Times: NO Underlying Crime in Leak Case

RUSH: There’s an interesting New York Times story today. Yeah. You know, there’s two different ways to look at this. Now, the New York Times story is by David Johnston. The headline: “Cover-Up Issue Seen as Focus in Leak Inquiry — As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the C.I.A. leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, is focusing on whether Karl Rove and [“Scooter” Libby] sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.” Now, somebody’s leaking. To get this specific, somebody, somewhere is talking. Now, we know that. “Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement – counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence…shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions. Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has Mr. Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges. The prosecutor has said he will not make up his mind about any charges until next week… With the term of the grand jury expiring in one week, though, some lawyers in the case said they were persuaded that Mr. Fitzgerald had all but made up his mind to seek indictments. None of the lawyers would speak on the record, citing the prosecutor’s requests not to talk about the case.” Yet they are doing so anyway.
Now, okay. This story basically says that it’s the cover-up issue that has been the focus of this investigation. Is there another way of saying that? Is there another way of characterizing what’s happened here, ladies and gentlemen? If you say that the prosecutor is looking at the cover-up, obstruction of justice, could you then not conclude that the prosecutor has concluded there was no original crime here? Now, what is it that the press has had its underwear in a wad about for two years? The press has had its underwear in a wad for two years over the fact that some scalawag, some low-rent scum in the White House, Karl Rove or whoever, actually had the audacity to give up the status and the name of an undercover CIA agent and expose her to great danger. That’s been the focus. Two things. Number one: That didn’t happen, and number two: Since when did the press start caring about the CIA? Since when did liberals start caring about CIA agents? In my lifetime, the left has hated the CIA. They’ve despised the CIA. The CIA = Nixon, and E. Howard Hunt and the CIA murdered innocent dictators. The CIA was a rogue agency. We had to stop it, and so the Frank Church Commission came along and did it. Well, another way of looking at this — this is why I love my buddies at NewsMax. Headline: “New York Times: Karl Rove, Lewis Libby Likely Cleared on Leakgate Charges.” That’s the way to look at it. There is no evidence, and probably — as we have all suspected because Victoria Toensing, who wrote the law, told us — there wasn’t a crime committed here. So what’s happened here is something that, folks, I have to tell you. It’s the Martha Stewart syndrome.
What happens is you have a suspected crime. You investigate whether the crime took place. You find that that crime didn’t take place but in the course or process of your investigation, you think crimes have occurred. So we have a process crime here. We have no crime apparently on what this whole thing was about in the first place, but in the process we think we’ve uncovered criminal activity as part of our investigation — and so that’s what the New York Times story is all about. That’s what Newt Gingrich was warning about the other night on Hannity & Colmes on the FOX News channel. You know, it’s one thing, but if we’re going to start dragging people in over two years’ time and having them appear four hours at a time and then we’re going to say at some point (making sound) that doesn’t square with what you said 18 months ago; and you don’t get your lawyer in there, and you have no advocate in there, and it’s not a due process circumstance in there, and then they can say, “Well, you lied. Well, you covered up. Well, you obstructed justice.” There was no crime in the first place. Now, I know that the Starr investigation started with Whitewater and ended up with Lewinsky, but we knew that there were nefarious activities in both places. You know, the Watergate syndrome was a cover-up syndrome. See, there’s a pattern here. There’s a pattern. All these initial allegations turn out to be… ‘eh. “To really nail these people, I’m going to get them in the process. (Laughter) We can get in them in here so confused. We can say, ‘Scooter Libby said that, Mr. Rove. What do you say to that?'”

They bring Scooter Libby in, “Mr. Rove, Scooter Libby said this.” You get these guys so backwards and forwards without a lawyer in there to keep track of things for you, and to keep your head straight four hours each time you go in, and it’s like Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart’s big mistake was talking to these people without her lawyer present. She was not convicted of what she was originally suspected of doing. She was convicted of lying to the FBI — which is not a good thing. I mean, I’m not advocating that by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not suggesting it should be exonerated or paid no attention to, but in this case, the impetus for this whole thing probably is not a crime. “Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has likely decided not to indict top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby based on allegations they ‘outed’ CIA employee Valerie Plame, lawyers close to Fitzgerald’s Leakgate investigation have told the New York Times. Instead, the paper said, conflicting accounts given by Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been the focus of Mr. Fitzgerald’s probe ‘almost from the start’ – raising questions about whether the respected prosecutor continued his investigation after determining that no underlying crime had been committed…. Even the Times noted: ‘Possible violations under consideration by Mr. Fitzgerald are peripheral to the issue he was appointed in December 2003 to investigate.'”
