Lie to Me

Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted for perjury and lying to investigators.

The point of the investigation was to find out if any laws were broken in revealing a covert CIA agent's name to the press. Apparently the answer to that question was no, because there were no indictments for that. But they were able to indict Libby.

I don't know what evidence they have against Libby, but I do hope that the charges are false. The fact that he was possibly covering up something that wasn't even a crime is very sad. One would think that he would have been able to take the 5th or get thorough testimony without having to lie about anything.

It has been pretty clear from the start that although outing a CIA agent is a terrible thing, it was not illegal in that instance, and it actually did help to put straight misinformation that the woman's husband was spreading. But that is not an excuse for revealing her identity. Not knowing that she was supposed to be covert does mitigate the incident, and definitely keeps all parties on the right side of at least the law.

But this much was already known when the grand jury was seated, so one is wondering why Libby thought it necessary to lie (if he really did.) Who was he trying to protect and what else is going on that we don't know about. If he was actually lying during his grand jury testimony, then he does desrve to be punished for that. I am not sure about ther obstruction of justice, since the grand jury presumably already knows the truth or they would not have known what Libby was lying about, and they still didn't get any other idictments. This pretty much tells me that even if Libby had been truthful the entire time, there would not have been any other indictments, which means that Libby did not really obstruct justice.

Libby's lawyer has already stated that he is totally innocent of all charges and will fight them, but I see a plea bargain in the future. If that happens, it will be really difficult to find out what really happened in the imroglio.