Vallery Plame Story update: Cheney lied to the FBI

The FBI has released its report of thier interview with former VP Dick Cheny about the outing of a CIA opprative. The former Vice President’s memory failed him 72 times during a 3 hour interview by the FBI concerning the Plame leak case.

Cpl. Cody Daniel Richardson, 22, of Carroll, N.H.,is charged in the death of his beloved 21-year-old wife, Jessy,

Cpl. Cody Daniel Richardson, 22, strangles wife

NC Marine charged with murder in wife's death

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — A Camp Lejeune Marine charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife had confessed to the killing in a 911 call, police said Tuesday.

Cpl. Cody Daniel Richardson, 22, of Carroll, N.H., was charged in the death of his 21-year-old wife, Jessy, Jacksonville police said. He was held under a $1 million bond in the Onslow County jail.

Police Say Marine Left Wife in Apartment for 1-2 Days after Slaying

Chief Michael Yaniero told a news conference that Richardson confessed to a 911 operator that he strangled his wife, but an autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

Yaniero said officers went to the couple's apartment on Monday and found the Marine officer outside and the woman's body inside.

Authorities said the couple had an argument that resulted in her death and it appeared the woman had been dead for up to two days.

Jessy Richardson graduated from Kingswood Regional High School in 2006. Cody Richardson also attended the school but didn't graduate there. Those who knew the two said they were shocked by the murder charge.


Richardson was being held at the Onslow County Jail.

Camp Lejeune officials said Richardson is assigned to the 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune. He entered the Marine Corps in August 2006 and was promoted to corporal on May 1, 2008.

He deployed to Iraq in November 2007 and returned in May 2008. He is a decorated Marine and has been awarded the Iraqi Campaign Medal and National Defense Service and Global War on Terrorism service medals.

Sara Lauer, the mother of the victim, said she doesn't want her daughter's husband to serve any time if he is found responsible. She said that he needs help and will have to live what he's done.

Richardson is the latest Camp Lejeune Marine charged in a domestic violence case.




Cesar Laurean, a former Marines corporal, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, whose charred remains were found in his backyard in January 2008.

Authorities have charged military personnel in the deaths of three other women in North Carolina.

Army Sgt. Richard Smith has been accused of hiring a man to kill his wife, Sgt. Christina Smith. Army Sgt. Edgar Patino has been charged with killing Spc. Megan Touma, who was pregnant. And Marine Cpl. John Wimunc has been charged in the death of his wife, Army 2nd Lt. Holley Wimunc.

US troops develop Male Breast Cancer from bad water

The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten
Camp Lejeune Residents Blame Breast Cancer on the Water

For three decades, dry-cleaning chemicals and industrial solvents laced the water used by local Marines and their families. Mike Partain and at least 19 others developed male breast cancer.

One night in April 2007, as Mike Partain hugged his wife before going to bed, she felt a small lump above his right nipple. A mammogram led to a diagnosis of male breast cancer. Six days later, the 41-year-old insurance adjuster had a mastectomy.

Over the last two years, Partain has compiled a list of 19 others diagnosed with male breast cancer who once lived on the base.

For three decades -- from the 1950s to the mid-1980s -- the water supply used by hundreds of thousands of Marines and their families was laced with chemicals from an off-base dry-cleaning company and industrial solvents used to clean military equipment.

A 1974 base order required safe disposal of solvents and warned that improper handling could cause drinking water contamination. Yet solvents were dumped or buried near base wells for years.

Military officials acknowledge that they were told as early as 1981 that potentially dangerous "volatile organic compounds" had been detected in the drinking water.

In men, breast cancer is rare. About 1,900 cases are expected to be diagnosed in the U.S. this year, compared with 192,000 cases in women, the American Cancer Society says.

Establishing a link between chemical exposure and a specific cancer cluster is difficult. But Partain and the others from Camp Lejeune say their illnesses are more than mere coincidence.

Partain said there was no history of breast cancer in his family, and that a test for a gene linked to the disease was negative. Only two of the other 19 survivors -- 18 former Marines and the son of a Marine -- have family histories of female breast cancer, Partain said.

The website lists 484 people who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune and say they have been diagnosed with cancer or other illnesses. More than 1,600 former base residents have filed claims against the federal government, seeking $34 billion total in damages.

The military, Partain contends, knew details of the contamination earlier than it has admitted.

A 1980 report by a scientist working for the Army who tested base tap water warned officials that the "water is highly contaminated," Partain said. A 1981 follow-up report said that more tests had shown the water to be tainted "with other chlorinated hydrocarbons (solvents)!"

In 1982, a chemist with a private lab hired by the Corps provided the base commander with a report showing "contamination by trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene" in well fields supplying two Camp Lejeune water systems. "We called the situation to the attention of Camp Lejeune personnel," the chemist wrote, adding that his findings had important public health implications.

Trichloroethylene (TCE) is a colorless solvent often used to clean grease from machinery. Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) is commonly used in dry cleaning. Both chemicals are now "reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens," according to the Health and Human Services Department's National Toxicology Program. But in 1982 they were not subject to regulation.

In April 1985, the base commander sent letters informing residents that "minute (trace) amounts of several organic chemicals" had been detected in wells. It gave no indication that the chemicals could be dangerous. That spring, one of 10 contaminated wells was reopened for use on four days to help alleviate a water shortage.

A 2004 fact-finding panel set up by the Corps concluded that base officials had acted properly and that the drinking water was "consistent with general . . . industry practices" at the time. However, the panel found that officials did not attempt to evaluate health risks for dangerous chemicals, and that a Navy technical advisory unit had failed to provide the Corps with the expertise needed to understand health dangers.

In 2005, Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency investigations found no criminal conduct by Corps officials.

The Marine Corps waited until 1999 -- 14 years after closing the contaminated wells -- to begin notifying former base residents. That effort was part of a federal health study aimed at children conceived or born at the base during the contamination years.

Only in 2008 did the Corps undertake a more widespread effort to notify former Marines and family members who had lived in an affected housing area during the time in question. An online health registry now contains more than 135,000 names.

Congress required the notification after being lobbied by Jerry Ensminger, a former Marine drill instructor who blames the 1985 leukemia death of his daughter Janey, 9, on contaminated water.

Ensminger has fought to hold the Corps accountable, researching military documents and confronting officials. He learned that the water was tainted while watching a local TV report in 1997.

"I trained more than 2,000 Marines on our Marine Corps values," Ensminger said. "Now the Marine Corps leadership refuses to honor those values."

Partain said he had no idea his drinking water had been laced with probable carcinogens until he heard about congressional testimony by Ensminger in 2007.

Peter Devereaux, 47, a former Marine who served at Camp Lejeune from 1980 to 1982, was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2008 and had a mastectomy. He said he did not know about the contamination until Partain contacted him last year.

"The Marine Corps refuses to acknowledge what they did to people who served their country," Devereaux said. "It sickens me."

Last month, Sen. Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.) introduced a bill that would require the government to cover healthcare costs for Marines and family members who were exposed to the contaminated water.

Video News: Cheney's secret CIA work being Revealed

Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney gave direct orders to the CIA to conceal an intelligence program from Congress, US media reports say.



Remember the accusations by Seymour Hersh (reported here on Iraq War News & History - here

Will the US investigate?

Update: Obama to look into Aphganistan Dasht-e-Leili massacre.

Note: Do not expect much deep digging by the Obama Administration on this re-revelation of the problematic mass killing in Afghanistan, more likely more cover-up. Sad.

Obama orders probe of alleged Afghan mass killings

WASHINGTON, July 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said he has ordered an investigation into allegations that the former Bush administration failed to probe into alleged killings of hundreds of Taliban prisoners by a CIA-backed Afghan warlord.

"The indications that this had not been properly investigated just recently was brought to my attention," he said during an interview to be broadcast on CNN later Monday.

"So what I've asked my national security team to do is to collect the facts for me that are known, and we'll probably make a decision in terms of how to approach it once we have all of the facts gathered up," the president said.

The inquiry stems from the deaths of at least 1,000 Taliban prisoners who had surrendered to the U.S.-backed Afghan Northern Alliance in late 2001.

At the time, the prisoners were in the custody of Abdul Rashid Dostum, a prominent Afghan warlord supported by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA.

Revelations of the killings first surfaced in a 2002 Newsweek report, prompting U.S. General Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Afghanistan, to request an investigation. (Franks was the U.S. general leading the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon. He also led the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.)

However, according to recent U.S. media reports, the former Bush administration had repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the case.


Previously:


President Obama's refusal to open up comprehensive investigations into war crimes becomes a criminal act by purposefully covering up criminal activity. The US should be `out in front' investigating past actions of the previous Administration, rather than allowing other countries and groups to expose US atrocities. Recently outside investigations of a massacre in Afghanistan uncovered the Bush Administrations impediment of US investigations.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)have sued for the release of government documents, in hopes to uncover more information about an Alleged Massacre of Up to 2,000 Prisoners in Afghanistan.

in the wake of a major New York Times story with new evidence that the Bush Administration impeded at least three federal investigations into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan in 2002.

PHR is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate why the Bush Administration impeded an FBI criminal probe of the alleged Dasht-e-Leili massacre.

Suffocated in Container Trucks

According to US government documents obtained by PHR, as many as 2,000 surrendered Taliban fighters were reportedly suffocated in container trucks by Afghan forces operating jointly with the US in November 2001. The bodies were reportedly buried in mass graves in the Dasht-e-Leili desert near Sheberghan, Afghanistan. Notorious Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was reportedly on the CIA payroll, is allegedly responsible for the massacre.



General Abdul Rashid DostumGeneral Abdul Rashid Dostum (born 1954) is the Deputy Defense Minister of Afghanistan and an Uzbek warlord. As the leader of Afghanistan's minority Uzbek community, he is a controversial figure who has often changed sides in Afghanistan's complex web of shifting alliances.

In 1996, following the rise of the Taliban and their capture of Herat and Kabul, Dostum realigned himself with Rabbani against the Taliban. Along with General Mohammed Fahim and Ismail Khan, Dostum was one of three factional leaders that comprised the Northern Alliance. While much of the rest of Afghanistan was in ruins, his stronghold of Mazar-e-Sharif - a city of around two million people - was thriving.General Dostum grew rich, but his rule was harsh. He is reported to have frequently ordered public executions of criminals, who were usually crushed to death under tanks. It is claimed that he financed his army with profits from the opium trade. At the height of his power in 1997 - at the age of 43 - he controlled a kind of mini-state in northern Afghanistan.

The Taliban's capture of Mr. Dostum's fortress and airfield in Mazar-e-Sharif in 1997 forced him into exile in Uzbekistan and Iran. In 1998, he fled to Turkey. He returned in 2000 to join the Northern Alliance, seeking to avenge himself on the Taliban. He found that opportunity in 2001, when he drove the Taliban from power on the heels of a U.S.-led bombing campaign. The leader of the second largest party in the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, General Dostum directed the campaign to recapture Mazar-e-Sharif - the town he once ruled. Dostum then consolidated his power base in the north, strengthening his hold on an area which covered six provinces with a population of around five million.

Karzai appointed him as a special adviser on security and military affairs, with effective control over security affairs in the northern Afghan provinces of Balkh, Jowzjan, Sar-e Pol, Samangan, and Faryab. Today he runs parts of the country's north as his own fiefdom, nominally serving as a deputy defense minister to the national government in Kabul but operating almost totally independent of the government. Dostum's force of some 20,000 militia fighters is composed mostly of ethnic Uzbeks who are members of his political group, Junbish-e Melli. Within his areas of control, he encourages women to live and work freely, as well as music, sports, alcohol, and allows for people of other religions.

In November of 2002, the United Nations began an investigation of alleged human rights abuses by Dostum. Witnesses claimed that Dostum jailed and tortured witnesses to prevent them from testifying in a war crimes case. Dostum is also under suspicion for the events of the Dasht-i-Leili massacre.

In March of 2003, he established a North Zone of Afghanistan, against the wishes of interim president Hamid Karzai. On May 20, 2003, Dostum signed an agreement to no longer serve as Karzai's special envoy for the northern regions.

Forces loyal to Dostum continue to clash with forces loyal to Tajik General Atta Mohammed.

General Dostum has run unsuccessfully against Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the country's presidential election.

The Attorney General of Afghanistan, Abdul Jabar Sabet suggests that Dostum is such a powerful commander in northern Afghanistan that, in the current security environment, he might be above prosecution. "Anyone who commits a criminal act must be brought to justice," Sabit says. "But in reality, I must admit that there will be some difficulties. In this war situation, in many cases, it is difficult for us to implement the law."

Sabit says that "because of the war there is no law, and you cannot implement the law in the south of the country or in many districts -- even in those places where the rule of law does exist, sometimes we cannot enforce the law over some people."

Afghan political analyst Fazel Rahman Oria sums it up this way: “Dostum is putting pressure on the government. He wants to show people that the government is subject to him. And, indeed, this is true".

Physicians for Human Rights, which shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, first documented the existence of the alleged mass grave in Afghanistan in January 2002 and since then:

Advocated for witnesses to be protected, the mass grave site to be secured, and for a full and impartial investigation; Conducted preliminary forensic investigations -- including exposing 15 remains and conducting three autopsies -- under UN auspices at Dasht-e-Leili; Successfully sued for compliance with a PHR Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the release of US government documents that reveal US intelligence knowledge of the magnitude of the alleged crime and awareness of the execution and torture of witnesses to the incidents;Helped identify the US chain of command likely responsible for impeding federal investigations into the alleged massacre;
Discovered and reported on alleged tampering of the site; and
Requested satellite image analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that appears to demonstrate that tampering occurred soon after PHR filed its FOIA request in June 2006.

"Physicians for Human Rights went to investigate inhumane conditions at a prison in northern Afghanistan, but what we found was much worse," stated Susannah Sirkin, PHR Deputy Director. "Our researchers documented an apparent mass grave site with reportedly thousands of bodies of captured prisoners who were suffocated to death in trucks. That was 2002; seven years later, we still seek answers about what exactly happened and who was involved."

Senior Bush Administration officials impeded investigations by the FBI and the State Department, and the Defense Department apparently never conducted a full inquiry, the New York Times reports in the story for the July 11 print edition by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter James Risen.

"The Bush Administration's disregard for the rule of law and the Geneva Conventions led to torture of prisoners in Guantanamo and many other secret places," noted Nathaniel Raymond, PHR's lead researcher on Dasht-e-Leili.

Obama Must Open Investigations

"Contrary to the legal opinions of the previous Department of Justice, the principles of the Geneva Conventions are non-negotiable, as is their enforcement. President Obama must open a full and transparent criminal probe and prosecute any US officials found to have broken the law."

"The State Department's statement to the New York Times that suspected war crimes should be thoroughly investigated indicates a move towards full accountability," added Raymond. "We stand ready to aid the US government in investigating this massacre. It is time for the cover-up to end."

Sirkin added, "President Obama must set a different course by signaling publicly that in all of its operations anywhere in the world, the US and its allies will respect the Geneva Conventions and safeguard the rights of prisoners of war, as well as all captured combatants and detainees to be treated humanely."

PHR reiterated its call on the Government of Afghanistan, which has jurisdiction over the alleged mass grave site, to:

Secure the area with the assistance of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force-Afghanistan);Protect witnesses to the initial incident and the ensuing tampering; and
Ensure a full investigation of remaining evidence at the site, including the tracing of the substantial amount of soil that appears to have been removed in 2006.
"Gravesites have been tampered with, evidence has been destroyed, and witnesses have been tortured and killed," stressed Sirkin. "The Dasht-e-Leili mass grave site must finally be secured, all surviving witnesses must be protected, and the Government of Afghanistan, in coordination with the UN and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), must at last allow a full investigation to go forward."

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. PHR was founded in 1986 on the idea that health professionals, with their specialized skills, ethical commitments, and credible voices, are uniquely positioned to investigate the health consequences of human rights violations and work to stop them. PHR mobilizes health professionals to advance health, dignity and justice and promotes the right to health for all. PHR has documented the systematic use of psychological and physical torture by US personnel against detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram airbase and elsewhere.

PHR's International Forensic Program (IFP) has conducted forensic assessments and investigations of human rights abuses, crimes against humanity and genocide in many countries. IFP is dedicated to providing independent forensic expertise to document and collect evidence of human rights violations and of violations of international humanitarian law. Since the 1980s, PHR has mobilized forensic scientists and other experts worldwide to respond to inquiries by governments, organizations, families and individuals.


Reference Articles:

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-10-2009/0005058098&EDATE=

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/13/content_11703350.htm

Prison commander apologizes for 'our nation,' military

The Washington post today reports Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller one of the men most responsible for carrying out the Bush-Torture regime now apologizes, yet does not take personal responsibility. (WP story below)

Looking back, Alfred McCoy, who had been following the Central Intelligence Agency since the early 1970s, wrote:

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave Gen. Geoffrey Miller command of the new American military prison at Guantanamo in late 2002 with ample authority to transform it into an ad hoc psychology lab. Behavioral Science Consultation Teams of military psychologists probed detainees for individual phobias like fear of the dark. Interrogators stiffened the psychological assault by exploiting what they saw as Arab cultural sensitivities when it came to sex and dogs. Via a three-phase attack on the senses, on culture, and on the individual psyche, interrogators at Guantanamo perfected the CIA’s psychological paradigm.

After Gen. Miller visited Iraq in September 2003, the U.S. commander there, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, ordered Guantanamo-style abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. My own review of the 1,600 still-classified photos taken by American guards at Abu Ghraib – which journalists covering this story seem to share like Napster downloads – reveals not random, idiosyncratic acts by “bad apples,” but the repeated, constant use of just three psychological techniques: hooding for sensory deprivation, shackling for self-inflicted pain, and (to exploit Arab cultural sensitivities) both nudity and dogs. It is no accident that Private Lynndie England was famously photographed leading an Iraqi detainee leashed like a dog.

The Washington Post story:

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- The commander of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq apologized yesterday for the "illegal or unauthorized acts" committed by soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison, where photographs showed Iraqi prisoners being abused by smiling American guards.

Outside the main gate of the prison, about 2,000 Iraqis protested the treatment of prisoners, chanting, "Democracy doesn't mean killing innocent people." They hoisted a banner that said: "Free women or we will launch jihad."

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, giving reporters a tour of Abu Ghraib, said some interrogation techniques at the prison would be halted and others would be limited. He also invited the Red Cross to open an office there.

As Gen. Miller led Arab and Western reporters around the prison, inmates shouted complaints about undignified treatment and random arrests.

