DOJ ask SCOTUS to stay out of Plame case....

[jaysunb]

As you'll see, the article appears as a "blurb" on the Nation sidebar. It give no details, just this:

NATION IN BRIEF / WASHINGTON, D.C.
Justices are asked to stay out of case
From Times Wire Reports
November 26, 2006


The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to refrain from stepping into another 1st Amendment battle featuring federal prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald and the New York Times.

The case involves a leak probe by Fitzgerald to track down the confidential sources of Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon for stories in 2001.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs26.5nov26,1,2815997.story?coll=la-headlines-nation


WTF ?????

[LiberalArkie]

1. They know that scotus is just a branch of the executive branch

[Jackpine Radical]

2. WTF indeed. We need H2O Man to explain this to us.

He's never around here when you need him.

[madokie]

4. Yep, the man has a way with words

[jaysunb]

7. Calling H2OMAN !

Help us out here !

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Ahah. Found more.

From Boston Globe:
In the current case, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals has said prosecutors can see the journalists' phone records. Earlier, a federal judge had ruled in the newspaper's favor, saying the First Amendment supplied a qualified privilege to reporters to protect confidential sources.

On Friday, the newspaper asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to temporarily block the government from going through the records, and said it was prepared to file a petition by Dec. 24 asking the court to take up the case.

In its filing, the government cites a Nov. 13 declaration by Fitzgerald that says the time for filing criminal charges would expire in three weeks. Temporarily blocking the government from reviewing the phone records would cause "irreparable harm to a significant criminal investigation," the Justice Department told the court.

The reporters' stories disclosed the government's plans to freeze the assets of two Islamic charities, the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation. The freezing of assets was in connection with a terrorism-funding investigation.

Temporarily blocking the government from reviewing the phone records would cause "irreparable harm to a significant criminal investigation," the Justice Department told the court in a 40-page filing.

[KSU Wildcat]

5. Isn't the leaker Richard L. Armitage?

I thought that he had already admitted that he inadvertently leaked the name of the CIA agent to Novak.

[Nickster]

6. He's only one of the leakers. The info that Judy Miller got came before

Armitage leaked.

[riderinthestorm]

8. He was just one of several leakers

Why Armitage was one of the leakers is a big question. There were other leakers who were working to orchestrate Ms. Plame's outing to take down her CIA front organization, Brewster Jennings, which tracked nuclear arms/weapons and proliferation globally. Plame was getting too close to the plot to plant WMDs in Iraq (so the Admin could claim some "success" on that particular lie for the war) so she had to go.

There are other tangential reasons as well which make for interesting theories on why so many people were enlisted to out Plame. Many of the theories lead back to Cheney and his arms dealing consortium which were at risk of exposure by Valerie Plame.

[Igel]

9. Not Plame.

Miller and some Islamic charities.

Fitzgerald's on more than one case. One reason for the quirky deal Miller made with Fitzgerald before testifying on the CIA-leak case (she was to be asked question about and only about the CIA case) had to do with Fitzgerald's investigation into Miller's leaking information to principles in a second, completely unrelated, investigation.