March 31, 2006: Libby’s Lawyers Say Fitzgerald Violated Justice Department Policies, Charges Should Be Dismissed

The Lewis Libby defense team accuses special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald of changing and narrowing his original broadly worded investigative mandate (see December 30, 2003) in order to avoid having his case against Libby dismissed. In a court filing, Libby’s team accuses Fitzgerald and the former Justice Department official who appointed him, James Comey, of rewriting Fitzgerald’s original mandate. According to Libby’s lawyers, the original mandate of what they call “unsupervised and undirected power” requires that Fitzgerald be relieved of his duties and all the results of his investigation, including any evidence of wrongdoing, be voided. “The government attempts to salvage the appointment by submitting two affidavits recently prepared by Mr. Comey and Mr. Fitzgerald, claiming that their previously undisclosed, subjective understanding of the appointment was narrower,” Libby’s lawyers write, apparently referring to Fitzgerald’s recent assertion that the Libby prosecution is about perjury and obstruction of justice, not about the leak of former CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert agency status. “Mr. Comey now asserts that ‘it was my intention that the special counsel would follow substantive department policies’ in exercising that authority,” the lawyers note, not to follow what they say was Fitzgerald’s unrestricted investigation that, they allege, violated Justice Department policies. The lawyers also reiterate their claim that Fitzgerald’s appointment is unconstitutional because he should have been appointed by Congress, not the Justice Department (see February 23, 2006). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/31/2006 ; Associated Press, 4/1/2006; Associated Press, 4/1/2006] Judge Reggie Walton will refuse to dismiss the charges (see April 26, 2006).