"I would like to apologize for our nation and for our military for the small number of soldiers who committed illegal or unauthorized acts here at Abu Ghraib," Gen. Miller told the touring reporters.

"These are violations not only of our national policy but of how we conduct ourselves as members of the international community."

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director for coalition operations in Iraq, also apologized for actions at the prison, which was a notorious center for torture and killings under Saddam Hussein.

"My Army has been embarrassed by this. My Army has been shamed by this. And on behalf of my Army, I apologize for what those soldiers did to your citizens," Gen. Kimmitt said. "It was reprehensible and it was unacceptable."

As Gen. Miller spoke to reporters in cell block 1A, where the photos of Iraqis in humiliating positions were taken, five female inmates screamed, shouted and waved their arms through the iron bars.

"I've been here five months," one woman shouted in Arabic. "I don't belong to the resistance. I have children at home."

At a tent camp inside the prison used for detainees with medical conditions, prisoners ran out shouting at the bus of journalists. Some hobbled on crutches, and one man waved his prosthetic leg in the air.

"Why? Why?" he shouted in Arabic. "Nobody has told me why I am here."

Prison authorities did not allow the journalists to speak to or photograph the detainees.

Gen. Miller said he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to establish a permanent presence at the prison. Also, Iraq's Interior Ministry and Ministry of Human Rights will have offices at the facility, he said.

Red Cross spokeswoman Nada Doumani said hers is the only international group monitoring Iraqi prisons, but it is doing only spot checks.

"We have access to all detention facilities, but I cannot pretend that we are visiting all detention facilities in Iraq," Mrs. Doumani said. "We are visiting the main ones."

On Tuesday, the U.S. military said it was ordering troops to use blindfolds instead of hoods and requiring interrogators to get permission before depriving inmates of sleep or keeping them in stressful positions for extended periods -- two of the most common techniques reported by freed Iraqis.

Exceptions would require permission of a general officer, Gen. Miller said.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's human rights envoy to Iraq said U.S. soldiers who detained an Iraqi woman last year placed a harness on her, made her crawl on all fours and rode her like a donkey.

The envoy, legislator Ann Clwyd, said she had investigated the claims of the woman in her 70s and believed they were true.

During five visits to Iraq in the last 18 months, Mrs. Clwyd said she stopped at British and U.S.-run jails, including Abu Ghraib, and questioned everyone she could about the woman's claims.

Asked for details, Mrs. Clwyd said during a telephone interview that she "didn't want to harp on the case because as far as I'm concerned it's been resolved."

The Washington Times
Originally published 09:53 p.m., May 5, 2004, updated 12:00 a.m., May 6, 2004
and
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2009/06/07/pioneers-of-torture/

Wikipedia article on Geoffrey D. Miller (born c. 1949) is a retired United States Army Major General who commanded the US detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Iraq.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_D._Miller

Obama turns a blind eye to Bush era Crimes & Criminals

There is a growing upset at the Obama Administrations seeming refusal to investigate the potential crimes of the Bush Administration. Some feel the past is the past we should look towards the future. They dismiss the proverbial wisdom of George Santayana who said: "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

We should be studying the blunders of the Bush Administration, such as Cheney's belief that deficit spending is good, or the decision to borrow from China to help finance the war in Iraq - among other missteps.

But in authorizing torture we are dealing with criminal activity. Will we have to wait for the next President after Obama to open up a `Cold Case Squad' in their attorney general's office to deal with this?




OBAMA CHANGES MIND ON PICTURE RELEASE

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Wednesday that he would fight to prevent the release of photographs documenting abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by United States military personnel, reversing his position on the issue after commanders warned that the images could set off a deadly backlash against American troops.



So much for the promise of transparency. It isn't that the world hasn't seen pictures of US cruelty to prisoners, or has not heard of the `torture memo. What happened last time when pictures came out is that individuals were punished. One is led to believ that if those pictures hadn't come out that the perpetrators would not have been punished.

Rachel Maddow Grills Colin Powell on Torture Authorization In Bush Admin.




For Balance: Here is a response from a man objecting to a signing a petition calling on Congress to press for an investigation:


Alex Mitchell (Milwaukee, WI) wroteon April 19, 2009 at 10:55am
I won't do it. Common man. We can't go to their level. This action would gridlock Obama's Presidency. How bout we let the ACLU do this, and they are working on it. Why start a political war right now, we have to fix the economy. Besides, Putting a guy in a box with a catapiler, smacking a guy, and all the other crap isn't torture! What the Japanese did to their prisoners was torture. What the Germans did to their prisoners was torture. The Serbs, Latin American captures and their prisoners was torture. Starving them to death, whippings, murder, caneing, all those are torture. I'd agree that waterboarding is a form of torture but it is weak as opposed to torture that has happened. Ask Nick Burg if he knows what torture is. Having your head sawed off, is torture. While we gave them sleep deprivation....ohhhh big deal. Look Bush is already considered one of the worst Presidents of all time. History will judge him. Obama doesn't need this from the left. STAND DOWN! You will open the door for the GOP to say, "look they arent about results, they are about political payback!"! He met you halfway buddy. He released the documents. He is leaving it up to history. I am telling you dude, that shit is in the works that is not involving Obama and the attorney general. Plus man, you know the accused is going to have top notch defense teams and more than likely it will be dismissed! So all of this could be for nothing. I'll just say this, don't expect Bush or his minions to go traveling the world because they all have warrants for their arrest or shoes to throw at them.

The petition is at: http://www.democrats.com/no-amnesty-for-torturers?cid=ZGVtczI5MzkzNWRlbXM

AP: Releases latest numbers on Iraq War

Iraq: Key figures since the war began

This April was the deadliest month for US in Iraq in 7 months.

Iraq: Key figures since the war began
it

US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,278

U.S. TROOP LEVELS:

-October 2007: 170,000 at peak of troop buildup.

-April 30, 2009: 130,000.

CASUALTIES:

-Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of April 30, 2009: At least 4,281.

-Confirmed U.S. military wounded (hostile) as of April 30, 2009: 31,230.

-Confirmed U.S. military wounded (non-hostile, using medical air transport) as of April 4, 2009: 36,624.

-U.S. military deaths for April 2009: 18, up from last month's total of nine and making April the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq since September 2008, when 25 U.S. troops died. The AP began tracking this figure in March of 2003.

-Deaths of civilian employees of U.S. government contractors as of Dec, 31, 2008: 1,306.

-Iraqi deaths in April 2009 from war-related violence: at least 371, an 11 percent increase from last month's total of 335. 80 Iranian pilgrims were also killed this month in Iraq.

-Assassinated Iraqi academics as of April 22, 2009: 418

-Journalists killed on assignment as of April 30, 2009: 138.


OIL PRODUCTION:

-Prewar: 2.58 million barrels per day.

-April 29, 2009: 2.37 million barrels per day.

ELECTRICITY:

-Prewar nationwide: 3,958 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): 4-8.

-April 21, 2009 nationwide: 4,990 megawatts. Hours per day: not available

-Prewar Baghdad: 2,500 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): 16-24.

Note: Current nationwide figure for average hours of electricity per day and Baghdad figures for the average amount of electricity generated (megawatts) are no longer reported by the U.S. State Department's Iraq Weekly Status Report.

TELEPHONES:

-Prewar land lines: 833,000.

-April 30, 2009: 1,300,000.

-Prewar cell phones: 80,000.

-April 30, 2009: An estimated 17.7 million.

WATER:

-Prewar: 12.9 million people had potable water.

-April 30, 2009: 21.2 million people have potable water.

SEWERAGE:

-Prewar: 6.2 million people served.

-April 30, 2009: 11.3 million people served.

INTERNAL REFUGEES:

-April 29, 2009: At least 2.8 million people are currently displaced inside Iraq.

EMIGRANTS:

-Prewar: 500,000 Iraqis living abroad.

-April 29, 2009: Close to 2 million, mainly in Syria and Jordan.

All figures are the most recent available.

---

Sources: The Associated Press, State Department, Defense Department, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, The Brookings Institution, Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, International Organization for Migration, Committee to Protect Journalists, National Priorities Project, The Brussels Tribunal, and the U.S. Department of Labor.

---

AP researchers Julie Reed and Rhonda Shafner in New York compiled this report.

UPDATED :: Pfc. Steven Green sentenced to life for Iraq War Atrocities

PADUCAH, Ky. — An ex-soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family was spared the death penalty Thursday after jurors couldn't agree on a punishment for the brutal crime.

Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, will instead serve a life sentence in a case that has drawn attention to the emotional and psychological strains on soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In March 2006, after an afternoon of card playing, sex talk and drinking Iraqi whiskey, Pfc. Green and three other soldiers went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape the girl before shooting her in the face.

Federal jurors who convicted Green of rape and murder on May 7 told the judge they couldn't agree on the appropriate sentence after deliberating for more than 10 hours over two days. Their choices were a death sentence or life in prison without parole. Since they could not unanimously agree on either sentence, life in prison had to be the verdict.

"It's the better of two bad choices," said his father, John Green, who sighed as the verdict was read.

Previous Post:

Steven Green pleads not guilty to Iraq War Atrocities

Accursed of rape and slaughter while a US soldier Steven Dale Green goes on trial in civilian court.



PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) Steven Dale Green, 23, of Midland, Texas, has pleaded not guilty to more than a dozen charges, including sexual assault and four counts of murder, stemming from the March 2006 attack in Iraq's so-called "Triangle of Death." He is being tried in federal court in connection with the girl's rape and killing and the deaths of her mother, father and a 6-year-old sister.

Steven D. Green could get the death penalty if convicted in the horrific crime that has strained the U.S. military's already troubled relations with the Iraqi people and sent shockwaves around the world.

Former Pfc. Steven Dale Green, 23, is the first ex-soldier to be charged as a civilian under a 2000 law that allows U.S. authorities to prosecute former

Background - Mahmudiya, March 12th, 2006


“Fifteen-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza was afraid, her mother confided in a neighbor. As pretty as she was young, the girl had attracted the unwelcome attention of U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint that the girl had to pass through almost daily in their village in the south-central city of Mahmudiyah, her mother told the neighbor.

“Abeer told her mother again and again in her last days that the soldiers had made advances toward her, a neighbor, Omar Janabi, said this weekend, recounting a conversation he said he had with the girl’s mother, Fakhriyah, on March 10. Fakhriyah feared that the Americans might come for her daughter at night, at their home. She asked her neighbor if Abeer might sleep at his house, with the women there. Janabi said he agreed. Then, ‘I tried to reassure her, remove some of her fear,’ Janabi said. ‘I told her, the Americans would not do such a thing.’

“Abeer did not live to take up the offer of shelter. Instead, attackers came to the girl’s house the next day, apparently separating Abeer from her mother, father and young sister. Janabi and others knowledgeable about the incident said they believed that the attackers raped Abeer in another room. Medical officials who handled the bodies also said the girl had been raped, but they did not elaborate. Before leaving, the attackers fatally shot the four family members - two of Abeer’s brothers had been away at school - and attempted to set Abeer’s body on fire, according to Janabi, another neighbor who spoke on condition of anonymity, the mayor of Mahmudiyah and a hospital administrator with knowledge of the case. […]”Excerpt from an article by the Washington Post from July 3rd, 2006.

------

Col. Todd Ebel told jurors on Monday, the opening day of trial, that he spoke with Steven Dale Green in December 2005 about losing soldiers to enemy attacks. But, Ebel said, beyond frustration, the private first class with the 101st Airborne Division didn't appear unfit to remain in the Army.

"Yes, he was frustrated with Iraqis," Ebel said. "Mostly, he was frustrated with the idea that we can't recognize them. They don't wear uniforms."

Ebel, who oversaw Green's unit, resumed his testimony Tuesday, telling jurors that the soldiers were in a violent area of Iraq. He said his brigade, which included Green, lost 46 soldiers in combat-related deaths during its yearlong deployment.

Prosecutors said in opening statements that Green and three other soldiers attacked the family at their home near Mahmoudiyah, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Skaret said Green fatally shot the rest of the family before becoming the third soldier to rape the teenager.

After he shot the girl in the face several times, Green used kerosene to set fire to her body, Skaret said.

"They left behind the carnage of all carnage," Skaret said.

Skaret told jurors that a group of soldiers, including Green, was playing cards and drinking whiskey at a checkpoint. Talk turned to having sex with Iraqi women, when one soldier mentioned the al-Janabi family, who lived nearby, Skaret said.

Skaret said Green used a shotgun to kill the three family members in a room and told the soldiers that the family was dead.

He then raped the girl and shot her, according to Skaret. Later, Green would talk about the killings to superior officers, other soldiers and even civilian friends, Skaret said.

In Green's defense, attorney Patrick Bouldin painted a picture of young soldiers in harsh wartime conditions, lacking leadership and receiving little help from the Army to deal with the loss of their friends.

Bouldin said before the attack, Green had lost five colleagues in combat, including four in a short span.

He said soldiers had lost so many friends and leaders they could no longer perform their duties.

"Context," Bouldin said. "You've got to understand the context."

Civilian Court

Green is being tried in a civilian court because he was discharged from the Army before being charged. His trial is being held in Paducah because of the western Kentucky city's proximity to Fort Campbell on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, where Green was based with the 101st Airborne.

=============================================

Other soldiers involved in the attack were prosecuted in military court, including two who pleaded guilty and acknowledged taking part in the rape. Prosecutors said a third who was convicted had gone to the family's home knowing what was planned. A fourth who stayed behind at the checkpoint pleaded guilty to being an accessory, they said.

=================================

Green's discharge papers show he received an honorable discharge in May 2006 after being diagnosed with a personality disorder.

Bouldin said Green was prescribed a mood-stabilizing drug, but the Army never followed up on his mental state before the attack.

"He told the psychologist, 'I'm so upset. I'm having trouble here. I want to kill all these guys (Iraqis) because I can't tell them apart,'" Bouldin said.

Steven Green - The Accused



“’I came over here because I wanted to kill people.’ - Over a mess-tent dinner of turkey cutlets, the bony-faced 21-year-old private from West Texas looked right at me as he talked about killing Iraqis with casual indifference. […] ‘The truth is, it wasn’t all I thought it was cracked up to be. I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience. And then I did it, and I was like, ‘All right, whatever.’ He shrugged. ‘I shot a guy who wouldn’t stop when we were out at a traffic checkpoint and it was like nothing,’ he went on. ‘Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant. I mean, you kill somebody and it's like ‘All right, let’s go get some pizza.’

“[... T]he private was Steven D. Green. The next time I saw him, in a front-page newspaper photograph five months later, he was standing outside a federal courthouse in North Carolina, where he had pled not guilty to charges of premeditated rape and murder. The brutal killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family in Mahmudiyah that he was accused of had taken place just three weeks after we talked. […]”Excerpt from an Washington Post article, July 30th, 2006.

Troops ‘Took Turns’ to Rape Iraqi

BBC News August 7, 2006

A US military hearing has examined testimony of how three soldiers took it in turns to try to rape an Iraqi girl aged 14 in Mahmudiya in March.

The girl and three family members were allegedly killed by four US soldiers.

Graphic details of the attack at the family's home came in a sworn statement by one of the accused, James P Barker.

Along with Sergeant Paul Cortez, Private Jesse Spielman, and Private Bryan Howard, Specialist Barker is charged with rape and murder.

The four are alleged to have helped a former private - Steven Green, who has since left the army - plan, carry out and cover up the attack. Mr Green has pleaded not guilty in a federal court and will be tried separately in the US.

A fifth soldier is alleged to have lied to cover up for his colleagues.

‘Whisky and golf’

Investigator Benjamin Bierce interviewed Mr Barker, 23, on 30 June and took down his statement, he told the hearing at a US military base in Baghdad.

On the day of the attack the soldiers had been drinking Iraqi whisky mixed with an energy drink and practicing golf strokes at a checkpoint south of Baghdad, Mr Barker's statement said.

One of the soldiers, Steven Green, said he "wanted to go to a house and kill some Iraqis," it alleged.

The four eventually went to a house about 200 metres (yards) away and put the parents and their five-year old daughter in the bedroom, but kept the older girl in the living room.

According to Mr Barker's statement, he and Mr Cortez took it in turns to rape or attempt to rape her.



Mr Barker heard shots from the bedroom, and Steven Green emerged with an AK-47 in his hand saying "They're all dead. I just killed them."

According to the testimony, Mr Green then also raped the girl and shot her dead.

Her body was doused in kerosene and set alight.

The first day of the hearing on Sunday saw an Iraqi army medic describe how he found the bodies of the four Iraqis.

He told prosecutors he was ill for weeks after witnessing the crime scene.

BBC Baghdad correspondent Jane Peel says the Mahmudiya attack is one of the worst in a series of alleged atrocities committed by US troops in Iraq.

When news of it emerged last month it caused outrage and led to calls for changes in the agreement that exempts American soldiers from prosecution in the Iraqi courts.

----

The few details known of the 21-year-old's life are as unremarkable as the tired expression he wore in news photos showing him being led into a court this week wearing baggy shorts, flip-flops and a Johnny Cash T-shirt.

Steven Dale Green grew up in the west Texas oil town of Midland, which claims both President Bush and his wife, Laura, as natives. His parents divorced when he was 4, and his mother remarried four years later.

Midland school officials said Green attended classes from 1990 to 2002 but only made it through 10th grade, suggesting he might have been held back at least once. They would not specify.



His upbringing was not without complications. Green's mother pleaded no contest in 2000 to a drunken driving charge and was jailed for six months.

After dropping out, Green moved about 80 miles north to Denver City, the former oil town along the New Mexico state line that is listed as his official hometown. He got his high school equivalency degree in 2003.

According to a report in the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Green was arrested for misdemeanor possession of alcohol on Jan. 31, 2005. Days later, just a few months shy of his 20th birthday, he enlisted in the Army.

He was deployed to Iraq from September 2005 to April 2006 as an infantry soldier in B Company, 1st Battalion of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, which is part of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.

It was there that he was sent to patrol the so-called "Triangle of Death," an area southwest of Baghdad known for its frequent roadside bombings. Military officials say more than 40 percent of the nearly 1,000 soldiers in the region have been treated for mental or emotional anxiety. Green was apparently one of them.

He was given a discharge on May 16 for what military officials in Iraq told The Associated Press was an "anti-social personality disorder." The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

A psychiatric condition, anti-social personality disorder is defined as chronic behavior that manipulates, exploits, or violates the rights of others. Someone with the disorder may break the law repeatedly, lie, get in fights and show a lack of remorse.

Military officials said the accusations of Green's involvment in the rape and killings came to light more than a month later during a session to counsel soldiers about the June 16 abductions of two fellow soldiers who were killed, and reportedly mutilated, by insurgents.

