Of Interest - 5/17/07
From Powerline: The intriguing theory that Scooter Libby’s downfall was the result of score-settling by Washington insiders.
Comey, when asked for names of his adversaries in the OVP, mentioned his disagreements with VP Dick Cheney and Cheney’s Legal Counsel, David Addington. Curiously, Comey failed to mention Scooter Libby–Cheney’s Chief of Staff, a prominent attorney in his own right, and a leading architect of policy at the OVP–even though it is known that Libby was also involved in these matters. It is scarcely credible to suppose that Comey had no dealings with Libby, nor that they were in disagreement over the NSA program. Perhaps Comey avoided mention of Libby because he wished to avoid the appearance of personal animus. After all, it is well known that Libby had beaten Comey in a contentious case in the Southern District of New York a few years earlier, and one of Comey’s first acts as DAG–before the NSA program came up for recertification–was to talk Ashcroft into recusing himself from the Plame affair. Comey then proceeded to appoint his former SDNY pal Patrick Fitzgerald to go after Libby, even expanding Fitzgerald’s purview to “process violations,” even though Comey knew that Armitage was the “leaker” and that the supposed “leak” violated no known law.
Thought one: What a poisonous environment. Thought two: GW Bush will likely go down in history for his embarassingly poor personnel decisions.
