Why Is Kristof Joining the Mushy Technicality Club?

by emptywheel

Like many, I was disgusted when KayBee dutifully trotted out her Administration talking points to claim that perjury is no more than a technicality.

I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.

Disgusted. But not surprised.

But I was somewhat surprised when Kristof seemingly joined KayBee's technical and mushy club. Why is it that a guy who partially kicked this whole thing two years ago when he said...

Let's fervently hope that tomorrow we find an Iraqi superdome filled with 500 tons of mustard gas and nerve gas, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 29,984 prohibited munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, several dozen Scud missiles, gas centrifuges to enrich uranium, 18 mobile biological warfare factories, long-range unmanned aerial vehicles to dispense anthrax, and proof of close ties with Al Qaeda. Those are the things that President Bush or his aides suggested Iraq might have, and I don't want to believe that top administration officials tried to win support for the war with a campaign of wholesale deceit.

...now says this?

Special prosecutors always seem to morph into Inspector Javert, the Victor Hugo character whose vision of justice is both mindless and merciless. We don't know what evidence has been uncovered by Patrick Fitzgerald, but we should be uneasy that he is said to be mulling indictments that aren't based on his prime mandate, investigation of possible breaches of the 1982 law prohibiting officials from revealing the names of spies.

Instead, Mr. Fitzgerald is rumored to be considering mushier kinds of indictments, for perjury, obstruction of justice or revealing classified information. Sure, flat-out perjury must be punished. But if the evidence is more equivocal, then indictments would mark just the kind of overzealous breach of prosecutorial discretion that was a disgrace when Democrats were targeted.

I mean it's shocking because Kristof got it all right in 2003--the gravity of going to war based on deceit, the sheer magnitude of their lies. But now? Those things don't seem so important.

I'm tempted to attribute this to Kristof's creative morality--well-meaing, but utterly ham-handed in execution. This was the guy, after all, who had the great idea to "free" child sex slaves by buying them.
But there is another possible explanation. Kristof is in a little legal trouble himself these days. Less than a week ago, an appeals court allowed Stephen Hatfill (the purported anthrax terrorist) to sue NYT for libel.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed a former Army scientist to proceed with a libel lawsuit against The New York Times that claims one of the paper's columnists unfairly linked him to the 2001 anthrax killings.

Steven Hatfill sued the Times for a series of columns written in 2002 by Nicholas Kristof that faulted the FBI for failing to thoroughly investigate Hatfill for anthrax mailings that left five people dead.

Now I've got a lot of tinfoil hat theories regarding this case, theories that include Judy, as always. But it's all I can handle to wrap myself in tinfoil for the fairly well-documented conspiracies associated with the Plame case, so I'll let them slide.

But the impending trial means that Kristof is going to be in need of some serious institutional support from the Grey Lady in the near future. Heck, maybe he's hoping Pinch can make Kristof the newest hero for the First Amendment, since their existing hero is already tarnishing beyond repair.

Who knows? The threat of legal trouble makes people do some really wacky things. Like full pirouettes on opinions they held previously.

Comments

[obsessed]

it's all I can handle to wrap myself in tinfoil for the fairly well-documented conspiracies associated with the Plame case

ew - you're single-handedly bringing tinfoil attire back into style. We'll look for you on the cover of Vogue.

[Alopex Lagopus]

emptywheel, I hope you'll post your thoughts on the anthrax attacks at some point. What the heck happened to that investigation?

Just the fact that the targets were leading Democrats and news organizations (no Republicans, no hate radio, no radical religious right on crusade) smells funny. And the targets really did figure out that opening your mouth while spores are flying around is dangerous...

OK, tinfoil adjusted, I feel better now.

[emptypockets]

I thought he was just trying to write one of those "whoa there, tiger" articles such as the one that was on the recommended list of another site recently ("Kill the Fitzmas Talk") and Kristof just didn't do a very good job of it.

One outside possibility is that Kristof has gotten wind that the indictments WILL extend beyond perjury, and he's setting himself up for an "I told you so" with the added bonus of being able to say he wasn't one of the 'anti-Bush prosecutorial zealots' who would have jumped at any fumble but really an honest outraged citizen taking serious charges seriously. (I don't really think that's his game though.)