See also: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/14/us/14private.html
and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/steven-green-spared-death_n_206538.html

Prison for soldier who fled to Canada to avoid Iraq

Canada not safe haven for soldiers fleeing War
1 year in prison for soldier who deserted Army

U.S. Iraq war resister Cliff Cornell was sentenced today to 12 months and received a bad conduct discharge for his refusal to participate in the war in Iraq. Cliff came to Canada in January 2005 because he knew he could not take part in the illegal and immoral war in Iraq.

On June 3, 2008, the House of Commons in Canada passed a motion calling for the government to:

“...immediately implement a program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members (partners and dependents), who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations and do not have a criminal record, to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada.”

That motion further recommended that the government should:

“...immediately cease any removal or deportation actions that may have already commenced against such individuals.”



Cliff was forced out of Canada in January 2009 by the government of Stephen Harper. In spite of a motion passed by the House of Commons calling on the government to allow war resisters to stay in Canada, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney refused to intervene in Cliff's case and forced him to return to the U.S. where he faced certain court martial and puninishment for his refusal to deploy to Iraq.

Spc. Cliff Cornell spent four years in Canada before the Canadian government denied him asylum as a war objector. Cornell came back to the U.S. and turned himself in to authorities in February to avoid being deported.

The 28-year-old soldier from Mountain Home, Ark., sobbed in a Fort Stewart courtroom Tuesday as he told the judge he was sorry. He said he fled to Canada in January 2005, a month before his 3rd Infantry Division unit was scheduled to deploy to Iraq, because he feared for his own life and couldn't stomach the thought of killing.

"It was wrong for me to leave my unit and go to Canada," Cornell said. "I was very anxious about whether I might be asked to do things that might violate my conscience. I felt trapped. I didn't know what to do."

The judge, Col. Tara Osborn, also ordered Cornell's rank be reduced to private and for him to receive a bad conduct discharge.

Cornell is the third U.S. service member to be tried by the military for fleeing to Canada.

Though Cornell's prison time falls between the sentences of the other two deserters, his attorney, James Branum, said it was too harsh.

He said Cornell suffered an abusive childhood that left him socially impaired and therefore unable to resolve his qualms about serving in a war zone with his commanders.

"While he is certainly sane to stand trial, I would say he has some degree of impairment," Branum said. "He doesn't have the social or emotional skills of other people."

Branum said Cornell would be housed temporarily one of the nearby county jails until he's assigned to a military prison. He said he planned to appeal the sentence to Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, Fort Stewart's commander, who could reduce the sentence.

Prosecutors had asked for a 15-month prison sentence and a dishonorable discharge for Cornell, arguing his decision to flee put other members of Cornell's unit in jeopardy.

"They had to fill his space with a soldier who was not trained up and had to learn on the job," said Capt. Edward Piasta, an Army prosecutor. "And he didn't come back until Canada refused his refugee status and he was threatened with immediate deportation."

Cornell had trained as a driver and gunner in the 1st Battalion, 39th Artillery Regiment, which deployed to Iraq in 2005 to provide security details for senior officers.

In Canada, Cornell worked at a grocery store on Gabriola Island in British Columbia. Branum said Cornell hopes to return there after he's released from prison.

A dishonorable discharge would have made that more difficult for Cornell, Branum said. The bad conduct discharge would be viewed more like a misdemeanor conviction, rather than a felony, on his record, the attorney said.

Military law defines desertion as leaving the military with no intent to return or to avoid hazardous duty. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

However, Fort Stewart commanders agreed to push for a lighter sentence in exchange for Cornell's guilty plea.


The War Resisters Support Campaign, based in Toronto, has worked with about 50 U.S. service members seeking refugee status or political asylum in Canada. The group estimates more than 200 have fled to Canada, most of them hiding out illegally.

During the Vietnam War, thousands of Americans took refuge in Canada, most of them to avoid the military draft. Many were given permanent residence status that led to Canadian citizenship, but the majority went home after President Jimmy Carter granted amnesty in the late 1970s.

A song about Waterboarding by Jonathan Mann (video)

Jonathan Mann is writing a song a day often based on current events. In this case he uses the actual words from the waterboarding memo. It's actually has a beat and you could dance to it.




Bush Torture Memos Recut In Song (VIDEO)


Jonathan Mann, the guy who brought you the "Paul Krugman" song is back putting the Bush torture memos to music. This is the 109th video in Mann's "one song a day" project. He uses hot-button topics in the news to inspire him on his surely wearying journey, and this time he took disturbing language detailing the waterboarding technique used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times to create a song.

Last week the Department of Justice released the memos from the Office of Legal Counsel that discussed the CIA's use of torture under Bush. This decision by President Obama has been lauded by some, but several members of the last administration and their supporters have been less enthusiastic about the choice.

Click here to read the memos. Scroll down for the transcript of Mann's song.


WATCH:

The detainee is lying on a gurney
That's inclined at an angle: 10 to 15 degrees
A cloth is placed over the detainee's face
Cold water is poured on the cloth

The wet cloth creates
A barrier through which
It is difficult or in some cases not possible
For the detainee to breathe

If the detainee
Makes an effort to defeat the technique
By twisting his head to the side and breathing
Out the corner of his mouth
The interrogator may cup his hands around
The detainees nose and mouth
In which case it would not be possible for him to breathe!

As we explained
In the Section 2340A Memorandum,
"Pain and suffering"
(As used in Section 2340)
Is best understood as a single concept,
Not distinct concepts
Of "pain" as distinguished from "suffering"...

The waterboard,
Which inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever,
Does not, in our view inflict "severe pain or suffering".
Even if one were to parse the statute more finely
To treat "suffering" as a distinct concept,
The waterboard could not be said to inflict severe suffering.

The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode,
Lacking the connotation of a protracted
Period of time generally given to suffering.

United States executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding

by Paul Begala
CNN political commentator
Posted April 24, 2009 | 06:21 PM (EST)

In a CNN debate with Ari Fleischer, I said the United States executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding. My point was that it is disingenuous for Bush Republicans to argue that waterboarding is not torture and thus illegal. It's kind of awkward to argue that waterboarding is not a crime when you hanged someone for doing it to our troops. My precise words were: "Our country executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime we are now committing ourselves."

Mr. Fleischer, ordinarily the most voluble of men, was tongue-tied. The silence, rare in cable debates, spoke volumes for the vacuity of his position.

Now Mark Hemingway of the National Review Online has asserted that I was wrong. I bookmark NRO and read it frequently. It's smart and breezy -- but on this one it got its facts wrong.

Mr. Hemingway assumed I was citing the case of Yukio Asano, who was convicted of waterboarding and other offenses and sentenced to 15 years hard labor -- not death by hanging. Mr. Hemingway made the assumption that I was referring to the Asano case because in 2006 Sen. Edward Kennedy had referred to it. (Sen. Kennedy accurately described the sentence as hard labor and not execution, by the way.)

But I was not referring to Asano, nor was my source Sen. Kennedy. Instead I was referencing the statement of a different member of the Senate: John McCain. On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."

Sen. McCain was right and the National Review Online is wrong. Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' truth-testing project (which this week was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), scrutinized Sen. McCain's statement and found it to be true. Here's the money quote from Politifact:

"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."

The folks at Politifact interviewed R. John Pritchard, the author of The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Complete Transcripts of the Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. They also interviewed Yuma Totani, history professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and consulted the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, which published a law review article entitled, "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts." Bottom line: Sen. McCain was right in 2007 and National Review Online is wrong today. America did execute Japanese war criminals for waterboarding.

UN Accuses Obama of Breaking International Law

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak has accused US President Barack Obama of violating international law for not bringing CIA torture agents to court.



Obama open to torture memos probe, prosecution

WASHINGTON (AP) — Widening an explosive debate on torture, President Barack Obama on Tuesday opened the possibility of prosecution for Bush-era lawyers who authorized brutal interrogation of terror suspects and suggested Congress might order a full investigation.

Less than a week after declaring it was time for the nation to move on rather than "laying blame for the past," Obama found himself describing what might be done next to investigate what he called the loss of "our moral bearings."

His comments all but ensured that the vexing issue of detainee interrogation during the Bush administration will live on well into the new president's term. Obama, who severely criticized the harsh techniques during the campaign, is feeling pressure from his party's liberal wing to come down hard on the subject. At the same time, Republicans including former Vice President Dick Cheney are insisting the methods helped protect the nation and are assailing Obama for revealing Justice Department memos detailing them.

Answering a reporter's question Tuesday, Obama said it would be up to his attorney general to determine whether "those who formulated those legal decisions" behind the interrogation methods should be prosecuted. The methods, described in Bush-era memos Obama released last Thursday, included such grim and demeaning tactics as slamming detainees against walls and subjecting them to simulated drowning.

He said anew that CIA operatives who did the interrogating should not be charged with crimes because they thought they were following the law.


The three men facing the most scrutiny are former Justice Department officials Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury. Bybee is currently a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Yoo is a professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

It might be argued that the officials were simply doing their jobs, providing legal advice for the Bush administration. However, John Strait, a law professor at Seattle University said, "I think there are a slew of potential charges."

Those could include conspiracy to commit felonies, including torture, he suggested.

Bybee also could face impeachment in Congress if lawmakers were so inclined.

A federal investigation into the memos is being conducted by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which usually limits itself to examining the ethical behavior of employees but whose work in rare cases leads to criminal investigations.

The chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary committees said Tuesday they want to move ahead with previously proposed, independent commissions to examine George W. Bush's national security policies.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who has referred to his proposed panel as a "Truth Commission," said, "I agree with President Obama: An examination into these Bush-Cheney era national security policies must be nonpartisan. ... Unfortunately, Republicans have shown no interest in a nonpartisan review."

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has proposed separate hearings by his committee in addition to an independent commission.

Over the past weekend, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said in a television interview the administration did not support prosecutions for "those who devised policy." White House aides say he was referring to CIA superiors who ordered the interrogations, not the Justice Department officials who wrote the legal memos allowing them.

Yet it was unclear exactly whom Obama meant in opening the door to potential prosecutions of those who "formulated the legal decisions." Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked if the president meant the lawyers who declared the interrogation methods legal, or the policymakers who ordered, them or both.

"I don't know the answer to that," Gibbs said during a briefing in which he was peppered with questions about the president's words. Later, he added: "The parsing of some of this is better done through a filter of the rule of law and done at the Justice Department and not done here at the White House."

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, Obama's top intelligence advisers, told personnel in an April 16 letter that the interrogations had resulted in "high-value information" as well as a "deeper understanding" of al-Qaida.

However, with the public release of his letter, Blair issued a statement Tuesday night saying that while the information gained was valuable in some instances, there was no way to know if that information could have been obtained in other ways.

"The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us, and they are not essential to our national security," Blair said.

A number of Republicans, including former Vice President Cheney and former top intelligence officials, say Obama has undermined national security with his release of the memos on the matter. On the other side, some Democratic lawmakers, human rights groups and liberal advocates want to see punishment for those involved in sanctioning brutal interrogations — the kind they say amount to torture and have damaged U.S. standing around the world.

4,274 members of the U.S. Military had died in the Iraq war since it began

Boston Globe reports

As of Sunday, April 19, 2009, at least 4,274 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,433 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The AP count is three fewer than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 179 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, one death each.



http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2009/04/19/us_military_deaths_in_iraq_war_at_4274/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+World+news

Asking a Federal Court to declare the Iraq war unconstitutional

NEWARK, N.J. — Attorneys representing a veteran and two mothers of soldiers are asking a federal court to declare the Iraq war unconstitutional.

They are doing so not for compensation but "in order to focus their case upon seeking the more important relief for the entire nation - an adjudication that the Constitution has been violated and that the People and, indeed, our Nation as a whole,have all been damaged as a result. It will be sufficient remedy for these plaintiffs if this Court rules directly upon the plain language and the original intention of the Constitution and thereby fulfills the Court’s primary responsibility, first articulated by Chief Justice Marshall, “to say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, supra, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) at 177."

They said in court Tuesday that former President George W. Bush overstepped his constitutional authority to invade Iraq in 2003 without Congress officially declaring war.

It is a constitutional duty not to launch a war against a foreign sovereign state in the absence of a formal Congressional Declaration of War, a breach of that duty insofar as Iraq was invaded without such a Declaration of War, and injuries proximately caused by that breach that are of
types that are cognizable and redressable by the court.

They say that wasn't the intent of the country's "founding fathers" who wrote the constitution more than 200 years ago.

It is a constitutional duty not to launch a war against a foreign sovereign state in the absence of a formal Congressional Declaration of War, a breach of that duty insofar as Iraq was invaded without such a Declaration of War, and injuries proximately caused by that breach that are of
types that are cognizable and redressable by the court.



Thomas Jefferson, while serving as Ambassador to France, wrote James Madison praising the Convention for creating “an effectual check to the Dog of War by transferring the power of letting it loose from Executive to Legislative body, from those who are to spend to those who are to pay.”



Alexander Hamilton had warned that: “Men love power”. Experience with the failed Articles of Confederation taught the Framers that “men loved power,” as Alexander Hamilton told the Convention on June 18. Thus, they adopted Montesquieu’s analysis that power must be checked by other power. The framers knew personal ambition animated people to become political figures and to exercise power of their positions. Fear that presidential ambition would shape national policy permeated the Constitutional Convention.35 Alexander Hamilton was especially concerned about presidential power. An intensely ambitious man himself, he understood how ambitious leaders created wars.


The government argued that courts do not have authority to rule on a political matter.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON - April 21 - WHAT: The constitutionality of the occupation of Iraq will be the subject of a Federal hearing.

WHEN: 11:00 AM Eastern, Tuesday, April 21, 2009.

WHERE: Newark, New Jersey Federal District Court, 50 Walnut Street, Newark, NJ, Room #4105

WHO: Rutgers Professor Frank Askin, Director of the law school's Constitutional Litigation Clinic at Rutgers School of Law-Newark, and Bennet Zurofsky, Newark attorney who is general Counsel of New Jersey Peace Action, will appear on behalf of the plaintiffs to challenge the legality of the invasion of Iraq without a Congressional Declaration of War. The plaintiffs are New Jersey Peace Action, an affiliate of the nation's largest non-profit peace organization, Peace Action; an Iraq war veteran; and two New Jersey mothers, members of Military Families Speak Out, whose sons were deployed in Iraq.

BACKGROUND: "The current war in Iraq began in a highly questionable way when the Congress ceded its authority to declare war to the president. The U.S. is now dropping bombs from unmanned drones onto Pakistan, killing civilians, without war ever against Pakistan ever being declared by Congress. It is time for the courts to issue a ruling on the constitutionality of this practice so we can avoid making such foreign policy mistakes in the future and so the people can hold their congressional representatives accountable for past mistakes," said Madelyn Hoffman, Executive Director of NJ Peace Action. She also notes that Obama's Department of Justice have simply adopted the Bush Department of Justice motion instead of withdrawing or at least modifying its positions. The April 21 hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Jose L. Linares is in response to the government's motion to dismiss the Complaint.

The brief in opposition to the motion to dismiss the lawsuit can be found at http://law.newark.rutgers.edu/files/u/PltfsBriefInOppToDefsMotionToDismiss.pdf

The complaint was drafted by Rutgers' law students under Professor Askin's supervision, after a yearlong study of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the adoption of the Constitution's Article I, Section 8, lodging the power to declare war in the Congress, rather than the President.

The suit does not ask the Court to take any direct action against ongoing activities in Iraq. It claims that the President is not authorized under the Constitution to launch a preemptive war against a sovereign nation and seeks a Declaration that can be used as a guide to the legality of such actions in the future.


###
Founded in 1957, Peace Action, the United States' largest peace and disarmament organization with over 100,000 members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states, works to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs and encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights.

The CIA Leak case - Special Counsel Fitzgerald Press confrence 9/28/05

On This press conference we get the Special Councils opinion on why they are going after Scooter Libby.

Key notes to make are 1. Fitzgerald's opening comment about his role as being a DOC Special Council. Libby will later charge that Fitzgerald was not properly authorized for this role- which the court will side on Fitzgerald side. The question then is, does the DOC have any additional, unrevealed, findings- that might have been revealed to Fitzgerald concerning the un-culpability of members of the Executive office?

2. The question that begs to be answered: Why did Libby Lie?



Transcript of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's Press Conference

Courtesy of FDCH e-MEDIA
Friday, October 28, 2005; 3:57 PM

FITZGERALD: Good afternoon. I'm Pat Fitzgerald. I'm the United States attorney in Chicago, but I'm appearing before you today as the Department of Justice special counsel in the CIA leak investigation.

Joining me, to my left, is Jack Eckenrode, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Chicago, who has led the team of investigators and prosecutors from day one in this investigation.

A few hours ago, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia returned a five-count indictment against I. Lewis Libby, also known as Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.

The grand jury's indictment charges that Mr. Libby committed five crimes. The indictment charges one count of obstruction of justice of the federal grand jury, two counts of perjury and two counts of false statements.

Before I talk about those charges and what the indictment alleges, I'd like to put the investigation into a little context.

Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.

Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.

FITZGERALD: The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security.

Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.

But Mr. Novak was not the first reporter to be told that Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, Ambassador Wilson's wife Valerie, worked at the CIA. Several other reporters were told.

In fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.

Now, something needs to be borne in mind about a criminal investigation.

FITZGERALD: I recognize that there's been very little information about this criminal investigation, but for a very good reason.

It may be frustrating when investigations are conducted in secret. When investigations use grand juries, it's important that the information be closely held.

So let me tell you a little bit about how an investigation works.

Investigators do not set out to investigate the statute, they set out to gather the facts.

It's critical that when an investigation is conducted by prosecutors, agents and a grand jury they learn who, what, when, where and why. And then they decide, based upon accurate facts, whether a crime has been committed, who has committed the crime, whether you can prove the crime and whether the crime should be charged.

Agent Eckenrode doesn't send people out when $1 million is missing from a bank and tell them, "Just come back if you find wire fraud." If the agent finds embezzlement, they follow through on that.

FITZGERALD: 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 needed 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 important that we find out accurate facts.

There's another thing about a grand jury investigation. One of the obligations of the prosecutors and the grand juries is to keep the information obtained in the investigation secret, not to share it with the public.

And as frustrating as that may be for the public, that is important because, the way our system of justice works, if information is gathered about people and they're not charged with a crime, we don't hold up that information for the public to look at. We either charge them with a crime or we don't.

FITZGERALD: And that's why we've safeguarded information here to date.

