Rove Innocent In Plame Case
There's a lesson for us here.
Just because someone sucks and is a bad person doesn't mean he's guilty.
There's a lesson for us here.
Just because someone sucks and is a bad person doesn't mean he's guilty.
posted by Winston Smith at
7:59 AM
9 Comments:
The sgtory says he won't be charged. It doesn't say he's innocent.
I was going to say the same thing.
1. Legally speaking, if he's not proven guilty, he's innocent.
2. More importantly: the prosecutors in this case know more about it than we ever will. If they're not going to charge him, it's likely that, in their estimation, he didn't do it.
If they're not going to charge him, it's likely that, in their estimation, he didn't do it.
Not quite: it means that, in their estimation, they can't prove he did it to the satisfaction of a court. And this is very much the sort of case where he could have been very involved without leaving any solid evidence around.
Or he could be innocent.
We do know that Rove revealed Plame's identity to Matthew Cooper of Time, that Duhbya said he would fire anyone in the White House who did this, that Rove still works there, and that Rove had convenient memory lapses about exactly what he said to whom.
We also know that Fitzgerald has not confirmed Rove's attorney's claim, nor released any letter that shows details.
Regardless of whether Rove did anything chargeable, he did bad things that an honest official would not do, and the stench goes all the way to the top - to Dick Cheney.
The NYT article reads:
In a statement, Mr. Luskin [Rove's attorney] said, "On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove."
Notice that Luskin's language above is weaker than both Jimmy Doyle's paraphrase that "he won't be charged" and WS's headline "Rove Innocent in Plame Case"
WS states (in the comments above)
If they're not going to charge him, it's likely that, in their estimation, he didn't do it.
I note that Firedoglake points out that Rove may have cut a deal to cooperate with the Special Cousel in exchange for not being charged.
So, to revise WS,
If they don't anticipate charging him, maybe he didn't do it, or, maybe he did do it, but cut a deal with the prosecutor.
My revision:
Karl Rove is a sonofabitch who puts party above country. And the wrong party to boot. He's done lots of crooked things we know about, and, no doubt, at least some that we don't know about. It would not surprise me if he did this, too. But the honest peole (i.e. the people outside the administration) who know most about the case have apparently concluded that there's insufficient evidence to prove that he did beyond a reasonable doubt. He may, of course, have cut a deal, but I don't see any appreciable evidence of that.
So, if the space aliens come down right now and tell me that they'll destroy the Earth unless I answer the following question correctly: "Is Rove guilty of the charges in question?"...I guess I'm going to have to guess in the negative...but I'll be sweating bullets when I do.
My take is that he's "guilty" of the act. What's unclear is whether it was a crime.
That was Fitz' conundrum.
WS,
Your revision reads fine by me. Were I to be nabbed by the space aliens, I would probable deliver the Scottish verdict of "Not Proven".
(It is a verdict that an individual like me can assert with an aura of smug satisfaction. It has no place in a legal system that is built on the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven in a court of law.)
Jim
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