March 7, 2007: Actor and Former Senator Blames Justice Department, Libby’s ‘Naivety’ for Guilty Verdict

Fred Thompson. [Source: Politico]Former US Senator Fred Dalton Thompson (R-TN), who plays an executive district attorney in the popular television crime drama Law and Order, writes a column for the National Review ironically titled “Law and Disorder,” lambasting the Lewis Libby trial verdict (see March 6, 2007). Thompson, who has aspirations to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, says that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald “look[ed] like a man who has dodged a bullet and is ready to get out of town” after his post-verdict press conference. Thompson labels the trial verdict a “sorry state of affairs” and says Libby was convicted for two reasons.
Justice Department 'Folded under Political and Media Pressure' - First, “the Justice Department folded under political and media pressure because of the Plame [Wilson] leak and appointed a special counsel,” thus “abdicat[ing] their official responsibility” to refuse to investigate the leak. Secondly, “[t]he Plame/Wilson defenders [referring to Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, war critic Joseph Wilson] wanted administration blood because the administration had had the audacity to question the credibility of Joe Wilson and defend themselves against his charges.” The Justice Department, “in order to completely inoculate themselves, gave power and independence to Fitzgerald that was not available to Ken Starr, Lawrence Walsh, or any prior independent counsel under the old independent counsel law. Fitzgerald became unique in our judicial history in that he was accountable to no one. And here even if Justice had retained some authority they could hardly have asked Fitzgerald why he continued to pursue a non-crime because they knew from the beginning there was no crime.” Thompson writes that, once appointed special counsel, “Fitzgerald began his Sherman’s march through the law and the press until he thought he had finally come up with something to justify his lofty mandate—a case that would not have been brought in any other part of the country” (Thompson is referring to Washington, DC, which many conservatives consider an unusually liberal area of the nation; presumably he is arguing that the jury was unduly comprised of liberals—see January 16-23, 2007). The media, Thompson writes, was by then “suffering from Stockholm syndrome—[t]hey feared and loved Fitzgerald at the same time. He was establishing terrible precedent by his willingness to throw reporters in jail over much less than serious national security matters—the Ashcroft standard! Yet Fitzgerald was doing the Lord’s work in their eyes. This was a ‘bad leak,’ not a ‘good leak’ like the kind they like to use. And it was much better to get the Tim Russert and Ari Fleischer treatment than it is to get the Judith Miller treatment [referring to Russert’s supposed ‘preferential treatment’—see February 14, 2007 and February 16, 2007—Fleischer’s grant of immunity—see February 13, 2004—and Miller’s jailing for contempt—see July 6, 2005]. Fitzgerald paid no price for his prosecutorial inconsistencies, his erroneous public statements, or his possible conflicts of interest. And now they get to point out how this case revealed the ‘deep truths’ about the White House.”
2004 Testimony from Libby Undermined Claim of Innocence - The second reason Libby was convicted, Thompson writes, was his decision to testify before Fitzgerald’s grand jury “without counsel… with this controversy swirling around him while trying to remember and recount conversations with various news reporters—reporters who he knew would be interviewed about these conversations themselves” (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). (Libby is himself a lawyer, and spoke with White House counsel before testifying.) Libby’s decision to testify without the presence of counsel, says Thompson, is the action of “a man with nothing to hide… who doesn’t appreciate the position he is in or what or whom he is dealing with.” Libby was convicted out of actions stemming from his own “naivety” (sic), Thompson writes. [National Review, 3/7/2006]