But as important as it is for the grand jury to follow the rules and follow the safeguards to make sure information doesn't get out, it's equally important that the witnesses who come before a grand jury, especially the witnesses who come before a grand jury who may be under investigation, tell the complete truth.

It's especially important in the national security area. The laws involving 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 charged, whether anyone should be charged, what should be charged, need to 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 classified at the time.

FITZGERALD: 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.

That brings us to the fall of 2003. When it was clear that Valerie Wilson's cover had been blown, investigation began. And in October 2003, the FBI interviewed Mr. Libby. Mr. Libby is the vice president's chief of staff. He's also an assistant to the president and an assistant to the vice president for national security affairs.

FITZGERALD: The focus of the interview was what it that he had known about Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, what he knew about Ms. Wilson, what he said to people, why he said it, and how he learned it.

And to be frank, Mr. Libby gave the FBI a compelling story.

What he told the FBI is that essentially he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter Tim Russert, and during the conversation Mr. Russert told him that, "Hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Mr. Wilson's wife works at the CIA?"

And he told the FBI that he learned that information as if it were new, and it struck him. So he took this information from Mr. Russert and later on he passed it on to other reporters, including reporter Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, reporter Judith Miller of the New York Times.

FITZGERALD: And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on on July 12th, 2003, two days before Mr. Novak's column, that he passed it on understanding that this was information he had gotten from a reporter; that he didn't even know if it was true.

And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on to the reporters he made clear that he did know if this were true. This was something that all the reporters were saying and, in fact, he just didn't know and he wanted to be clear about it.

Later, Mr. Libby went before the grand jury on two occasions in March of 2004. He took and oath and he testified. And he essentially said the same thing.

He said that, in fact, he had learned from the vice president earlier in June 2003 information about Wilson's wife, but he had forgotten it, and that when he learned the information from Mr. Russert during this phone call he learned it as if it were new.

FITZGERALD: When he passed the information on to reporters Cooper and Miller late in the week, he passed it on thinking it was just information he received from reporters; that he told reporters that, in fact, he didn't even know if it were true. He was just passing gossip from one reporter to another at the long end of a chain of phone calls.

It would be a compelling story that will lead the FBI to go away if only it were true. It is not true, according to the indictment.

In fact, Mr. Libby discussed the information about Valerie Wilson at least half a dozen times before this conversation with Mr. Russert ever took place, not to mention that when he spoke to Mr. Russert, Mr. Russert and he never discussed Valerie Wilson or Wilson's wife.

He didn't learn it from Mr. Russert. But if he had, it would not have been new at the time.

FITZGERALD: Let me talk you through what the indictment alleges.

The indictment alleges that Mr. Libby learned the information about Valerie Wilson at least three times in June of 2003 from government officials.

Let me make clear there was nothing wrong with government officials discussing Valerie Wilson or Mr. Wilson or his wife and imparting the information to Mr. Libby.

But in early June, Mr. Libby learned about Valerie Wilson and the role she was believed to play in having sent Mr. Wilson on a trip overseas from a senior CIA officer on or around June 11th, from an undersecretary of state on or around June 11th, and from the vice president on or about June 12th.

FITZGERALD: It's also clear, as set forth in the indictment, that some time prior to July 8th he also learned it from somebody else working in the Vice President's Office.

So at least four people within the government told Mr. Libby about Valerie Wilson, often referred to as "Wilson's wife," working at the CIA and believed to be responsible for helping organize a trip that Mr. Wilson took overseas.

In addition to hearing it from government officials, it's also alleged in the indictment that at least three times Mr. Libby discussed this information with other government officials.

It's alleged in the indictment that on June 14th of 2003, a full month before Mr. Novak's column, Mr. Libby discussed it in a conversation with a CIA briefer in which he was complaining to the CIA briefer his belief that the CIA was leaking information about something or making critical comments, and he brought up Joe Wilson and Valerie Wilson.

FITZGERALD: It's also alleged in the indictment that Mr. Libby discussed it with the White House press secretary on July 7th, 2003, over lunch. What's important about that is that Mr. Libby, the indictment alleges, was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he claims to have learned on Thursday.

In addition to discussing it with the press secretary on July 7th, there was also a discussion on or about July 8th in which counsel for the vice president was asked a question by Mr. Libby as to what paperwork the Central Intelligence Agency would have if an employee had a spouse go on a trip.

FITZGERALD: So that at least seven discussions involving government officials prior to the day when Mr. Libby claims he learned this information as if it were new from Mr. Russert. And, in fact, when he spoke to Mr. Russert, they never discussed it.

But in addition to focusing on how it is that Mr. Libby learned this information and what he thought about it, it's important to focus on what it is that Mr. Libby said to the reporters.

In the account he gave to the FBI and to the grand jury was that he told reporters Cooper and Miller at the end of the week, on July 12th. And that what he told them was he gave them information that he got from other reporters; other reporters were saying this, and Mr. Libby did not know if it were true. And in fact, Mr. Libby testified that he told the reporters he did not even know if Mr. Wilson had a wife.

And, in fact, we now know that Mr. Libby discussed this information about Valerie Wilson at least four times prior to July 14th, 2003: on three occasions with Judith Miller of the New York Times and on one occasion with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.

FITZGERALD: The first occasion in which Mr. Libby discussed it with Judith Miller was back in June 23rd of 2003, just days after an article appeared online in the New Republic which quoted some critical commentary from Mr. Wilson.

After that discussion with Judith Miller on June 23rd, 2003, Mr. Libby also discussed Valerie Wilson on July 8th of 2003.

During that discussion, Mr. Libby talked about Mr. Wilson in a conversation that was on background as a senior administration official. And when Mr. Libby talked about Wilson, he changed the attribution to a former Hill staffer.

During that discussion, which was to be attributed to a former Hill staffer, Mr. Libby also discussed Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, working at the CIA -- and then, finally, again, on July 12th.

In short -- and in those conversations, Mr. Libby never said, "This is something that other reporters are saying;" Mr. Libby never said, "This is something that I don't know if it's true;" Mr. Libby never said, "I don't even know if he had a wife."

FITZGERALD: At the end of the day what appears is that Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true.

It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly.

Now, as I said before, this grand jury investigation has been conducted in secret. I believe it should have been conducted in secret, not only because it's required by those rules, but because the rules are wise. Those rules protect all of us.

FITZGERALD: We are now going from a grand jury investigation to an indictment, a public charge and a public trial. The rules will be different.

But I think what we see here today, when a vice president's chief of staff is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law.

But what we need to also show the world is that we can also apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow the same rules.

So I ask everyone involved in this process, anyone who participates in this trial, anyone who covers this trial, anyone sitting home watching these proceedings to follow this process with an American appreciation for our values and our dignity.

Let's let the process take place. Let's take a deep breath and let justice process the system.

I would be remiss at this point if I didn't thank the team of investigators and prosecutors who worked on it, led by Agent Eckenrode, or particularly the staff under John Dial (ph) from the Counterespionage Section in the Department of Justice; Mr. Zidenberg (ph) from Public Integrity, as well as the agents from the Washington field office and my close friends in the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office, all of whom contributed to a joint effort.

And with that, I'll take questions.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, this began as a leak investigation but no one is charged with any leaking. Is your investigation finished? Is this another leak investigation that doesn't lead to a charge of leaking?

FITZGERALD: Let me answer the two questions you asked in one.

OK, is the investigation finished? It's not over, but I'll tell you this: Very rarely do you bring a charge in a case that's going to be tried and would you ever end a grand jury investigation.

I can tell you, the substantial bulk of the work in this investigation is concluded.

FITZGERALD: This grand jury's term has expired by statute; it could not be extended. But it's in ordinary course to keep a grand jury open to consider other matters, and that's what we will be doing.

Let me then ask your next question: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn't result in a charge? I've been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something.

If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt 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 blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I'm just going to hit 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 near the batter's head. And there's lots of shades of gray in between.

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.

FITZGERALD: And what you'd want to do is have as much information as you could. You'd want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you'd want to know.

And then you'd make a decision as to whether this person should be banned from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should do nothing at all and just say, "Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. Get over it."

In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.

And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?

FITZGERALD: 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; we haven't charged it.

So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it 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 information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.

FITZGERALD: I will say this: Mr. Libby is presumed innocent. He would not be guilty unless and until a jury of 12 people came back and returned a verdict saying 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.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, do you have evidence that the vice president of the United States, one of Mr. Libby's original sources for this information, encouraged him to leak it or encouraged him to lie about leaking?

FITZGERALD: I'm not making allegations about anyone not charged in the indictment.

Now, let me back up, because I know what that sounds like to people if they're sitting at home.

We don't talk about people that are not charged with a crime in the indictment.

FITZGERALD: I would say that about anyone in this room who has nothing to do with the offenses.

We make no allegation that the vice president committed any criminal act. We make no allegation that any other people who provided or discussed with Mr. Libby committed any criminal act.

But as to any person you asked me a question about other than Mr. Libby, I'm not going to comment on anything.

Please don't take that as any indication that someone has done something wrong. That's a standard practice. If you followed me in Chicago, I say that a thousand times a year. And we just don't comment on people because we could start telling, "Well, this person did nothing wrong, this person did nothing wrong," and then if we stop commenting, then you'll start jumping to conclusions. So please take no more.

QUESTION: For all the sand thrown in your eyes, it sounds like you do know the identity of the leaker. There's a reference to a senior official at the White House, Official A, who had a discussion with Robert Novak about Joe Wilson's wife.

QUESTION: Can you explain why that official was not charged?

FITZGERALD: I'll explain this: I know that people want to know whatever it is that we know, and they're probably sitting at home with the TV thinking, "I'm want to jump through the TV, grab him by his collar and tell him to tell us everything they figured out over the last two years."

We just can't do that. It's not because we enjoy holding back information from you; that's the law.

And one of the things we do with a grand jury is we gather information. And the explicit requirement is if we're not going to charge someone with a crime; if we decide that a person did not commit a crime, we cannot prove a crime, doesn't merit prosecution, we do not stand up and say, "We gathered all this information on the commitment that we're going to follow the rules of grand jury secrecy, which say we don't talk about people not charged with a crime, and then at the end say, well, it's a little inconvenient not to give answers out, so I'll give it out anyway."

FITZGERALD: I can't give you answers on what we know and don't know, other than what's charged in the indictment.

It's not because I enjoy being in that position. It's because the law is that way. I actually think the law should be that way.

We can't talk about information not contained in the four corners of the indictment.

QUESTION: Is Karl Rove off the hook? And are there any other individuals who might be charged? You say you're not quite finished.

FITZGERALD: What I can say is the same answer I gave before: If you ask me any name, I'm not going to comment on anyone named, because we either charged someone or we don't talk about them. And don't read that answer in the context of the name you gave me.

QUESTION: What can you say about what you're still working on then?

FITZGERALD: I can't. I don't mean that fliply, but the grand jury doesn't give an announcement about what they're doing, what they're looking at, unless they charge an indictment.

FITZGERALD: I can tell you that no one wants this thing to be over as quickly as I do, as quickly as Mr. Eckenrode does. I'd like to wake up in my bed in Chicago, he'd like to wake up in his bed in Philadelphia, and we recognize that we want to get this thing done.

I will not end the investigation until I can look anyone in the eye and tell them that we have carried out our responsibility sufficiently to be sure that we've done what we could to make intelligent decisions about when to end the investigation. We hope to do that as soon as possible. I just hope that people will take a deep breath and just allow us to continue to do what we have to do.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, you've said that there was damage done to all of us, damage to the entire nation. Can you be any more specific about what kind of damage you're talking about?

FITZGERALD: The short answer is no. But I can just say this: I'm not going to comment on things beyond what's said in the indictment.

FITZGERALD: I can say that for the people who work at the CIA and work at other places, they have to expect that when they do their jobs that classified information will be protected. And they have to expect that when they do their jobs, that information about whether or not they are affiliated with the CIA will be protected.

And they run a risk when they work for the CIA that something bad could happen to them, but they have to make sure that they don't run the risk that something bad is going to happen to them from something done by their own fellow government employees.

But getting to the specifics of the damage, I won't.

QUESTION: You mentioned the importance to you of grand jury secrecy and you have been leak-free.

But I want to know what your thoughts are about a series of leaks about your investigation. What was your interpretation of what some people have described as manipulative, selective leaking about your investigation by people close to your witnesses?

FITZGERALD: And all I can say is -- well, I'll just say this: I'm not going to comment on why certain things were leaked or any speculation I might have where was the leak from.

I think the average person does not understand that the rule of grand jury secrecy binds the prosecutors and the grand jury, it binds the agents who come across the grand jury information, it binds the grand jurors. Any one of us could go to jail if we leak that information.

It does not bind witnesses. Witnesses can decide to tell their testimony or not. So if this were a bank robbery and we put a witness in the grand jury about the bank robbery, I would go to jail, he would go to jail, and the grand jurors would go to jail if they walked out and told you about it. But the person who went into the grand jury could walk out and hold a press conference on the front steps.

So they're not breaking the law by discussing their grand jury information. I would prefer for the integrity of the investigation it not be discussed. But I just think people may not understand that certain people are not restricted in talking about grand jury information and certain are.

FITZGERALD: All I can do is make sure that myself and everyone on our team follows those rules.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, you said that it was OK for government officials to be discussing among themselves Mrs. Wilson's identity. Were you troubled, though, that at least a half dozen people outside the CIA seemed to be talking about this in the weeks before her name was disclosed?

FITZGERALD: My job is to investigate whether or not a crime is committed, can be proved and should be charged. I'm not going to comment on what to make beyond that. You know, it's not my jurisdiction, not my job, not my judgment.

QUESTION: I know you just talked about having sand in your eyes when you have the obstruction charge here. Can you give us any sense of how you think you might and how long it might take you now to determine if there was this underlying crime that occurred dealing with alleged unauthorized disclosure?

FITZGERALD: I can't and I wouldn't. And if I predicted two years ago when it started when it would be done, I would have been done a year ago.

FITZGERALD: So all I can tell you is as soon as we can get it done, we will.

QUESTION: You identified Mr. Fleischer as one of the people that Mr. Libby spoke with. Can you say who the counsel to the V.P. was, and also the undersecretary of state that he spoke with?

FITZGERALD: We've referred to people by their titles in the indictment just because that's a practice. We don't allege they did anything wrong. But we said the White House press secretary and we talked about counsel for the vice president. And I generally don't identify people beyond the indictment.

And I'll talk to Randy Samborn, who tells me what I'm allowed to do, at the break.

If we can provide you those names, we will. I'm not so sure we can, so I better not do it in front of a microphone.

QUESTION: In the end, was it worth keeping Judy Miller in jail for 85 days in this case? And can you say how important her testimony was in producing this indictment?

FITZGERALD: Let me just say this: No one wanted to have a dispute with the New York Times or anyone else. We can't talk generally about witnesses. There's much said in the public record.

FITZGERALD: I would have wished nothing better that, when the subpoenas were issued in August 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005. No one would have went to jail.

I didn't have a vested interest in litigating it. I was not looking for a First Amendment showdown. I also have to say my job was to find out what happened here, make reasoned judgments about what testimony was necessary, and then pursue it.

And we couldn't walk away from that. I could have not have told you a year ago that we think that there may be evidence that a crime is being committed here of obstruction, that there may be a crime behind it and we're just going to walk away from it.

Our job was to find the information responsibly.

We then, when we issued the subpoenas, we thought long and hard before we did that. And I can tell you, there's a lot of reporters whose reporting and contacts have touched upon this case that we never even talked to.

We didn't bluff people. And what we decided to do was to make sure before we subpoenaed any reporter that we really needed that testimony.

In addition to that, we scrubbed it thoroughly within ourselves. And we also, when we went to court, we could have taken the position that it's our decision whether to issued a subpoena, but we made sure that put a detailed, classified, sealed filing before the district court judge, the chief judge -- Hogan -- in the District of Columbia.

FITZGERALD: So we wanted to make sure that if he thought our efforts were off base, if what we were saying -- representing to him was the case was off, that he would have those facts when he made the decision.

Judge Hogan agreed and felt that we met whatever standard there might be for issuing a subpoena.

Then went up to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals with that same filing and they found the same results. And then it went to the Supreme Court.

So I think what we did in seeking that testimony was borne out by how the judges ruled.

At the end of the day, I don't know how you could ever resolve this case, to walk into you a year ago and say, "You know what? Forget the reporters; we have someone telling us that they told Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller that they didn't know if this information were true, they just heard it from other reporters, they didn't even know if he had a wife," and charge a person with perjury only to find out that's what happened, that would be reckless.

FITZGERALD: On the other hand, if we walked away and said, "Well, there are indications that, in fact, this is not how the conversation would happen, there are indications that there might be perjury or obstruction of justice here," but I were to fold up my tent and go home, that would not fulfill our mandate.

I tell you, I will say this: I do not think that a reporter should be subpoenaed anything close to routinely. It should be an extraordinary case.

But if you're dealing with a crime and what's different here is the transaction is between a person and a reporter, they're the eyewitness to the crime; if you walk away from that and don't talk to the eyewitness, you are doing a reckless job of either charging someone with a crime that may not turn out to have been committed -- and that frightens me, because there are things that you can learn from a reporter that would show you the crime wasn't committed.

What if, in fact, the allegations turned out to be true that he said, "Hey, I sourced it to other reporters, I don't know if it's true"?

FITZGERALD: So I think the only way you can do an investigation like this is to hear from all the witnesses.

I wish Ms. Miller spent not a second in jail. I wish we didn't have to spend time arguing very, very important issues and just got down to the brass tacks and made the call of where we were. But I think it had to be done.

QUESTION: You said earlier in your statement here that Mr. Libby was the first person to leak this information outside of the government. Now, first of all, that implies that there might have been other people inside the government who made such leaks.

Secondly, in paragraph 21, the one about "Official A," you imply that Novak might have heard this information about the woman, Mrs. Wilson, from another source. But you don't actually say that.

What can you tell us about the existence that you know of or don't know of or whatever of other leakers? Are there definitely other leakers? Is "Official A" a leaker or just a facilitator? Are you continuing to investigate other possible leakers?

FITZGERALD: I'm afraid I'm going to have to find a polite way of repeating my answer to Mr. Isikoff's question, which is to simply say I can't go beyond the four corners of the indictment. And I'll probably just say -- I'll repeat it so I don't misstep and give you anything more than I should.

QUESTION: Can you say whether or not you know whether Mr. Libby knew that Valerie Wilson's identity was covert and whether or not that was pivotal at all in your inability or your decision not to charge under the Intelligence Identity Protection Act?

FITZGERALD: Let me say two things. Number one, I am not speaking to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert. And anything I say is not intended to say anything beyond this: that she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward.

