Secrecy and criminality in government

John Dean on the latest developments in the Plame leak scandal: The Truth About Lewis "Scooter" Libby's Statements to the Grand Jury Claiming the President Authorized a Leak of Classified Information: The President and Vice President Are Not In the Clear Yet Findlaw.com 04/07/06

He explains that Scooter Libby's latest claim that President Bush had authorized him through Dick Cheney to give classified information to a reporter still leaves both Bush and Deadeye Dick open to possible criminal charges. He also talks about the larger meaning of the case:

Beyond the hypocrisy, however, is what the President, Vice President, Libby and no doubt others did to destroy the career of Valerie Plame. ... [A]s the facts unravel, it increasingly appears that administration officials did indeed attack Mr. Wilson for his speaking out; the leak of his wife's identity does indeed seem to have been done in harsh retribution. Such a violation of civil rights is a crime.

Finally, even if Bush and Cheney both get away clean of criminal charges, or even the suggestion of criminal conduct, this is still devastating for the Administration. Illegal or not, the President and Vice-President's actions, as recounted by Libby, are ugly in the extreme

After all, Fitzgerald's filings indicate that, at a bare minimum, these highest of officials played fast and loose with declassification rules as part of a scheme to take an uncalled-for revenge against a critic who dared to question an Iraqi war justification. Even more damning, is that the critic turned out to be right: Weapons of mass destruction have never surfaced, no uranium was sold by Niger to Iraq, and the Administration's call to arms was bogus.

... The Commander-in-Chief-can-do-no-wrong veneer is wearing off, thankfully. For a nation that cannot hold its commander-in-chief responsible is something other than a democracy. (my emphasis)

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