"Scooter" Libby has been indicted. If he's found completely guilty on all five counts of the indictment, he may have to pay some $10,0000 in fines, and spend a year or two in prison.
He did not "out" Valerie Plame ‐ possibly because she wasn't "in" to begin with. His crime is lying to the person investigating whether or not a crime was committed. Apparently, merely lying to such a person is a Federal offense. (The investigator, on the other hand, is free to lie through his teeth in the course of his investigation.)
You may recall, this is what Martha Stewart was convicted of, and why she spent those months in prison, and then under house arrest.
Has it occurred to anyone how counter-productive this is? If lying itself is a crime, with no underlying crime needing to be proved, then anyone who makes a statement that later turns out to be false is in jeopardy. How are you going to investigate anything when everyone in the population decides the only safe answer is "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me."
No comments:
Post a Comment