I will confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003. And all I'll say is that, look, we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent.

FITZGERALD: We have not charged that. And so I'm not making that assertion.

QUESTION: Would you oppose a congressional investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity? And if not, would you be willing to cooperate with such an investigation by handing over the work product of your investigation?

FITZGERALD: I guess that's two questions, and I know I can answer the second part, turning over the work product.

There are strict rules about grand jury secrecy if there were an investigation. And, frankly, I have to pull the book out and get the people smarter than me about grand jury rules in Chicago and sit down and tell me how it works.

My gut instinct is that we do not -- very, very rarely is grand jury information shared with the Congress.

And I also think I'd have to be careful about what my charter is here. I don't think it's my role to opine on whether the Justice Department would oppose or not oppose some other investigation. So I'm certainly not going to figure that out standing up here with a bunch of cameras pointing at me.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, your critics are charging that you are a partisan who was conducting what, in essence, was a...

(UNKNOWN): In which government (ph)?

(LAUGHTER)

FITZGERALD: You tell me.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) witch hunt. I mean, how do you respond to (inaudible) since you are in Washington...

FITZGERALD: I don't know -- you know, it's sort of, "When'd you stop beating your wife?"

One day I read that I was a Republican hack, another day I read that I was a Democratic hack, and the only thing I did between those two nights was sleep.

I'm not partisan. I'm not registered as part of a party. And I'll leave it there.

QUESTION: You noted earlier that the grand jury's term expired but you said something about holding it open. Or will you be working with a new grand jury?

FITZGERALD: The grand jury, by its terms, can serve -- was an 18-month grand jury. By its statute, to my understanding, can only be extended six months.

FITZGERALD: That six months expired.

It's routine in long investigations that you would have available a new grand jury if you needed to go back to them. And that's nothing unusual. I don't want to raise any expectations by that; that's an ordinary practice.

QUESTION: I think you, kind of, answered this but I assume that you have no plans and don't even think you'd be allowed to issue a final report of any sort.

FITZGERALD: You're correct. But let me explain that.

I think what people may be confused about is that reports used to be issued by independent counsels. And one of the complaints about the independent counsel statute was that an ordinary citizen, when investigated, they're charged with a crime or they're not; they're not charged with a crime, people don't talk about it.

Because of the interest in making sure that -- well, there's an interest in independent counsels to making sure those investigations were done thoroughly but then people ended up issuing reports for people not charged. And one of the criticisms leveled was that you should not issue reports about people who are not charged with a crime.

That statute lapsed. I'm not an independent counsel, and I do not have the authority to write a report, and, frankly, I don't think I should have that authority. I think we should conduct this like any other criminal investigation: charge someone or be quiet.

QUESTION: Isn't it kind of true that Mr. Comey's letter to you makes you in essence almost a de facto attorney general and you can abide or not abide by the CFRs or the regulations as to whether or not to write -- to write a report or not to write a report?

And the follow-up is, every special counsel prior to you has in fact written a report and turned it over to Congress, and they've gotten around the grand jury issue as well.

FITZGERALD: Let me say this. I think any prior special counsel may have been special counsel appointed to -- certain regulations for people outside the Department of Justice, which I do not fit into. I'm not an independent counsel. I may be unique in this sense. I can tell you, I'm very comfortable, very clear that I do not have that authority.

And the extent that I was given sort of the acting attorney general hat for this case, it's the acting attorney general, but the attorney general can't violate the law. And the law on grand jury secrecy is the law.

So I may have a lot of power for this one case in the acting attorney general hat, but I followed the Code of Federal Regulations in this case, and I certainly would follow the law.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, the Republicans previewed some talking points in anticipation of your indictment and they said that if you didn't indict on the underlying crimes and you indicted on things exactly like you did indict -- false statements, perjury, obstruction -- these were, quote/unquote, "technicalities," and that it really was over reaching and excessive.

And since, when and if they make those claims, now that you have indicted, you won't respond, I want to give you an opportunity now to respond to that allegation which they may make. It seems like that's the road they're going down.

FITZGERALD: And I don't know who provided those talking points. I assume...

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: I'm not asking -- OK.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: I'll be blunt.

That talking point won't fly. If you're doing a national security investigation, 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 proven -- 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 federal grand jury and lied under oath repeatedly and fabricated a story about how he learned this information, how he passed it on, and we prove obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements to the FBI, that 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 Justice charges those statutes all the time.

When I was in New York working as a prosecutor, we brought those cases because 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 obstruction of justice.

When I got to Chicago, I knew the people before me had prosecuted false statements, obstruction and perjury cases.

FITZGERALD: And we do it all the time. And if a truck driver pays a bribe or someone else does something where they go into a grand jury afterward 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 justice and perjury, is upside down.

If these facts are true, if we were to walk away from this and not charge 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 people 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 should take lightly.

QUESTION: This doesn't relate to the charges, so I'm hoping maybe you can shed some light on this.

In your investigation, have you determined how it was that Ambassador Wilson became the person to be sent to Niger to investigate this situation, how directly involved was his wife in this selection, how much pressure she may have put on officials?

QUESTION: And also I'm wondering about the cooperation you've received from the CIA.

FITZGERALD: I think all government agencies that we have turned to for cooperation have cooperated.

I might have a comment on the circumstances of the trip. I think the only thing that's relevant, frankly, is the belief in the mind of some people that she was involved in the trip or responsible for sending the trip. The dispute as to whether, in fact, she was is irrelevant to the charge before us.

What we're talking about is why -- the investigation was why someone compromised her identity. And the issue in this indictment is whether or not Mr. Libby knowingly and intentionally lied about the facts.

And whatever happened in that trip and what role, if any, the wife played is really irrelevant and not our focus.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: What is set forth is a belief on his part that she played a role in the trip, and that is set forth in the indictment.

Whether that belief is 100 percent, 100 percent false, or a mixture of both, is, sort of, irrelevant. But it does set forth in there that he had that belief that she was involved in the trip.

QUESTION: Are you at all concerned that Mr. Libby or his counsel sought to affect or discourage the testimony of Judy Miller by withholding a so-called personal waiver allowing her to testify notwithstanding a pledge of confidentiality or (inaudible) letter to her that she reportedly received when was in jail?

by withholding a so-called personal waiver allowing her to testify notwithstanding a pledge of confidentiality or (inaudible) letter to her that she reportedly received when was in jail?

FITZGERALD: And I'm not going to comment on anything that's not in the indictment, but I can tell you that we're not relying upon anything other than the indictment, which the obstruction of justice charges set forth, the statements by Mr. Libby to the FBI, and the testimony under oath to the grand jury as being the basis of the obstruction charge and nothing else.

QUESTION: The indictment describes Lewis Libby giving classified information concerning the identify of a CIA agent to some individuals who were not eligible to receive that information. Can you explain why that does not, in and of itself, constitute a crime?

FITZGERALD: That's a good question. And I think, knowing that he gave the information to someone who was outside the government, not entitled to receive it, and knowing that the information was classified, is not enough.

FITZGERALD: You need to know at the time that he transmitted the information, he appreciated that it was classified information, that he knew it or acted, in certain statutes, with recklessness.

And that is sort of what gets back to my point. In trying to figure that out, you need to know what the truth is.

So our allegation is in trying to drill down and find out exactly what we got here, if we received false information, that process is frustrated.

But at the end of the day, I think I want to say one more thing, which is: When you do a criminal case, if you find a violation, it doesn't really, in the end, matter what statute you use if you vindicate the interest.

If Mr. Libby is proven to have done what we've alleged -- convicting him of obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements -- very serious felonies -- will vindicate the interest of the public in making sure he's held accountable.

It's not as if you say, "Well, this person was convicted but under the wrong statute."

FITZGERALD: I think -- but I will say this: The whole point here is that we're going to make fine distinctions and make sure that before we charge someone with a knowing, intentional crime, we want to focus on why they did it, what they knew and what they appreciated; we need to know the truth about what they said and what they knew.

QUESTION: Does that mean you don't feel that you know the truth about whether he intentionally did this and he knew and appreciated it? Or does that mean you are exercising your prosecutorial discretion and being conservative?

FITZGERALD: Well, I don't want to -- look, a person is charged with a crime, they are presumed innocent, and I haven't charged him with any other crime.

And all I'm saying is the harm and the obstruction crime is it shields us from knowing the full truth.

I won't go beyond that.

QUESTION: First, will you actually prosecute this case individually yourself? And, second, have you learned anything about the way the inside of Washington works that surprises you through this investigation?

(LAUGHTER)

FITZGERALD: The latter, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

And the former, yes and no.

I will be involved in the prosecution.

But if you meant individually, if I will personally participate, yes.

FITZGERALD: If we met individually -- I haven't done this individually. I have a great team from D.C., main Justice, FBI in Chicago and it will be a team effort.

QUESTION: If during the course of the public trial information comes out with regard to other people who have leaked the source of the leak or other people who exposed Ms. Plame's identity, will this then reverberate back to you since you had been studying this, if new information is forthcoming during the course of the trial?

FITZGERALD: If I could answer your question with a bucket of cold water and say, "Let's not read too much into it," any new information that would ever come to light while the investigation is open would be handled by our investigative team concerning these facts.

So if there's there's anything that we haven't learned yet that we learn that should be addressed, we will address it. But I don't want to create any great expectations out there by giving, sort of, a general answer.

QUESTION: Just to be clear -- you did touch on this earlier -- with the grand jury time being done, you have no plans to file another grand jury related to this case at all, is that correct?

FITZGERALD: No. I think what I said is we could use any other grand jury or avail of another grand jury. We couldn't use the grand jurors whose term has expired today any further.

QUESTION: Can you clarify for us, this is not just the word of three reporters versus the vice president's chief of staff? And I ask that in the sense of how it may be difficult to proceed at trial with memories about something that happened long ago.

FITZGERALD: I can't comment on the trial evidence, and I won't tell you the witnesses. I can't. Sorry. The rules are you don't discuss criminal...

QUESTION: But I guess, to put it another way, why are you confident that this is the right thing to do, given that you're dealing with memories of people from something long ago?

FITZGERALD: What I can tell you is a prosecutor is allowed to lay out the charges, and a prosecutor is not allowed to vouch for the charges. And what I'll say is we're comfortable proceeding.

FITZGERALD: But you're right: Let's go to a trial. Let's reserve judgment. And our burden is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. By indicting him, we're committing to doing that. But he is presumed innocent, and let's let the process play out.

QUESTION: Can you explain in general terms why a subject or witness would be given multiple opportunities to come back before the grand jury? Are there times that you've given the opportunity to set the record straight?

FITZGERALD: I don't want to answer that in this context because I think people will read too much into it. So I'm not going to give a hypothetical answer to something where I think your based upon beliefs that are not hypothetical. Sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

I don't want to comment on generally what happens in grand jury investigations when you're here. After we've just returned an indictment from a particular grand jury investigation, there's no way that people would read my answer as other than commenting on this grand jury investigation. That's what I'm trying to say.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) last minute that you would allow a defense lawyer to come in and see you one more time and to make the case -- it was very curious at the last minute there was considerable FBI activity. Wilson's neighbors were interviewed, witnesses were contacted at the last minute.

QUESTION: What are we supposed to read into that, you were just buttoning up your case, you know, crossing the "t"s and dotting the "i"s? There was a considerable flurry of activity.

FITZGERALD: I think -- with all respect I think someone interviewed the person who shined my shoes the other day. We've been doing lots of interests, but if suddenly you put a camera on everyone working on the case and follow them when they have coffee and have lunch, anything we do in the ordinary course of business looks like a flurry of activity.

There was a flurry of attention. I won't go beyond that. Look, when we investigate things we're always going out and doing things. I'm not going to do a time line. We obviously wanted to get as much done before October 28th as we could. I would have loved to have finished the case completely by October 28th. This grand jury served long and hard and was very, very attentive. We're grateful for their service.

So I wanted to get as much accomplished before October 28th, but I wouldn't read anything beyond that. I'm not going to comment on any discussions we had with any counsel.

QUESTION: A lot of Americans, people who are opposed to the war, critics of the administration, have looked to your investigation with hope in some ways and might see this indictment as a vindication of their argument that the administration took the country to war on false premises.

Does this indictment do that?

FITZGERALD: This indictment is not about the war. This indictment's not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel.

This is simply an indictment that says, in a national security investigation about the compromise of a CIA officer's identity that may have taken place in the context of a very heated debate over the war, whether some person -- a person, Mr. Libby -- lied or not.

The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified. This is stripped of that debate, and this is focused on a narrow transaction.

And I think anyone's who's concerned about the war and has feelings for or against shouldn't look to this criminal process for any answers or resolution of that.

FITZGERALD: They will be frustrated and, frankly, it would just -- it wouldn't be good for the process and the fairness of a trial.

QUESTION: Have you sought any expansion of your authority since February of 2004?

FITZGERALD: No.

I do know there was a letter, and I haven't looked back. There was a clarified letter...

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: Yes. I think there were two letters in early 2004, and that's it. There's nothing changed since then.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) further issues that you want to look into or anything like that?

FITZGERALD: I'm not looking to expand my authority or mandate and haven't -- I think the second letter is a clarification of the first. Nothing has changed since February 2004 at all.

QUESTION: There's a saying in Washington that it's not the crime, it's the cover up.

Can you just tell us whether if Mr. Libby had testified truthfully, would he be being charged in this crime today?

Also, how do you decide if whether or not to charge Official A?

And also, it's a little hazy I think for many of us -- you say that Valerie Plame's identity was classified, but you're making no statement as to whether she was covert.

QUESTION: Was the leaking of her identity in and of itself a crime?

FITZGERALD: OK. I think you have three questions there. I'm trying to remember them in order. I'll go backwards.

And all I'll say is that if national defense information which is involved because her affiliation with the CIA, whether or not she was covert, was classified, if that was intentionally transmitted, that would violate the statute known as Section 793, which is the Espionage Act.

That is a difficult statute to interpret. It's a statute you ought to carefully apply.

I think there are people out there who would argue that you would never use that to prosecute the transmission of classified information, because they think that would convert that statute into what is in England the Official Secrets Act.

Let me back up. The average American may not appreciate that there's no law that's specifically just says, "If you give classified information to somebody else, it is a crime."

There may be an Official Secrets Act in England. There are some narrow statutes, and there is this one statute that has some flexibility in it.

So there are people who should argue that you should never use that statute because it would become like the Official Secrets Act.

FITZGERALD: I don't buy that theory, but I do know you should be very careful in applying that law because there are a lot of interests that could be implicated in making sure that you picked the right case to charge that statute.

That actually feeds into the other question. When you decide whether or not to charge someone with a crime, you want to know as many facts as possible. You want to know what their motive is, you want to know their state of knowledge, you want to know their intent, you want to know the facts.

Let's not presume that Mr. Libby is guilty. But let's assume, for the moment, that the allegations in the indictment are true. If that is true, you cannot figure out the right judgment to make, whether or not you should charge someone with a serious national security crime or walk away from it or recommend any other course of action, if you don't know the truth.

So I understand your question which is: Well, what if he had told the truth, what would you have done? If he had told the truth, we would have made the judgment based upon those facts. We would have assessed what the accurate information and made a decision.

We have not charged him with a crime. I'm not making an allegation that he violated that statute. What I'm simply saying is one of the harms in obstruction is that you don't have a clear view of what should be done. And that's why people ought to walk in, got into the grand jury, you're going to take an oath, tell us the who, what, when, where and why -- straight.

And our commitment on the other end is to use our judgment as to what we prosecute.

FITZGERALD: And if we don't prosecute, we keep quiet.

And we're simply saying in here, we didn't get the straight story, and we had to -- had to take action.

(CROSSTALK)

FITZGERALD: I would refer you to Isikoff who took great notes on his question about people not charged, which I cannot answer.

QUESTION: I have four questions.

FITZGERALD: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: Now, can you clarify the business question of keeping the grand jury open, which won't be the same grand jury -- I mean, you said you've done the essential bulk of your investigation is finished. Does that mean, in layman's terms, that you're just, kind of, in the mopping up phase, or are there things that you're actively pursuing?

And if so, can you explain to us lay people, bringing this to a grand jury that hasn't been involved for 24 years -- or 24 months -- what does that -- it feels like 24 years -- what does that entail? Do you have to, sort of, start from zero then bring them up to speed?

FITZGERALD: I think it varies on what you need to do, but I just -- you could probably talk to lots of people who don't know the case who could tell you what the general experience is. But if I try to opine on how that happens, there's no way you're not going to look at my answer as telling what's going on with this grand jury investigation, and I can't do that.

QUESTION: Do you feel that Judge Tadall's (ph), Tetogin (ph), other circuit judge's references to evidence of important potential breach of public trust that was carried in your ex parte submissions last year -- do you feel that the charges that you brought now are in line with the submissions you made then and what you said you had potential evidence of?

FITZGERALD: I think there's two questions in that, which I'll say: Is our charge -- does that line up with the secret classified filing? I can't talk about, so I won't comment because I don't want to give you an idea of what's in there.

However, you're asking do these charges vindicate a serious breach of the public trust? Absolutely.

If you're going to have a grand jury investigation into the improper disclosure of national security information and you're going to have someone in the position Mr. Libby is lying to the FBI on two occasions and going before a grand jury on two occasions and telling false testimony and obstructing the investigation, that, to me, defines a serious breach of the public trust.

QUESTION: You had said that the substantial bulk of the work in this investigation is completed. A lot of the players, some of the lawyers, some of the people involved (inaudible) through Watergate, through Iran-Contra, through Monica Lewinsky.

Does this case, based on what you know now, remotely compare to the specter of any of those cases?

FITZGERALD: I don't even know how to answer that. I'm just going to take a dive.

(LAUGHTER)

Sorry.

QUESTION: Did you seek any counts that the grand jury did not return?

FITZGERALD: I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.

(LAUGHTER)

Someone gave me a big shake of a head no, that I'm not allowed to say it, so I better not do it.

QUESTION: Can you characterize for us at all the dynamic of the grand jury? Were the members tired? Were they particularly active or involved?

QUESTION: Were they worried that this involves such high-ranking officials? Is there anything you can tell us about that?

FITZGERALD: I can only say this. I can't comment on their emotions or reactions, but I'll say this.

They were a very, very hard-working grand jury, very, very dedicated. And I don't think people fully appreciate how an investigative grand jury can be different.

You know, sometimes you can -- fairly routine to go into a grand jury and say, "Mr. Eckenrode is going to testify about a bank robbery. Here's a picture of the guy with the gun in his hand, with a note. Here's his fingerprint on the note. And here's his confession. You know, how do you vote?"

