csua.org/u/dv7 -> powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2005/10/truth-is-engine-and-it-was-done-to-all.html
About culture and politics, and the narratives that inform them Friday, October 28, 2005 "Truth is the engine," and "It was done to all of us" I am certain that Patrick Fitzgerald's extraordinarily impressive press c onference will not slow down the administration's most zealous defenders , not even to the smallest degree.
F itzgerald's remarks -- and then be made to reread them numerous times, u ntil the major points finally begin to sink in. First, about Fitzgerald generally: what a wonderful, revivifying breath o f bracing fresh air. Straightforward, always clear, always in command of the facts and the arguments, as brief and to the point as possible, and with a complete absence of personal grandstanding. All the plaudits we have been hearing about Fitzgerald were borne out in this crucial moment in the glare of national attention: here is a man focused on the facts and the law, and on the specific mandate he was given. Nothing else matt ers to him, and he seeks no personal gain or glory from performing his j ob -- except for the gain or glory which are justly his, by virtue of th e fact that he does perform his job, and does so with exceptional master y Would that more public servants -- and politicians in particular -- f ollowed Fitzgerald's model. I will have some thoughts about other aspects of Fitzgerald's comments an d about this case in general later. For the moment, I want to focus on o ne particular aspect of Fitzgerald's remarks. Note these passages: That's the way this investigation was conducted. It was known that a CIA officer's identity was blown, it was known that there was a leak. We n eeded to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it. And given that national security was at stake, it was especially importa nt that we find out accurate facts. But as important as it is for the grand jury to follow the rules and fol low the safeguards to make sure information doesn't get out, it's equal ly important that the witnesses who come before a grand jury, especiall y the witnesses who come before a grand jury who may be under investiga tion, tell the complete truth. It's especially important in the national security area. The laws involv ing disclosure of classified information in some places are very clear, in some places they're not so clear. And grand jurors and prosecutors making decisions about who should be ch arged, whether anyone should be charged, what should be charged, need t o make fine distinctions about what people knew, why they knew it, what they exactly said, why they said it, what they were trying to do, what appreciation they had for the information and whether it was classifie d at the time. Those fine distinctions are important in determining what to do. That's why it's essential when a witness comes forward and gives their account of how they came across classified information and what they did with it that it be accurate.
I've been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fas tball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really h urt them, you'd want to know why the pitcher did that. And you'd wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, I've got bad b lood with this batter. I'm just going to h it him in the head as hard as I can. You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere nea r the batter's head. You might learn that you wanted to hit the batter in the back and it hit him in the head because he moved. You might want to throw it under his chin, but it ended up hitting him on the head. And what you'd want to do is have as much information as you could. And then you'd make a decision as to whether this person should be banne d from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should d o nothing at all and just say, Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going o ut? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and gi ving it to reporters? And was this something where he intend ed to cause whatever damage was caused? Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray ? And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view. As you sit here now, if you're asking me what his motives were, I can't tell you; So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is i t prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make. I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge. This is a very serious matter and compromising national security informa tion is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of wha t happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertenc e, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obs truct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime. He would not be guilty unle ss and until a jury of 12 people came back and returned a verdict sayin g so. But if what we allege in the indictment is true, then what is charged is a very, very serious crime that will vindicate the public interest in finding out what happened here. And from later in the press conference: QUESTION: Mr Fitzgerald, the Republicans previewed some talking points in anticipation of your indictment and they said that if you didn't ind ict on the underlying crimes and you indicted on things exactly like yo u did indict -- false statements, perjury, obstruction -- these were, q uote/unquote, technicalities, and that it really was over reaching and excessive. And since, when and if they make those claims, now that you have indicte d, you won't respond, I want to give you an opportunity now to respond to that allegation which they may make. FITZGERALD: And I don't know who provided those talking points. If you're doing a national security invest igation, if you're trying to find out who compromised the identity of a CIA officer and you go before a grand jury and if the charges are prov en -- because remember there's a presumption of innocence -- but if it is proven that the chief of staff to the vice president went before a f ederal grand jury and lied under oath repeatedly and fabricated a story about how he learned this information, how he passed it on, and we pro ve obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements to the FBI, tha t is a very, very serious matter. FITZGERALD: And I'd say this: I think people might not understand this. We, as prosecutors and FBI agents, have to deal with false statements, obstruction of justice and perjury all the time. The Department of Just ice charges those statutes all the time. When I was in New York working as a prosecutor, we brought those cases b ecause we realized that the truth is the engine of our judicial system. And if you compromise the truth, the whole process is lost. In Philadelphia, where Jack works, they prosecute false statements and o bstruction of justice. When I got to Chicago, I knew the people before me had prosecuted false statements, obstruction and perjury cases. And if a truck driver pays a brib e or someone else does something where they go into a grand jury afterw ard and lie about it, they get indicted all the time. Any notion that anyone might have that there's a different standard for a high official, that this is somehow singling out obstruction of justi ce and perjury, is upside down. If these facts are true, if we were to walk away from this and not charg e obstruction of justice and perjury, we might as well just hand in our jobs. Because our jobs, the criminal justice system, is to make sure p eople tell us the truth. And when it's a high-level official and a very sensitive investigation, it is a very, very serious matter that no one sho...
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