From my reading of it this morning, the key point was this sentence: So I find myself repulsed by the glee that some Democrats show at the possibility of Karl Rove and Mr. Libby being dragged off in handcuffs. It was wrong for prosecutors to cook up borderline and technical indictments during the Clinton administration, and it would be just as wrong today.

which to me is strikingly similar to the blog post I linked above:
I felt something cold in my stomach when I saw the term "Fitzmas" on this site last week. I'm all for seeing these crooks go down, but I think this air of celebration isn't helping us - in fact, it reminds me of the Republicans before the impeachment process, and we know how well that went for them.

I guess Kristof's taking it up a notch by saying not just the liberalpalooza is uncouth but that non-black-and-white perjury charges would be too. I'd like to wish he's saying that with some inside knowledge of the outcome.

[emptywheel]

But the point is, ~pockets, Kristof knows there is more than mushy Clintonesque perjury going on, because he knew it in 2003. He very articulated the danger of BushCo lying us into war, when most bobbleheads were still believing Bush was the second coming of Patton. I understand the discomfort with Fitzmas. But I think that's very different than recognizing the gravity of lying us into war.

As Kristof has already argued.

[emptypockets]

recognizing the gravity of lying us into war.

Right. He'd rather have those charges -- lying us into war.

The last thing we need are debatable perjury charges that will rally the Bush/Cheney base behind them as persecuted martyrs. Make it absolutely unquestionable or don't make it at all, is I think what Kristof is saying. Even more so if the charges are peripheral to the war (it's one thing to lie about what day you talked to a reporter and who called whom; it's another to lie about a mushroom cloud to the Congress and the American people on network tv).

I'm not agreeing with him, just trying to imagine what I would argue if I did.

[John Casper]

emptywheel,

Thanks a lot for the context. I completely missed his article, but I would eventually have stumbled upon it and been stumped were it not for your analysis.

[emptywheel]

Well, perhaps you're right, ~pockets.

I just wonder why he doesn't realize the legal process it may take Fitz to get to the point where he proves Bush lied us into war. He's clearly heading in that direction. But it will likely take one or two perjury charges about who talked to what journalist when to get us there.

[emptywheel]

John

Let me clear--this is--as most of my stuff is--speculation.

But it would explain why Kristof is being such a dope. Not excuse it, mind you. But explain it.

[RatIV]

The "technicality" argument is ridiculous. Pejury and obstruction, as commenters have pointed out, are precisely the kinds of activities that make prosecuting the leak difficult. Allowing these crimes to go unpunished here would allow the criminals to benefit from their own wrongdoing. It also creates terrible incentives. There are reasons these activities are crimes that deserve punishment. Let Fitz prosecute the criminals, and let the chips fall where they lay.

[kim]

Every time someone on the right, left, or in the press, suggests that this is an investigation without merit I remember that many US or foreign agents may have been put in lethal danger because of this leak.

Someday soon I hope this argument is forcibly made by the Prosecutor and responsible members of Congress, the Agencies, and the press.

[windansea]

"All it was was a telephone and a post office box," said one former intelligence official who asked not to be identified. "When she was abroad she had a more viable cover."

That's a good thing, considering how little work seems to have gone in to establishing the company's presence in Boston, intelligence observers said. While the renovated building houses legal and investment firms, current and former building managers said they've never heard of Brewster Jennings. Nor did the firm file the state and local records expected of most businesses.

Both factors would have aroused the suspicions of anyone who tried to check up on Brewster Jennings, said David Armstrong, an Andover researcher for the Public Education Center, a liberal Washington think tank.

At the least, a dummy company ought to create the appearance of activity, with an office and a valid mailing address, he said. "A cover that falls apart on first inspection isn't very good. What you want is a cover that actually holds up . . . and this one certainly doesn't."

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2003/10/10/apparent_cia_front_didnt_offer_much_cover/

yep...100's of covert agents were killed and the damage to the Brewster Jennings network is probably irreparable

[Kagro X]

Yes, that's right. The CIA did a bad job on their cover, so we should finish the job of blowing it, and if they're killed, it's their problem.

[Kim]

windansea,
100s killed? That doesn't sound realistic, what is your source (the link doesn't work BTW)? I'd believe 100s of people were compromised, one new star on the CIA wall has been reported in the right time period (search KOS for links to this).