This grand jury is very, very different.

And what struck me, the one thing that's in the public record, which I hadn't realized would be there, but if you look at the indictment, the indictment alleges that Mr. Libby is charged with perjury in response to a grand juror's question. And it's phrased in there that the grand jury would like to know.

And I just think it shows that the grand jury people take their obligation seriously, they ask questions. And in this country, we have people who probably got notices who thought, "What a pain in the neck this is going to be." And it was a pain in the neck for them for two years, but they worked very, very hard, and if they asked a question and someone lied to them, that was vindicated.

QUESTION: Did Bob Novak cooperate with your investigation?

FITZGERALD: I can't comment.

QUESTION: Anything that would prevent anyone who was a witness from telling of their experience, in grand jury rules, I mean?

FITZGERALD: The grand jury rules limit the prosecutors. They don't limit the witnesses.

I know there's a debate out there from people as to who should say what about what, and I'm not wading into that, other than I have asked people, as a request, not to compromise the investigation by talking. And I'll just leave it at that.

QUESTION: Do you anticipate needing to empanel a new grand jury in order to wrap up?

FITZGERALD: I'm not going to comment.

QUESTION: Do you need a new grand jury? Would you need to empanel a new one if you needed to bring further charges?

FITZGERALD: I can't charge myself, so if we wanted to bring charges we'd need a grand jury to do that. But I don't want to comment beyond that.

Here's what I'm trying to convey: We're not quite done, but I don't want to add to a feverish pitch. It's very, very routine that you keep a grand jury available for what you might need.

And that's all I can say because of the rules of grand jury secrecy, and that's it.

QUESTION: Is there any possibility of anybody else being charged?

FITZGERALD: I'm not going to -- I can't go beyond that. Sorry.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) legal jeopardy right now?

(LAUGHTER)

FITZGERALD: That one -- that didn't get any better.

(LAUGHTER)

You're getting cold, not hot.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: You said you couldn't comment outside the four corners of the indictment, but you did make a general statement when you said that all government agencies cooperated.

There were some deferred e-mails that were produced by the White House very late in the investigation that, in fact, in part, triggered the expansion and, earlier, the appointment of the counsel, as I understand.

Do you stand by the statement that all government agencies cooperated? And was the delay of the e-mails inadvertent or purposeful, something you looked at...

FITZGERALD: You built some facts into the question that I'm not going to adopt, and so I'm not going to get into reports in the newspaper that certain things happened, and then if I'm not allowed to confirm it, deny them, build it into a question.

All I'll tell you is I'll stand behind that every agency cooperated with us.

QUESTION: Can you tell just us in laymen's terms -- because I don't know a lot about this -- what is the maximum sentence that Mr. Libby could receive -- that he's charged with all...

FITZGERALD: I believe the obstruction count has a maximum penalty of 10 years. The perjury counts and the false statements counts each have a maximum penalty of five years.

FITZGERALD: So there's four five-year counts and one 10-year count.

Now, for a layman, I would step back under these guidelines called the sentencing guidelines that take certain offenses and they are now nonbinding on the federal judges. But they would take into account all sorts of factors about the offense, the circumstances, the person who committed it, if the person were convicted.

And I don't want to jump past -- there's a trial there. But if they were convicted, the judge would look to the sentencing guidelines for guidance as to what actual sentence would be imposed.

So plenty of room, but there's no mandatory minimum. It's zero to 50 years, and that would be a judge's decision.

QUESTION: Does Mr. Libby have any say, now that he has resigned -- and, of course, you brought this indictment today -- to then come to you and say, "Well, this is" -- in other words, break open some of these facts?

And are there ramifications, both at the State Department and DOD, that you're then able to also investigate?

And what has gone on -- to what degree has that shaped the speech that Secretary Powell gave at the United Nations that many people have criticized him for?

FITZGERALD: And I don't think I can answer any of that. I'm not going to speculate what Mr. Libby would do, and I haven't been tracking the ramifications at the various agencies. We've had our hands full.

QUESTION: Just to go back to your comments about the damage that was done by disclosing Valerie Wilson's identify, there are some critics who have suggested that she was not your traditional covert agent in harm's way, that she was working, essentially, a desk job at Langley.

Just to answer those critics, can you elaborate on, aside from the fact that some of her neighbors may now know that she was -- and the country, for that matter -- that she was a CIA officer, what jeopardy, what harm was there by disclosing her identity?

FITZGERALD: I will say this. I won't touch the specific damage assessment of what specific damage was caused by her compromise -- I won't touch that with a 10-foot pole. I'll let the CIA speak to that, if they wish or not.

I will say this: To the CIA people who are going out at a time that we need more human intelligence, I think everyone agrees with that, at a time when we need our spy agencies to have people work there, I think just the notion that someone's identity could be compromised lightly, to me compromises the ability to recruit people and say, "Come work for us, come work for the government, come be trained, come invest your time, come work anonymously here or wherever else, go do jobs for the benefit of the country for which people will not thank you, because they will not know," they need to know that we will not cast their anonymity aside lightly.

FITZGERALD: And that's damage. But I'm not going to go beyond that.

QUESTION: What happens to Mr. Libby now? What's your understanding? Is he going to be arrested or will he just have to appear at the first hearing? What's your agreement with his attorneys on that?

FITZGERALD: My understanding is we will not be arresting Mr. Libby. We will arrange for him to appear before whatever judge was assigned. You may know who the judge was assigned, but I don't because I came from there to here. And whatever the judge tells us do, we will do.

QUESTION: A federal shield law has been discussed in the wake of your arrest of -- your holding of Judy Miller and other issues in this trial. If there had been a federal shield law, and there may be in the future, how would that have affected your work? Are you for or against a federal shield law protecting reporters' confidentiality of sources?

FITZGERALD: I see there's three questions. Am I for or against the shield law? And I don't think I should, in my capacity, opine for the Department of Justice on the shield law. I know Mr. Comey gave some testimony recently about one proposed shield law. Mr. Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney in Texas, gave written and oral testimony in the Department of Justice. I'm not schooled to tell you what the Department of Justice's position is on the shield law.

I will also tell you there are many people -- and a shield law can be a very generic description.

FITZGERALD: Does it mean an absolute shield, is it a qualified shield? What are the exceptions?

And I've heard lots of people comment that many versions of the shield law would still have allowed us to subpoena the testimony we did in this case.

And I can tell you that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Hogan, who said if there was any qualified privilege, whatever the hurdle was, no matter how high, it was exceeded in this case.

And I think what people don't understand -- I understand why it is that newspapers want sources. And I read newspapers and I'm glad you have sources.

This is different. This was a situation where the conversations between the official and the reporter may have been a crime itself. It wasn't someone saying, "Hey, so and so is doing something really, really awful down the hall, but I'm going to get fired if I tell you."

If you're transmitting classified information, it's the crime itself.

But also the reporter is the eyewitness, and what I think people don't appreciate is we interviewed lots of people, very high officials, before we ever went to the reporters.

And if it is apparent the grand jury was investigating to find out whether Mr. Libby lied under oath about his conversations with reporters, how could you ever resolve it without talking to the reporter?

FITZGERALD: You couldn't walk in and responsibly charge someone for lying about a conversation when there were only two witnesses to it and you talked to one. That would be insane.

On the other hand, if you walked away from it with a belief that that conversation may have been falsely described under oath, you were walking away from your responsibility.

And that's why, when the subpoenas were challenged, we put forward what it is that we knew and we let judges pass on it.

So I think people shouldn't read this exceptional case as being something more than it's not.

And I think there's a pendulum that shifts. I'm not recommending that reporters be subpoenaed to my colleagues. I don't -- you know this is not -- we have to maintain a balance. And I think what people will recognize is that this was narrow grounds, that they were justified, that we followed attorney general guidelines, that the court found that we satisfied those guidelines, the court found that we met any bar.

FITZGERALD: The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed unanimously. The Supreme Court declined certiorari.

I think we ought to step back, take a deep breath and appreciate what the facts were here that are not the ordinary case before we rush into debates about balancing two very important things: the First Amendment and national security. And I don't take either lightly.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, can you say, does your request to witnesses that they not discuss the case publicly continue beyond this point through the trial? If so, how long will it continue for?

And is there a point at which that request conceivably could impede Mr. Libby's right to gather witnesses and facts in his own behalf?

FITZGERALD: I'll be perfectly frank: I haven't even thought about that. It's been a long day, and maybe I need to sleep on that.

QUESTION: Well, but are you continuing to request -- what about the first half of that? You're not sure if you think witnesses should remain silent?

FITZGERALD: I probably need to take a step back and figure out what requests we're going to make or not. I don't want to wing it from here if I haven't thought it through.

QUESTION: You used the phase, "not quite done." There will be lots of speculation on what you mean.

QUESTION: Can you help us by being any more specific?

FITZGERALD: No, because I probably -- if I choose other words -- you're reading tea leaves, and don't, because I don't draw a very good tea leaf.

So if you're not quite trying to figure out what's going on, on the grand jury, sorry, but that's a good thing. We're not supposed to tell you what's going on in the grand jury.

I'm trying to let the public know that we're trying to do our job responsibly, we're trying to do things as quickly as we can, and we want to get things wrapped up.

I've got plenty of other cases. I've got a full-time job. Jack has a full-time job in Philadelphia. My full-time job is in Chicago. Everyone working on this case has another full-time job.

So we want to get this resolved, but I'm trying to give you just a brief read out on where we are without compromising anything on the grand jury.

QUESTION: How confident are you that there will be a trial?

FITZGERALD: That's not for me to determine and I'm not going to...

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: That's not a conversation that I have through a camera. And in all seriousness, if any case when I have been asked about people charged with other crimes, when people talk about plea bargains, you have to say, "Look, we brought a serious charge. The person's presumed innocent."

FITZGERALD: I'm not going to have a conversation about a plea bargain that assumes a person's willing to admit their guilt when they haven't been proven guilty.

So that's for Mr. Libby and his counsel to decide. And I'm not going to be presumptuous and I'm not going to discuss anything like that on national television.

QUESTION: Maybe we can hone this down just a little bit.

We know that there could not be a conspiracy of one -- and he has not been charged with conspiracy. Considering that with which he is charged at this point, do you believe that Mr. Libby acted alone?

FITZGERALD: I'm going to comment beyond the indictment. Don't read anything into that. But I just -- the indictment sets forth a charge. We're not going to go there.

I've been told two more...

QUESTION: Let's assume we're winding down (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: OK.

I hope we're winding down.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: You said you're eager to go back to Chicago. How long do you think the second phase, the trial phase might last, years, a year?

FITZGERALD: I thought I ducked that question several times.

But if I didn't, I'm not going to put a time frame on it -- as quickly as we can.

QUESTION: And secondly, if you empanel a second grand jury, is it always 18 months or is it 12 months?

FITZGERALD: I don't know. They vary.

And I'm just -- I'm not going to give you any time frame questions because I'll be as vague as I have been already and just waste time.

QUESTION: In the absence of an independent counsel statute, there's been no suggestion here of political interference and the attorney general and the previous attorney general both recused themselves.

But I'm wondering after what you've been through, whether you think the special counsel rules under which you conducted this investigation gave you the absolute assurances that you needed throughout the whole process that there could not possibly be political interference for your team by this or any future Justice Department?

FITZGERALD: Let me put it even more starkly.

There was no political interference whatsoever with my team or our work on this case. That's all I can vouch for.

QUESTION: Did Harriet Miers' withdrawal yesterday have anything to do with the timing of your indictment today?

(LAUGHTER)

FITZGERALD: No. You did confuse me.

Thank you.Transcript of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's Press Conference

Courtesy of FDCH e-MEDIA
Friday, October 28, 2005; 3:57 PM

FITZGERALD: Good afternoon. I'm Pat Fitzgerald. I'm the United States attorney in Chicago, but I'm appearing before you today as the Department of Justice special counsel in the CIA leak investigation.

Joining me, to my left, is Jack Eckenrode, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Chicago, who has led the team of investigators and prosecutors from day one in this investigation.

VIDEO | The latest on the "Scooter" Libby trial.
Understanding the Plame Affair

* Key Players in the CIA Leak Case Analysis and short biographies of the main individuals involved in the investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame's identity to the press.
* Explaining the Charges
* Q&A: The Leak Case Facts
* Timeline: Libby's Role
* Full Text of Indictment: US v. Libby
* Special Counsel's Press Release Detailing Libby Indictment
* Transcript: Fitzgerald's 10/28 Press Conf.
* Pres. Bush's Remarks

Background on the Plame Investigation

Find stories, video, discussion transcripts and associated features related to the investigation of the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the press.

* Special Report: Plame Investigation

Photos
I. Lewis
Career Highlights of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is at the center of an investigation into the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.
From FindLaw

* Plame Investigation Leaks Links to court rulings, briefs, and government documents pertaining to the leak investigation (and the First Amendment battle).
* The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982
* Grant of Executive Clemency
* Indictment (U.S. v Libby)

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A few hours ago, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia returned a five-count indictment against I. Lewis Libby, also known as Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.

The grand jury's indictment charges that Mr. Libby committed five crimes. The indictment charges one count of obstruction of justice of the federal grand jury, two counts of perjury and two counts of false statements.

Before I talk about those charges and what the indictment alleges, I'd like to put the investigation into a little context.

Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.

Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.

FITZGERALD: The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security.

Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.

But Mr. Novak was not the first reporter to be told that Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, Ambassador Wilson's wife Valerie, worked at the CIA. Several other reporters were told.

In fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.

Now, something needs to be borne in mind about a criminal investigation.

FITZGERALD: I recognize that there's been very little information about this criminal investigation, but for a very good reason.

It may be frustrating when investigations are conducted in secret. When investigations use grand juries, it's important that the information be closely held.

So let me tell you a little bit about how an investigation works.

Investigators do not set out to investigate the statute, they set out to gather the facts.

It's critical that when an investigation is conducted by prosecutors, agents and a grand jury they learn who, what, when, where and why. And then they decide, based upon accurate facts, whether a crime has been committed, who has committed the crime, whether you can prove the crime and whether the crime should be charged.

Agent Eckenrode doesn't send people out when $1 million is missing from a bank and tell them, "Just come back if you find wire fraud." If the agent finds embezzlement, they follow through on that.

FITZGERALD: 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 needed 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 important that we find out accurate facts.

There's another thing about a grand jury investigation. One of the obligations of the prosecutors and the grand juries is to keep the information obtained in the investigation secret, not to share it with the public.

And as frustrating as that may be for the public, that is important because, the way our system of justice works, if information is gathered about people and they're not charged with a crime, we don't hold up that information for the public to look at. We either charge them with a crime or we don't.

FITZGERALD: And that's why we've safeguarded information here to date.

But as important as it is for the grand jury to follow the rules and follow the safeguards to make sure information doesn't get out, it's equally important that the witnesses who come before a grand jury, especially the witnesses who come before a grand jury who may be under investigation, tell the complete truth.

It's especially important in the national security area. The laws involving 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 charged, whether anyone should be charged, what should be charged, need to 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 classified at the time.

FITZGERALD: 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.

That brings us to the fall of 2003. When it was clear that Valerie Wilson's cover had been blown, investigation began. And in October 2003, the FBI interviewed Mr. Libby. Mr. Libby is the vice president's chief of staff. He's also an assistant to the president and an assistant to the vice president for national security affairs.

FITZGERALD: The focus of the interview was what it that he had known about Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, what he knew about Ms. Wilson, what he said to people, why he said it, and how he learned it.

And to be frank, Mr. Libby gave the FBI a compelling story.

What he told the FBI is that essentially he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter Tim Russert, and during the conversation Mr. Russert told him that, "Hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Mr. Wilson's wife works at the CIA?"

And he told the FBI that he learned that information as if it were new, and it struck him. So he took this information from Mr. Russert and later on he passed it on to other reporters, including reporter Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, reporter Judith Miller of the New York Times.

FITZGERALD: And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on on July 12th, 2003, two days before Mr. Novak's column, that he passed it on understanding that this was information he had gotten from a reporter; that he didn't even know if it was true.

And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on to the reporters he made clear that he did know if this were true. This was something that all the reporters were saying and, in fact, he just didn't know and he wanted to be clear about it.

Later, Mr. Libby went before the grand jury on two occasions in March of 2004. He took and oath and he testified. And he essentially said the same thing.

He said that, in fact, he had learned from the vice president earlier in June 2003 information about Wilson's wife, but he had forgotten it, and that when he learned the information from Mr. Russert during this phone call he learned it as if it were new.

FITZGERALD: When he passed the information on to reporters Cooper and Miller late in the week, he passed it on thinking it was just information he received from reporters; that he told reporters that, in fact, he didn't even know if it were true. He was just passing gossip from one reporter to another at the long end of a chain of phone calls.

It would be a compelling story that will lead the FBI to go away if only it were true. It is not true, according to the indictment.

In fact, Mr. Libby discussed the information about Valerie Wilson at least half a dozen times before this conversation with Mr. Russert ever took place, not to mention that when he spoke to Mr. Russert, Mr. Russert and he never discussed Valerie Wilson or Wilson's wife.

He didn't learn it from Mr. Russert. But if he had, it would not have been new at the time.

FITZGERALD: Let me talk you through what the indictment alleges.

The indictment alleges that Mr. Libby learned the information about Valerie Wilson at least three times in June of 2003 from government officials.

Let me make clear there was nothing wrong with government officials discussing Valerie Wilson or Mr. Wilson or his wife and imparting the information to Mr. Libby.

But in early June, Mr. Libby learned about Valerie Wilson and the role she was believed to play in having sent Mr. Wilson on a trip overseas from a senior CIA officer on or around June 11th, from an undersecretary of state on or around June 11th, and from the vice president on or about June 12th.

FITZGERALD: It's also clear, as set forth in the indictment, that some time prior to July 8th he also learned it from somebody else working in the Vice President's Office.

So at least four people within the government told Mr. Libby about Valerie Wilson, often referred to as "Wilson's wife," working at the CIA and believed to be responsible for helping organize a trip that Mr. Wilson took overseas.

In addition to hearing it from government officials, it's also alleged in the indictment that at least three times Mr. Libby discussed this information with other government officials.

It's alleged in the indictment that on June 14th of 2003, a full month before Mr. Novak's column, Mr. Libby discussed it in a conversation with a CIA briefer in which he was complaining to the CIA briefer his belief that the CIA was leaking information about something or making critical comments, and he brought up Joe Wilson and Valerie Wilson.

FITZGERALD: It's also alleged in the indictment that Mr. Libby discussed it with the White House press secretary on July 7th, 2003, over lunch. What's important about that is that Mr. Libby, the indictment alleges, was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he claims to have learned on Thursday.

