question about charges against libby et al.

[unblock]

why is everyone so obsessed with charging someone with the specific statute forbidding with outting a covert agent?

why not just nail these bastards for revealing classified information? anyone with a security clearance has signed papers acknowledging that divulging any classified information is punishable by up to $10,000 and 10 years in prison (unless things have changed in the last decade or so).

it should be REAL easy to prove that libby et al. did this much. true, it doesn't apply to the press, but at least this gets the public officials in prison and/or talking.

[robinlynne]

1. agreed.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Libby already convicted of serious crimes.

Did I miss something?

[unblock]

8. not serious to get him to turn, anyway.

plus, libby's not the only one who deserves to be in prison for this.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. I Believe The First To Leak Was Armitage

Who did it by accident. But once it's out, it's no longer a classified, I believe.

(This group is so incompetent, they couldn't even commit a crime properly when they wanted to.)

[unblock]

6. no! that's the beauty of this charge. unauthorized leaks do NOT declassify anything.

you do have a point regarding intent, but i thought fitz had enough to show intent, at least against libby

[robinlynne]

4. I'm kicking this thread. why not charge them with revealing classified information?

exactly. now. call fitz. (I had a lot of coffee and I'm pissed off.) and why didn't fitz?

[dancingme]

5. Fitzgerald is a very, very intelligent man

if he did not think that he could get a jury to decide beyond a reasonable doubt that Libby deliberately leaked classified information to the press then I trust his judgment.

[unblock]

7. my bias is to respect it as well

which implies that there's an aspect of that statute that i'm missing, or some other reason for not pursuing other charges.

i'm fully open to an explanation as to why not to pursue other charges.

[Duer 157099]

9. That raises the question of why the Intelligence Identities Act

had to be created in the first place. If their identity is classified, and if it's already a crime to release classified info, then why did they need this law?

If we know the answer to that, it will shed light on your question.

[unblock]

10. that part i think i know

because the penalties are no doubt more severe, to give covert agents special protection above and beyond "mere" classified information.

criminal law is full of statutes like that. you can't commit aggravated assault without also comitting simple assault, etc.

[unblock]

11. kick for the morning....

:kick: