Tom Knapp on the Republican “Hissy” fit over Scooter Libby’s indictment.
Also, Mark Kleiman is prescient here on why the Martha Stewart Comparison (“Look at Martha Stewart, for instance, where they couldn’t find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn’t a crime.” – Kay Bailey Hutchison, “Lying to a grand jury is serious, if true. The rest is Martha Stewart stuff.”…InstaGlenn“)is baloney.
The sentiment has been expressed — not just by the invariably-wrong Richard Cohen but by the usually-right Kevin Drum — that only substantive charges such as espionage or an IIPA violation — as opposed to perjury, false statements, obstruction, or conspiracy — would constitute “real” charges worth of the Special Prosecutor’s effort, and that ancillary charges in the Plame affair would represent undesirable prosecutorial overstretch.Kleiman wrote that before the indictment, which details just how the White House “cabal” is responsible for disclosing classified information to their stenographers in the media, came out on Friday.That seems to me to elide two crucial distinctions. I’m not comfortable when someone who has not committed any actual crime but who is panicked by the investigative process into making a false statement about his or her own behavior — Martha Stewart, for example — is then prosecuted for that false statement. Yes, it’s naughty to lie to the FBI, but I’m not sure people in that circumstance should face criminal sanctions for it. (As recently as 25 years ago, the Justice Department had a policy against proseucting what was called “a simple exculpatory ‘no’, ” as opposed to making up a bunch of lies.)
On the other hand, sometimes a substantive crime cannot be proved precisely because the criminal managed to shred the evidence. In such cases, the prosecution on the ancillary charge substitutes for prosecution on the charge-in-chief. (That’s often the case for people prosecuted for “recordkeeping violations”: they failed to keep the records that would have proven their substantive offenses.)
That’s a very different matter from prosecuting a factually innocent person, and I see nothing wrong with it. More….
It would also be timely to review what actually happened in the Martha Stewart case and why it isn’t analogous to the Scooter indictment. Butler Shaffer’s article, Martha the Scapegoat, demonstrates why we should oppose Martha’s treatment at the hands of Federal prosecutors yet consider Scooter Libby’s indictment as a corrupt system for once getting something right:
The scapegoating purposes of the Martha Stewart trial were apparently evident to at least some of the jurors. One of them stated, afterwards, that the verdict “sends a message to bigwigs in corporations they have to abide by the law.” He added that the verdict “was a victory for the little guy who loses money in the market because of this kind of transaction.” Considering that Martha was convicted only of obstruction of justice and lying to government investigators – and not for any illegal “transaction” – it appears that some of the jurors, at least, were responding to what they perceived as systemic problems within the business community, and not to any acts for which Martha was charged. It is not the role of juries in criminal cases to “send messages,” but only to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused. It would seem that, in the eyes of some of the jurors, Martha became a stand-in for the alleged sins of others.At least this once the greater felon, one of the “big-time players” AND – we can hope – Mr. Bush and his cohorts just might get locked up. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.The prosecuting attorney got caught up in this act of ritual sacrifice. “The victims in this case are the entire American public,” he intoned. He then added: “when we first indicted this case, we said that it was all about lies,” and “no matter who you are, if you’re Martha Stewart or Joe Q. Public, we’re going to go after you.”
The prosecutor failed to note, of course, that those who tell more dangerous lies out of the White House, and those well-placed business interests who profit from the consequences of those lies, will remain untouched. That “the entire American public” has been victimized by government policies that have been “all about lies,” will unlikely move this man to indict Mr. Bush and his cohorts. Martha will serve as a convenient scapegoat for the dishonesty and corruption of a political system that is to remain beyond criticism.
That Martha’s conviction serves to vindicate purposes irrelevant to the crimes with which she was charged is seen in the numerous attacks upon her personality following the verdict. I have heard people who should know better defend the jury’s decision on the grounds that Martha is “obnoxious,” or “arrogant,” or a “bitch.” Such responses lend credence to the mistaken view of many feminists that this case was only about Martha as a woman. There are doubtless many people – women as well as men – whose personal sense of identity looks upon the proper role of women as inheritors, rather than generators, of great wealth, and to such persons Martha becomes a useful scapegoat.
I caution you not to hold your breath awaiting federal prosecutors bringing criminal charges against any of the big-time players who hang out on “Boardwalk” and “Park Place.” It will be the denizens of “Baltic Avenue” who will be called upon to bear the sins of a disappointing system. “Take that, Martha Stewart! Take that, John Q. public! We have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy when it comes to the offenses of you ordinary people!” In the end, cases of this kind only reconfirm the centuries-old observation that:
The law locks up both man and woman
Who steals the goose from off the common.
But lets the greater felon loose
Who steals the common from the goose.