In addition to discussing it with the press secretary on July 7th, there was also a discussion on or about July 8th in which counsel for the vice president was asked a question by Mr. Libby as to what paperwork the Central Intelligence Agency would have if an employee had a spouse go on a trip.

FITZGERALD: So that at least seven discussions involving government officials prior to the day when Mr. Libby claims he learned this information as if it were new from Mr. Russert. And, in fact, when he spoke to Mr. Russert, they never discussed it.

But in addition to focusing on how it is that Mr. Libby learned this information and what he thought about it, it's important to focus on what it is that Mr. Libby said to the reporters.

In the account he gave to the FBI and to the grand jury was that he told reporters Cooper and Miller at the end of the week, on July 12th. And that what he told them was he gave them information that he got from other reporters; other reporters were saying this, and Mr. Libby did not know if it were true. And in fact, Mr. Libby testified that he told the reporters he did not even know if Mr. Wilson had a wife.

And, in fact, we now know that Mr. Libby discussed this information about Valerie Wilson at least four times prior to July 14th, 2003: on three occasions with Judith Miller of the New York Times and on one occasion with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.

FITZGERALD: The first occasion in which Mr. Libby discussed it with Judith Miller was back in June 23rd of 2003, just days after an article appeared online in the New Republic which quoted some critical commentary from Mr. Wilson.

After that discussion with Judith Miller on June 23rd, 2003, Mr. Libby also discussed Valerie Wilson on July 8th of 2003.

During that discussion, Mr. Libby talked about Mr. Wilson in a conversation that was on background as a senior administration official. And when Mr. Libby talked about Wilson, he changed the attribution to a former Hill staffer.

During that discussion, which was to be attributed to a former Hill staffer, Mr. Libby also discussed Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, working at the CIA -- and then, finally, again, on July 12th.

In short -- and in those conversations, Mr. Libby never said, "This is something that other reporters are saying;" Mr. Libby never said, "This is something that I don't know if it's true;" Mr. Libby never said, "I don't even know if he had a wife."

FITZGERALD: At the end of the day what appears is that Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true.

It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly.

Now, as I said before, this grand jury investigation has been conducted in secret. I believe it should have been conducted in secret, not only because it's required by those rules, but because the rules are wise. Those rules protect all of us.

FITZGERALD: We are now going from a grand jury investigation to an indictment, a public charge and a public trial. The rules will be different.

But I think what we see here today, when a vice president's chief of staff is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law.

But what we need to also show the world is that we can also apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow the same rules.

So I ask everyone involved in this process, anyone who participates in this trial, anyone who covers this trial, anyone sitting home watching these proceedings to follow this process with an American appreciation for our values and our dignity.

Let's let the process take place. Let's take a deep breath and let justice process the system.

I would be remiss at this point if I didn't thank the team of investigators and prosecutors who worked on it, led by Agent Eckenrode, or particularly the staff under John Dial (ph) from the Counterespionage Section in the Department of Justice; Mr. Zidenberg (ph) from Public Integrity, as well as the agents from the Washington field office and my close friends in the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office, all of whom contributed to a joint effort.

And with that, I'll take questions.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, this began as a leak investigation but no one is charged with any leaking. Is your investigation finished? Is this another leak investigation that doesn't lead to a charge of leaking?

FITZGERALD: Let me answer the two questions you asked in one.

OK, is the investigation finished? It's not over, but I'll tell you this: Very rarely do you bring a charge in a case that's going to be tried and would you ever end a grand jury investigation.

I can tell you, the substantial bulk of the work in this investigation is concluded.

FITZGERALD: This grand jury's term has expired by statute; it could not be extended. But it's in ordinary course to keep a grand jury open to consider other matters, and that's what we will be doing.

Let me then ask your next question: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn't result in a charge? I've been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something.

If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt 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 blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I'm just going to hit 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 near the batter's head. And there's lots of shades of gray in between.

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.

FITZGERALD: And what you'd want to do is have as much information as you could. You'd want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you'd want to know.

And then you'd make a decision as to whether this person should be banned from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should do nothing at all and just say, "Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. Get over it."

In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.

And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?

FITZGERALD: 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; we haven't charged it.

So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it 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 information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.

FITZGERALD: I will say this: Mr. Libby is presumed innocent. He would not be guilty unless and until a jury of 12 people came back and returned a verdict saying 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.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, do you have evidence that the vice president of the United States, one of Mr. Libby's original sources for this information, encouraged him to leak it or encouraged him to lie about leaking?

FITZGERALD: I'm not making allegations about anyone not charged in the indictment.

Now, let me back up, because I know what that sounds like to people if they're sitting at home.

We don't talk about people that are not charged with a crime in the indictment.

FITZGERALD: I would say that about anyone in this room who has nothing to do with the offenses.

We make no allegation that the vice president committed any criminal act. We make no allegation that any other people who provided or discussed with Mr. Libby committed any criminal act.

But as to any person you asked me a question about other than Mr. Libby, I'm not going to comment on anything.

Please don't take that as any indication that someone has done something wrong. That's a standard practice. If you followed me in Chicago, I say that a thousand times a year. And we just don't comment on people because we could start telling, "Well, this person did nothing wrong, this person did nothing wrong," and then if we stop commenting, then you'll start jumping to conclusions. So please take no more.

QUESTION: For all the sand thrown in your eyes, it sounds like you do know the identity of the leaker. There's a reference to a senior official at the White House, Official A, who had a discussion with Robert Novak about Joe Wilson's wife.

QUESTION: Can you explain why that official was not charged?

FITZGERALD: I'll explain this: I know that people want to know whatever it is that we know, and they're probably sitting at home with the TV thinking, "I'm want to jump through the TV, grab him by his collar and tell him to tell us everything they figured out over the last two years."

We just can't do that. It's not because we enjoy holding back information from you; that's the law.

And one of the things we do with a grand jury is we gather information. And the explicit requirement is if we're not going to charge someone with a crime; if we decide that a person did not commit a crime, we cannot prove a crime, doesn't merit prosecution, we do not stand up and say, "We gathered all this information on the commitment that we're going to follow the rules of grand jury secrecy, which say we don't talk about people not charged with a crime, and then at the end say, well, it's a little inconvenient not to give answers out, so I'll give it out anyway."

FITZGERALD: I can't give you answers on what we know and don't know, other than what's charged in the indictment.

It's not because I enjoy being in that position. It's because the law is that way. I actually think the law should be that way.

We can't talk about information not contained in the four corners of the indictment.

QUESTION: Is Karl Rove off the hook? And are there any other individuals who might be charged? You say you're not quite finished.

FITZGERALD: What I can say is the same answer I gave before: If you ask me any name, I'm not going to comment on anyone named, because we either charged someone or we don't talk about them. And don't read that answer in the context of the name you gave me.

QUESTION: What can you say about what you're still working on then?

FITZGERALD: I can't. I don't mean that fliply, but the grand jury doesn't give an announcement about what they're doing, what they're looking at, unless they charge an indictment.

FITZGERALD: I can tell you that no one wants this thing to be over as quickly as I do, as quickly as Mr. Eckenrode does. I'd like to wake up in my bed in Chicago, he'd like to wake up in his bed in Philadelphia, and we recognize that we want to get this thing done.

I will not end the investigation until I can look anyone in the eye and tell them that we have carried out our responsibility sufficiently to be sure that we've done what we could to make intelligent decisions about when to end the investigation. We hope to do that as soon as possible. I just hope that people will take a deep breath and just allow us to continue to do what we have to do.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, you've said that there was damage done to all of us, damage to the entire nation. Can you be any more specific about what kind of damage you're talking about?

FITZGERALD: The short answer is no. But I can just say this: I'm not going to comment on things beyond what's said in the indictment.

FITZGERALD: I can say that for the people who work at the CIA and work at other places, they have to expect that when they do their jobs that classified information will be protected. And they have to expect that when they do their jobs, that information about whether or not they are affiliated with the CIA will be protected.

And they run a risk when they work for the CIA that something bad could happen to them, but they have to make sure that they don't run the risk that something bad is going to happen to them from something done by their own fellow government employees.

But getting to the specifics of the damage, I won't.

QUESTION: You mentioned the importance to you of grand jury secrecy and you have been leak-free.

But I want to know what your thoughts are about a series of leaks about your investigation. What was your interpretation of what some people have described as manipulative, selective leaking about your investigation by people close to your witnesses?

FITZGERALD: And all I can say is -- well, I'll just say this: I'm not going to comment on why certain things were leaked or any speculation I might have where was the leak from.

I think the average person does not understand that the rule of grand jury secrecy binds the prosecutors and the grand jury, it binds the agents who come across the grand jury information, it binds the grand jurors. Any one of us could go to jail if we leak that information.

It does not bind witnesses. Witnesses can decide to tell their testimony or not. So if this were a bank robbery and we put a witness in the grand jury about the bank robbery, I would go to jail, he would go to jail, and the grand jurors would go to jail if they walked out and told you about it. But the person who went into the grand jury could walk out and hold a press conference on the front steps.

So they're not breaking the law by discussing their grand jury information. I would prefer for the integrity of the investigation it not be discussed. But I just think people may not understand that certain people are not restricted in talking about grand jury information and certain are.

FITZGERALD: All I can do is make sure that myself and everyone on our team follows those rules.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, you said that it was OK for government officials to be discussing among themselves Mrs. Wilson's identity. Were you troubled, though, that at least a half dozen people outside the CIA seemed to be talking about this in the weeks before her name was disclosed?

FITZGERALD: My job is to investigate whether or not a crime is committed, can be proved and should be charged. I'm not going to comment on what to make beyond that. You know, it's not my jurisdiction, not my job, not my judgment.

QUESTION: I know you just talked about having sand in your eyes when you have the obstruction charge here. Can you give us any sense of how you think you might and how long it might take you now to determine if there was this underlying crime that occurred dealing with alleged unauthorized disclosure?

FITZGERALD: I can't and I wouldn't. And if I predicted two years ago when it started when it would be done, I would have been done a year ago.

FITZGERALD: So all I can tell you is as soon as we can get it done, we will.

QUESTION: You identified Mr. Fleischer as one of the people that Mr. Libby spoke with. Can you say who the counsel to the V.P. was, and also the undersecretary of state that he spoke with?

FITZGERALD: We've referred to people by their titles in the indictment just because that's a practice. We don't allege they did anything wrong. But we said the White House press secretary and we talked about counsel for the vice president. And I generally don't identify people beyond the indictment.

And I'll talk to Randy Samborn, who tells me what I'm allowed to do, at the break.

If we can provide you those names, we will. I'm not so sure we can, so I better not do it in front of a microphone.

QUESTION: In the end, was it worth keeping Judy Miller in jail for 85 days in this case? And can you say how important her testimony was in producing this indictment?

FITZGERALD: Let me just say this: No one wanted to have a dispute with the New York Times or anyone else. We can't talk generally about witnesses. There's much said in the public record.

FITZGERALD: I would have wished nothing better that, when the subpoenas were issued in August 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005. No one would have went to jail.

I didn't have a vested interest in litigating it. I was not looking for a First Amendment showdown. I also have to say my job was to find out what happened here, make reasoned judgments about what testimony was necessary, and then pursue it.

And we couldn't walk away from that. I could have not have told you a year ago that we think that there may be evidence that a crime is being committed here of obstruction, that there may be a crime behind it and we're just going to walk away from it.

Our job was to find the information responsibly.

We then, when we issued the subpoenas, we thought long and hard before we did that. And I can tell you, there's a lot of reporters whose reporting and contacts have touched upon this case that we never even talked to.

We didn't bluff people. And what we decided to do was to make sure before we subpoenaed any reporter that we really needed that testimony.

In addition to that, we scrubbed it thoroughly within ourselves. And we also, when we went to court, we could have taken the position that it's our decision whether to issued a subpoena, but we made sure that put a detailed, classified, sealed filing before the district court judge, the chief judge -- Hogan -- in the District of Columbia.

FITZGERALD: So we wanted to make sure that if he thought our efforts were off base, if what we were saying -- representing to him was the case was off, that he would have those facts when he made the decision.

Judge Hogan agreed and felt that we met whatever standard there might be for issuing a subpoena.

Then went up to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals with that same filing and they found the same results. And then it went to the Supreme Court.

So I think what we did in seeking that testimony was borne out by how the judges ruled.

At the end of the day, I don't know how you could ever resolve this case, to walk into you a year ago and say, "You know what? Forget the reporters; we have someone telling us that they told Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller that they didn't know if this information were true, they just heard it from other reporters, they didn't even know if he had a wife," and charge a person with perjury only to find out that's what happened, that would be reckless.

FITZGERALD: On the other hand, if we walked away and said, "Well, there are indications that, in fact, this is not how the conversation would happen, there are indications that there might be perjury or obstruction of justice here," but I were to fold up my tent and go home, that would not fulfill our mandate.

I tell you, I will say this: I do not think that a reporter should be subpoenaed anything close to routinely. It should be an extraordinary case.

But if you're dealing with a crime and what's different here is the transaction is between a person and a reporter, they're the eyewitness to the crime; if you walk away from that and don't talk to the eyewitness, you are doing a reckless job of either charging someone with a crime that may not turn out to have been committed -- and that frightens me, because there are things that you can learn from a reporter that would show you the crime wasn't committed.

What if, in fact, the allegations turned out to be true that he said, "Hey, I sourced it to other reporters, I don't know if it's true"?

FITZGERALD: So I think the only way you can do an investigation like this is to hear from all the witnesses.

I wish Ms. Miller spent not a second in jail. I wish we didn't have to spend time arguing very, very important issues and just got down to the brass tacks and made the call of where we were. But I think it had to be done.

QUESTION: You said earlier in your statement here that Mr. Libby was the first person to leak this information outside of the government. Now, first of all, that implies that there might have been other people inside the government who made such leaks.

Secondly, in paragraph 21, the one about "Official A," you imply that Novak might have heard this information about the woman, Mrs. Wilson, from another source. But you don't actually say that.

What can you tell us about the existence that you know of or don't know of or whatever of other leakers? Are there definitely other leakers? Is "Official A" a leaker or just a facilitator? Are you continuing to investigate other possible leakers?

FITZGERALD: I'm afraid I'm going to have to find a polite way of repeating my answer to Mr. Isikoff's question, which is to simply say I can't go beyond the four corners of the indictment. And I'll probably just say -- I'll repeat it so I don't misstep and give you anything more than I should.

QUESTION: Can you say whether or not you know whether Mr. Libby knew that Valerie Wilson's identity was covert and whether or not that was pivotal at all in your inability or your decision not to charge under the Intelligence Identity Protection Act?

FITZGERALD: Let me say two things. Number one, I am not speaking to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert. And anything I say is not intended to say anything beyond this: that she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward.

I will confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003. And all I'll say is that, look, we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent.

FITZGERALD: We have not charged that. And so I'm not making that assertion.

QUESTION: Would you oppose a congressional investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity? And if not, would you be willing to cooperate with such an investigation by handing over the work product of your investigation?

FITZGERALD: I guess that's two questions, and I know I can answer the second part, turning over the work product.

There are strict rules about grand jury secrecy if there were an investigation. And, frankly, I have to pull the book out and get the people smarter than me about grand jury rules in Chicago and sit down and tell me how it works.

My gut instinct is that we do not -- very, very rarely is grand jury information shared with the Congress.

And I also think I'd have to be careful about what my charter is here. I don't think it's my role to opine on whether the Justice Department would oppose or not oppose some other investigation. So I'm certainly not going to figure that out standing up here with a bunch of cameras pointing at me.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, your critics are charging that you are a partisan who was conducting what, in essence, was a...

(UNKNOWN): In which government (ph)?

(LAUGHTER)

FITZGERALD: You tell me.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) witch hunt. I mean, how do you respond to (inaudible) since you are in Washington...

FITZGERALD: I don't know -- you know, it's sort of, "When'd you stop beating your wife?"

One day I read that I was a Republican hack, another day I read that I was a Democratic hack, and the only thing I did between those two nights was sleep.

I'm not partisan. I'm not registered as part of a party. And I'll leave it there.

QUESTION: You noted earlier that the grand jury's term expired but you said something about holding it open. Or will you be working with a new grand jury?

FITZGERALD: The grand jury, by its terms, can serve -- was an 18-month grand jury. By its statute, to my understanding, can only be extended six months.

FITZGERALD: That six months expired.

It's routine in long investigations that you would have available a new grand jury if you needed to go back to them. And that's nothing unusual. I don't want to raise any expectations by that; that's an ordinary practice.

QUESTION: I think you, kind of, answered this but I assume that you have no plans and don't even think you'd be allowed to issue a final report of any sort.

FITZGERALD: You're correct. But let me explain that.

I think what people may be confused about is that reports used to be issued by independent counsels. And one of the complaints about the independent counsel statute was that an ordinary citizen, when investigated, they're charged with a crime or they're not; they're not charged with a crime, people don't talk about it.

Because of the interest in making sure that -- well, there's an interest in independent counsels to making sure those investigations were done thoroughly but then people ended up issuing reports for people not charged. And one of the criticisms leveled was that you should not issue reports about people who are not charged with a crime.

That statute lapsed. I'm not an independent counsel, and I do not have the authority to write a report, and, frankly, I don't think I should have that authority. I think we should conduct this like any other criminal investigation: charge someone or be quiet.

QUESTION: Isn't it kind of true that Mr. Comey's letter to you makes you in essence almost a de facto attorney general and you can abide or not abide by the CFRs or the regulations as to whether or not to write -- to write a report or not to write a report?

And the follow-up is, every special counsel prior to you has in fact written a report and turned it over to Congress, and they've gotten around the grand jury issue as well.

FITZGERALD: Let me say this. I think any prior special counsel may have been special counsel appointed to -- certain regulations for people outside the Department of Justice, which I do not fit into. I'm not an independent counsel. I may be unique in this sense. I can tell you, I'm very comfortable, very clear that I do not have that authority.

And the extent that I was given sort of the acting attorney general hat for this case, it's the acting attorney general, but the attorney general can't violate the law. And the law on grand jury secrecy is the law.

So I may have a lot of power for this one case in the acting attorney general hat, but I followed the Code of Federal Regulations in this case, and I certainly would follow the law.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, the Republicans previewed some talking points in anticipation of your indictment and they said that if you didn't indict on the underlying crimes and you indicted on things exactly like you did indict -- false statements, perjury, obstruction -- these were, quote/unquote, "technicalities," and that it really was over reaching and excessive.

And since, when and if they make those claims, now that you have indicted, you won't respond, I want to give you an opportunity now to respond to that allegation which they may make. It seems like that's the road they're going down.

