It's Scooter, And That's It Folks

by Steve

I know that I have a minority opinion on this, but after listening to Patrick Fitzgerald’s press conference, one could argue that after two years of investigation and 85 days of Judy Miller’s imprisonment, his case starts and ends today with Scooter Libby lying about his role and what he did. Fitzgerald is making no claims that Scooter or anyone else knowingly revealed a covert operative. From what it appears today, no one else is going to face trial or even any indictments, and there will be no unindicted co-conspirators.

It’s Libby, and Libby only folks. There will be no look beyond this into the Niger documents themselves, or how the Bush Administration conducted a massive disinformation campaign against the American people, and an intimidation campaign against the Administration’s opponents. Fitzgerald clearly said that this indictment is not about the war, or how we were taken to war; those are issues beyond Fitzgerald’s mandate.

And no indictments against Joe Wilson, either. The whole case is in the indictment against Libby, and there is nothing more. And it doesn’t appear there will be any new grand jury either. So, it’s on to the trial and the eventual Bush pardon, unless there is a plea bargain.

But that’s it folks. Nothing more. Unless something new develops, what we are left with is that after two years of looking into this, Fitzgerald was only able to make a case against Scooter for lying, and given what else Fitzgerald could have stumbled upon, the White House dodged a big bullet today.