Now: “It’s still not clear that Rove and Libby would be indicted even if Fitzgerald could prove they gave false testimony to the grand jury. In 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray concluded that then-first lady Hillary Clinton had provided materially false testimony in the Travelgate investigation. Mr. Ray declined to indict, however – explaining that he could not prove that Mrs. Clinton’s false statements were intentional.” So anything could still happen here, folks. A couple points that I want to make here before we go to the break. I got a great note from a friend of mine this morning who said, “Rush, I’m sure this is a point that you’ve thought of, but I haven’t heard it expressed.” Well, I hadn’t thought of this, not consciously, so I wanted to share his thoughts with you. “What really shows the difference,” he says, “between conservatives and liberals is what conservatives aren’t saying about this investigation. We aren’t trying to smear Fitzgerald. We aren’t suggesting he’s a pervert or attack him for his religious beliefs. We aren’t even mentioning his party affiliation,” and I’ve been told — haven’t been able to verify but this comes from a good source — he’s a Democrat. I’ve been told the opposite. I’m told he’s a Republican. I don’t know what his party affiliation is. But regardless, he’s not being attacked. Nobody’s attacking Fitzgerald. We aren’t crying crocodile tears every two minutes about the cost of the investigation, and we are saying that no perjury or obstruction has been formalized alleged against anybody yet but we aren’t claiming that perjury and obstruction of justice aren’t serious offenses, that it’s politics and everybody lies in politics so it’s no big deal. These are all things that the Clinton administration did during the Ken Starr investigation. They tried to destroy him, call him a sexual pervert, lied on and on and on about the waste of money, claimed that, “Lying? Why, everybody lies in Washington. Politics? Everybody lies in politics.” In fact, even in the Clinton administration, we got stories in the news media about how little white lies are actually good for people because it doesn’t hurt their feelings. So those are some interesting differences that I wanted to pass on to you.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Bob in San Bernardino, California, welcome, sir. It’s a pleasure and distinct honor to have you with us.
CALLER: Well, it’s my pleasure, Rush. You know, in the last segment, you were talking about that New York Times article and that article makes reference to the 1917 Espionage Act, and it recalled to my mind that a few months ago, weren’t you talking about Senate hearings on Bolton and Kerry had outted an agent, named him publicly?
RUSH: Yeah. My memory is that, yes, that did happen.
CALLER: Yeah. Well, why is it okay for people like that to out secret agents or covert people or somehow be in violation of an Espionage Act and be a Democrat and nothing happens?
RUSH: Well, I understand.
CALLER: Because they’re a senator or —
RUSH: Wait. No, no. I understand the question. There’s an answer to it. Nobody demanded an investigation of John Kerry, but when it comes to the Rove business, Valerie Plame business, I think this thing has been a coordinated stunt from the get-go. I think Wilson being suggested by his wife to go over to Niger was a coordinated stunt going back to J. Rockefeller’s little memo that we shared with you. I think the whole purpose was to undermine the war on Iraq. Make no mistake on who this Wilson character is. He’s an admitted child of the ’60s. He was out at San Francisco State University making a speech the other day. I’ve got the story here in the stack. I’ll give you some of his quotes. (paraphrasing) “We’re out to establish an imperial empire, the neo-cons in America.” This guy is a fruitcake. He’s off the wall. He gets sent over there, comes back, gets a chance to sabotage the whole war on Iraq and terror and undermine the Bush presidency. Then this leak comes out, bam, the press and everybody’s right on it, demanding an independent counsel investigation, and there’s the president, “Okay, I love you Democrats. I don’t want to make you mad. I’ll do anything I can to get along with you. We’ll get an independent counsel.”
Now, for two years, we’ve had an investigation and apparently — and I have to say “apparently” because I do not know. I don’t know if reporters are actually getting leaks. It seems to me they would have to be. I cannot believe that they are so far gone, they are making all this up. I have to believe that the lawyers involved here are not making it up. But I still don’t know. But I will tell you this: If it comes out that there was no underlying crime to support this independent counsel investigation, to carry it out for two years and then find crimes in the ensuing two years is pathetic. We do not try to criminalize Democrats. That’s the difference. John Kerry outs a covert agent on the floor of the US Senate, we don’t press charges. We don’t demand that the legal side of things get in gear. We just don’t do that — and, by the way, don’t throw Clinton up to me, because that was led by Louie Freeh and the FBI. That had nothing to do with a bunch of Republicans that they got involved in it, but this thing has gone on for two years, and if it’s true that the underlying crime or the accusation/allegation turns out to have had nothing to it, there was nothing to this leaking. I mean, she wasn’t covert. I cannot believe that there was any crime committed here. To then do an investigation for two years and find a series of crimes in your investigation? That’s just pathetic. But to answer your question again: It’s because we don’t pursue Democrats that way. We pursue them at the ballot box. Silly us.
END TRANSCRIPT