or later–if it hasn’t happened already–the judge will get the following picture: Team Libby is composed of highly competent attorneys who are doing the best job they can for their client, but Fitz can’t be trusted with the keys to the men’s room. It’s perfectly understandable that Walton doesn’t want the trial to turn into a debate on the war, but Fitz’s repeated misrepresentations will surely cause Walton to be reflexively on his guard whenever Fitz opens his mouth or submits a brief, and more and more willing to listen to Team Libby with an open mind. Fitz is losing the case in the pretrial proceedings–not that he had much of a case to begin with.

  3. MerlinOS2 says:

    I think what bothers me a lot about this whole episode. Is that a blog written by someone who “has a day job” has provided more insight and documented analysis of an important event in our country than the overwhelming majority of MSM and even speciality publications with rafts of staff lawyers to confer with and interns to do all the grunt work.

    I have done several search engine “news ” category searches just to get a sense of the coverage and all you get is multiple examples of VP wrote notes in the margin and Rove speculation. True contextual analysis, vs sensationalization seems to be sorely lacking.

  4. AJStrata says:

    Many thanks Merlin. But the reality is reporters watch people accomplish things, attempt to grasp the life’s work and describe it. They are a professional peanut gallery. The good ones realize their handicap and never assume they know more than the people they are trying to report on. The insecure ones run around believing anyone can be leader of the free world. Especially themselves!

    It is no wonder they miss so much. They have such a narrow experience base to build their wisdom from.