October 31, 2005: Former Solicitor General Says Libby Did Not Lie, Did Not Out Plame Wilson

The Wall Street Journal prints an editorial by former Bush Solicitor General Theodore Olson lambasting the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation and the indictment of former White House aide Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005), and criticizing the use of the Independent Counsel Law to investigate the Plame Wilson identity leak. The Journal does not inform its readers of Olson’s participation in using the Independent Counsel Law to bring articles of impeachment against former President Clinton. Olson calls the investigation a “spectacle,” questions special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s impartiality, and says the entire Plame Wilson-Libby investigation is another example of “special prosecutor syndrome,” a politically motivated investigation run amok. Olson writes that he does not believe Libby is guilty of perjury because “I know him to be an honest, conscientious man who has given a large part of his life to public service.” Any misstatements Libby may have made to investigators (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004) must have been inadvertent failures of memory and not deliberate lies. Moreover, Olson asserts, Libby had nothing to do with exposing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA official (see (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). [Wall Street Journal, 10/31/2005]