Thursday, January 12, 2006
Press Accuracy
RealClear Politics, which should be a daily visit for everyone, featured the following story, Foes ponder next move in fight to defeat Alito, by Tom Curry at MSNBC. It contains the following sentence about Lawrence Libby:
Libby is under indictment for conspiracy in the leak of the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame.
No, he's not. He faces a multi-count indictment--one count of Obstruction of Justice (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1503), two counts of False Statements (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001(a)(2)) and two counts of Perjury (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1623). There is no conspiracy count and there are no criminal charges in the indictment about leaking anything, much less leaking Valerie Plame's indentify as a CIA analyst, largely because it is not a crime to leak the identity of a non-covert employee of the CIA like Ms. Plame was before she recently retired after 20 years service. (Just so, it is not a crime for me to say Porter Goss is now Director of the CIA). Nor can one conspire to commit a non-crime. All of the criminal counts Mr. Libby faces arise from his conduct during the investigation of the non-crime.
I have e-mailed Mr. Curry, urging him to correct his mistake. He could surprise me, but I'm not betting that he e-mails me back or corrects his stupid mistake.
UPDATE: Mr. Curry e-mailed me, apologized for the error and apparently corrected it (so says the commenter and she's pretty reliable). So it seems it was an honest error and I apologize for doubting Mr. Curry's honesty.
Libby is under indictment for conspiracy in the leak of the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame.
No, he's not. He faces a multi-count indictment--one count of Obstruction of Justice (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1503), two counts of False Statements (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001(a)(2)) and two counts of Perjury (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1623). There is no conspiracy count and there are no criminal charges in the indictment about leaking anything, much less leaking Valerie Plame's indentify as a CIA analyst, largely because it is not a crime to leak the identity of a non-covert employee of the CIA like Ms. Plame was before she recently retired after 20 years service. (Just so, it is not a crime for me to say Porter Goss is now Director of the CIA). Nor can one conspire to commit a non-crime. All of the criminal counts Mr. Libby faces arise from his conduct during the investigation of the non-crime.
I have e-mailed Mr. Curry, urging him to correct his mistake. He could surprise me, but I'm not betting that he e-mails me back or corrects his stupid mistake.
UPDATE: Mr. Curry e-mailed me, apologized for the error and apparently corrected it (so says the commenter and she's pretty reliable). So it seems it was an honest error and I apologize for doubting Mr. Curry's honesty.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:19 PM 