FITZGERALD: And I don't know who provided those talking points. I assume...

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: I'm not asking -- OK.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: I'll be blunt.

That talking point won't fly. If you're doing a national security investigation, 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 proven -- 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 federal grand jury and lied under oath repeatedly and fabricated a story about how he learned this information, how he passed it on, and we prove obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements to the FBI, that 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 Justice charges those statutes all the time.

When I was in New York working as a prosecutor, we brought those cases because 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 obstruction of justice.

When I got to Chicago, I knew the people before me had prosecuted false statements, obstruction and perjury cases.

FITZGERALD: And we do it all the time. And if a truck driver pays a bribe or someone else does something where they go into a grand jury afterward 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 justice and perjury, is upside down.

If these facts are true, if we were to walk away from this and not charge 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 people 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 should take lightly.

QUESTION: This doesn't relate to the charges, so I'm hoping maybe you can shed some light on this.

In your investigation, have you determined how it was that Ambassador Wilson became the person to be sent to Niger to investigate this situation, how directly involved was his wife in this selection, how much pressure she may have put on officials?

QUESTION: And also I'm wondering about the cooperation you've received from the CIA.

FITZGERALD: I think all government agencies that we have turned to for cooperation have cooperated.

I might have a comment on the circumstances of the trip. I think the only thing that's relevant, frankly, is the belief in the mind of some people that she was involved in the trip or responsible for sending the trip. The dispute as to whether, in fact, she was is irrelevant to the charge before us.

What we're talking about is why -- the investigation was why someone compromised her identity. And the issue in this indictment is whether or not Mr. Libby knowingly and intentionally lied about the facts.

And whatever happened in that trip and what role, if any, the wife played is really irrelevant and not our focus.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: What is set forth is a belief on his part that she played a role in the trip, and that is set forth in the indictment.

Whether that belief is 100 percent, 100 percent false, or a mixture of both, is, sort of, irrelevant. But it does set forth in there that he had that belief that she was involved in the trip.

QUESTION: Are you at all concerned that Mr. Libby or his counsel sought to affect or discourage the testimony of Judy Miller by withholding a so-called personal waiver allowing her to testify notwithstanding a pledge of confidentiality or (inaudible) letter to her that she reportedly received when was in jail?

by withholding a so-called personal waiver allowing her to testify notwithstanding a pledge of confidentiality or (inaudible) letter to her that she reportedly received when was in jail?

FITZGERALD: And I'm not going to comment on anything that's not in the indictment, but I can tell you that we're not relying upon anything other than the indictment, which the obstruction of justice charges set forth, the statements by Mr. Libby to the FBI, and the testimony under oath to the grand jury as being the basis of the obstruction charge and nothing else.

QUESTION: The indictment describes Lewis Libby giving classified information concerning the identify of a CIA agent to some individuals who were not eligible to receive that information. Can you explain why that does not, in and of itself, constitute a crime?

FITZGERALD: That's a good question. And I think, knowing that he gave the information to someone who was outside the government, not entitled to receive it, and knowing that the information was classified, is not enough.

FITZGERALD: You need to know at the time that he transmitted the information, he appreciated that it was classified information, that he knew it or acted, in certain statutes, with recklessness.

And that is sort of what gets back to my point. In trying to figure that out, you need to know what the truth is.

So our allegation is in trying to drill down and find out exactly what we got here, if we received false information, that process is frustrated.

But at the end of the day, I think I want to say one more thing, which is: When you do a criminal case, if you find a violation, it doesn't really, in the end, matter what statute you use if you vindicate the interest.

If Mr. Libby is proven to have done what we've alleged -- convicting him of obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements -- very serious felonies -- will vindicate the interest of the public in making sure he's held accountable.

It's not as if you say, "Well, this person was convicted but under the wrong statute."

FITZGERALD: I think -- but I will say this: The whole point here is that we're going to make fine distinctions and make sure that before we charge someone with a knowing, intentional crime, we want to focus on why they did it, what they knew and what they appreciated; we need to know the truth about what they said and what they knew.

QUESTION: Does that mean you don't feel that you know the truth about whether he intentionally did this and he knew and appreciated it? Or does that mean you are exercising your prosecutorial discretion and being conservative?

FITZGERALD: Well, I don't want to -- look, a person is charged with a crime, they are presumed innocent, and I haven't charged him with any other crime.

And all I'm saying is the harm and the obstruction crime is it shields us from knowing the full truth.

I won't go beyond that.

QUESTION: First, will you actually prosecute this case individually yourself? And, second, have you learned anything about the way the inside of Washington works that surprises you through this investigation?

(LAUGHTER)

FITZGERALD: The latter, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

And the former, yes and no.

I will be involved in the prosecution.

But if you meant individually, if I will personally participate, yes.

FITZGERALD: If we met individually -- I haven't done this individually. I have a great team from D.C., main Justice, FBI in Chicago and it will be a team effort.

QUESTION: If during the course of the public trial information comes out with regard to other people who have leaked the source of the leak or other people who exposed Ms. Plame's identity, will this then reverberate back to you since you had been studying this, if new information is forthcoming during the course of the trial?

FITZGERALD: If I could answer your question with a bucket of cold water and say, "Let's not read too much into it," any new information that would ever come to light while the investigation is open would be handled by our investigative team concerning these facts.

So if there's there's anything that we haven't learned yet that we learn that should be addressed, we will address it. But I don't want to create any great expectations out there by giving, sort of, a general answer.

QUESTION: Just to be clear -- you did touch on this earlier -- with the grand jury time being done, you have no plans to file another grand jury related to this case at all, is that correct?

FITZGERALD: No. I think what I said is we could use any other grand jury or avail of another grand jury. We couldn't use the grand jurors whose term has expired today any further.

QUESTION: Can you clarify for us, this is not just the word of three reporters versus the vice president's chief of staff? And I ask that in the sense of how it may be difficult to proceed at trial with memories about something that happened long ago.

FITZGERALD: I can't comment on the trial evidence, and I won't tell you the witnesses. I can't. Sorry. The rules are you don't discuss criminal...

QUESTION: But I guess, to put it another way, why are you confident that this is the right thing to do, given that you're dealing with memories of people from something long ago?

FITZGERALD: What I can tell you is a prosecutor is allowed to lay out the charges, and a prosecutor is not allowed to vouch for the charges. And what I'll say is we're comfortable proceeding.

FITZGERALD: But you're right: Let's go to a trial. Let's reserve judgment. And our burden is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. By indicting him, we're committing to doing that. But he is presumed innocent, and let's let the process play out.

QUESTION: Can you explain in general terms why a subject or witness would be given multiple opportunities to come back before the grand jury? Are there times that you've given the opportunity to set the record straight?

FITZGERALD: I don't want to answer that in this context because I think people will read too much into it. So I'm not going to give a hypothetical answer to something where I think your based upon beliefs that are not hypothetical. Sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

I don't want to comment on generally what happens in grand jury investigations when you're here. After we've just returned an indictment from a particular grand jury investigation, there's no way that people would read my answer as other than commenting on this grand jury investigation. That's what I'm trying to say.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) last minute that you would allow a defense lawyer to come in and see you one more time and to make the case -- it was very curious at the last minute there was considerable FBI activity. Wilson's neighbors were interviewed, witnesses were contacted at the last minute.

QUESTION: What are we supposed to read into that, you were just buttoning up your case, you know, crossing the "t"s and dotting the "i"s? There was a considerable flurry of activity.

FITZGERALD: I think -- with all respect I think someone interviewed the person who shined my shoes the other day. We've been doing lots of interests, but if suddenly you put a camera on everyone working on the case and follow them when they have coffee and have lunch, anything we do in the ordinary course of business looks like a flurry of activity.

There was a flurry of attention. I won't go beyond that. Look, when we investigate things we're always going out and doing things. I'm not going to do a time line. We obviously wanted to get as much done before October 28th as we could. I would have loved to have finished the case completely by October 28th. This grand jury served long and hard and was very, very attentive. We're grateful for their service.

So I wanted to get as much accomplished before October 28th, but I wouldn't read anything beyond that. I'm not going to comment on any discussions we had with any counsel.

QUESTION: A lot of Americans, people who are opposed to the war, critics of the administration, have looked to your investigation with hope in some ways and might see this indictment as a vindication of their argument that the administration took the country to war on false premises.

Does this indictment do that?

FITZGERALD: This indictment is not about the war. This indictment's not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel.

This is simply an indictment that says, in a national security investigation about the compromise of a CIA officer's identity that may have taken place in the context of a very heated debate over the war, whether some person -- a person, Mr. Libby -- lied or not.

The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified. This is stripped of that debate, and this is focused on a narrow transaction.

And I think anyone's who's concerned about the war and has feelings for or against shouldn't look to this criminal process for any answers or resolution of that.

FITZGERALD: They will be frustrated and, frankly, it would just -- it wouldn't be good for the process and the fairness of a trial.

QUESTION: Have you sought any expansion of your authority since February of 2004?

FITZGERALD: No.

I do know there was a letter, and I haven't looked back. There was a clarified letter...

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: Yes. I think there were two letters in early 2004, and that's it. There's nothing changed since then.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) further issues that you want to look into or anything like that?

FITZGERALD: I'm not looking to expand my authority or mandate and haven't -- I think the second letter is a clarification of the first. Nothing has changed since February 2004 at all.

QUESTION: There's a saying in Washington that it's not the crime, it's the cover up.

Can you just tell us whether if Mr. Libby had testified truthfully, would he be being charged in this crime today?

Also, how do you decide if whether or not to charge Official A?

And also, it's a little hazy I think for many of us -- you say that Valerie Plame's identity was classified, but you're making no statement as to whether she was covert.

QUESTION: Was the leaking of her identity in and of itself a crime?

FITZGERALD: OK. I think you have three questions there. I'm trying to remember them in order. I'll go backwards.

And all I'll say is that if national defense information which is involved because her affiliation with the CIA, whether or not she was covert, was classified, if that was intentionally transmitted, that would violate the statute known as Section 793, which is the Espionage Act.

That is a difficult statute to interpret. It's a statute you ought to carefully apply.

I think there are people out there who would argue that you would never use that to prosecute the transmission of classified information, because they think that would convert that statute into what is in England the Official Secrets Act.

Let me back up. The average American may not appreciate that there's no law that's specifically just says, "If you give classified information to somebody else, it is a crime."

There may be an Official Secrets Act in England. There are some narrow statutes, and there is this one statute that has some flexibility in it.

So there are people who should argue that you should never use that statute because it would become like the Official Secrets Act.

FITZGERALD: I don't buy that theory, but I do know you should be very careful in applying that law because there are a lot of interests that could be implicated in making sure that you picked the right case to charge that statute.

That actually feeds into the other question. When you decide whether or not to charge someone with a crime, you want to know as many facts as possible. You want to know what their motive is, you want to know their state of knowledge, you want to know their intent, you want to know the facts.

Let's not presume that Mr. Libby is guilty. But let's assume, for the moment, that the allegations in the indictment are true. If that is true, you cannot figure out the right judgment to make, whether or not you should charge someone with a serious national security crime or walk away from it or recommend any other course of action, if you don't know the truth.

So I understand your question which is: Well, what if he had told the truth, what would you have done? If he had told the truth, we would have made the judgment based upon those facts. We would have assessed what the accurate information and made a decision.

We have not charged him with a crime. I'm not making an allegation that he violated that statute. What I'm simply saying is one of the harms in obstruction is that you don't have a clear view of what should be done. And that's why people ought to walk in, got into the grand jury, you're going to take an oath, tell us the who, what, when, where and why -- straight.

And our commitment on the other end is to use our judgment as to what we prosecute.

FITZGERALD: And if we don't prosecute, we keep quiet.

And we're simply saying in here, we didn't get the straight story, and we had to -- had to take action.

(CROSSTALK)

FITZGERALD: I would refer you to Isikoff who took great notes on his question about people not charged, which I cannot answer.

QUESTION: I have four questions.

FITZGERALD: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: Now, can you clarify the business question of keeping the grand jury open, which won't be the same grand jury -- I mean, you said you've done the essential bulk of your investigation is finished. Does that mean, in layman's terms, that you're just, kind of, in the mopping up phase, or are there things that you're actively pursuing?

And if so, can you explain to us lay people, bringing this to a grand jury that hasn't been involved for 24 years -- or 24 months -- what does that -- it feels like 24 years -- what does that entail? Do you have to, sort of, start from zero then bring them up to speed?

FITZGERALD: I think it varies on what you need to do, but I just -- you could probably talk to lots of people who don't know the case who could tell you what the general experience is. But if I try to opine on how that happens, there's no way you're not going to look at my answer as telling what's going on with this grand jury investigation, and I can't do that.

QUESTION: Do you feel that Judge Tadall's (ph), Tetogin (ph), other circuit judge's references to evidence of important potential breach of public trust that was carried in your ex parte submissions last year -- do you feel that the charges that you brought now are in line with the submissions you made then and what you said you had potential evidence of?

FITZGERALD: I think there's two questions in that, which I'll say: Is our charge -- does that line up with the secret classified filing? I can't talk about, so I won't comment because I don't want to give you an idea of what's in there.

However, you're asking do these charges vindicate a serious breach of the public trust? Absolutely.

If you're going to have a grand jury investigation into the improper disclosure of national security information and you're going to have someone in the position Mr. Libby is lying to the FBI on two occasions and going before a grand jury on two occasions and telling false testimony and obstructing the investigation, that, to me, defines a serious breach of the public trust.

QUESTION: You had said that the substantial bulk of the work in this investigation is completed. A lot of the players, some of the lawyers, some of the people involved (inaudible) through Watergate, through Iran-Contra, through Monica Lewinsky.

Does this case, based on what you know now, remotely compare to the specter of any of those cases?

FITZGERALD: I don't even know how to answer that. I'm just going to take a dive.

(LAUGHTER)

Sorry.

QUESTION: Did you seek any counts that the grand jury did not return?

FITZGERALD: I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.

(LAUGHTER)

Someone gave me a big shake of a head no, that I'm not allowed to say it, so I better not do it.

QUESTION: Can you characterize for us at all the dynamic of the grand jury? Were the members tired? Were they particularly active or involved?

QUESTION: Were they worried that this involves such high-ranking officials? Is there anything you can tell us about that?

FITZGERALD: I can only say this. I can't comment on their emotions or reactions, but I'll say this.

They were a very, very hard-working grand jury, very, very dedicated. And I don't think people fully appreciate how an investigative grand jury can be different.

You know, sometimes you can -- fairly routine to go into a grand jury and say, "Mr. Eckenrode is going to testify about a bank robbery. Here's a picture of the guy with the gun in his hand, with a note. Here's his fingerprint on the note. And here's his confession. You know, how do you vote?"

This grand jury is very, very different.

And what struck me, the one thing that's in the public record, which I hadn't realized would be there, but if you look at the indictment, the indictment alleges that Mr. Libby is charged with perjury in response to a grand juror's question. And it's phrased in there that the grand jury would like to know.

And I just think it shows that the grand jury people take their obligation seriously, they ask questions. And in this country, we have people who probably got notices who thought, "What a pain in the neck this is going to be." And it was a pain in the neck for them for two years, but they worked very, very hard, and if they asked a question and someone lied to them, that was vindicated.

QUESTION: Did Bob Novak cooperate with your investigation?

FITZGERALD: I can't comment.

QUESTION: Anything that would prevent anyone who was a witness from telling of their experience, in grand jury rules, I mean?

FITZGERALD: The grand jury rules limit the prosecutors. They don't limit the witnesses.

I know there's a debate out there from people as to who should say what about what, and I'm not wading into that, other than I have asked people, as a request, not to compromise the investigation by talking. And I'll just leave it at that.

QUESTION: Do you anticipate needing to empanel a new grand jury in order to wrap up?

FITZGERALD: I'm not going to comment.

QUESTION: Do you need a new grand jury? Would you need to empanel a new one if you needed to bring further charges?

FITZGERALD: I can't charge myself, so if we wanted to bring charges we'd need a grand jury to do that. But I don't want to comment beyond that.

Here's what I'm trying to convey: We're not quite done, but I don't want to add to a feverish pitch. It's very, very routine that you keep a grand jury available for what you might need.

And that's all I can say because of the rules of grand jury secrecy, and that's it.

QUESTION: Is there any possibility of anybody else being charged?

FITZGERALD: I'm not going to -- I can't go beyond that. Sorry.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) legal jeopardy right now?

(LAUGHTER)

FITZGERALD: That one -- that didn't get any better.

(LAUGHTER)

You're getting cold, not hot.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: You said you couldn't comment outside the four corners of the indictment, but you did make a general statement when you said that all government agencies cooperated.

There were some deferred e-mails that were produced by the White House very late in the investigation that, in fact, in part, triggered the expansion and, earlier, the appointment of the counsel, as I understand.

Do you stand by the statement that all government agencies cooperated? And was the delay of the e-mails inadvertent or purposeful, something you looked at...

FITZGERALD: You built some facts into the question that I'm not going to adopt, and so I'm not going to get into reports in the newspaper that certain things happened, and then if I'm not allowed to confirm it, deny them, build it into a question.

All I'll tell you is I'll stand behind that every agency cooperated with us.

QUESTION: Can you tell just us in laymen's terms -- because I don't know a lot about this -- what is the maximum sentence that Mr. Libby could receive -- that he's charged with all...

FITZGERALD: I believe the obstruction count has a maximum penalty of 10 years. The perjury counts and the false statements counts each have a maximum penalty of five years.

FITZGERALD: So there's four five-year counts and one 10-year count.

Now, for a layman, I would step back under these guidelines called the sentencing guidelines that take certain offenses and they are now nonbinding on the federal judges. But they would take into account all sorts of factors about the offense, the circumstances, the person who committed it, if the person were convicted.

And I don't want to jump past -- there's a trial there. But if they were convicted, the judge would look to the sentencing guidelines for guidance as to what actual sentence would be imposed.

So plenty of room, but there's no mandatory minimum. It's zero to 50 years, and that would be a judge's decision.

QUESTION: Does Mr. Libby have any say, now that he has resigned -- and, of course, you brought this indictment today -- to then come to you and say, "Well, this is" -- in other words, break open some of these facts?

And are there ramifications, both at the State Department and DOD, that you're then able to also investigate?

And what has gone on -- to what degree has that shaped the speech that Secretary Powell gave at the United Nations that many people have criticized him for?

FITZGERALD: And I don't think I can answer any of that. I'm not going to speculate what Mr. Libby would do, and I haven't been tracking the ramifications at the various agencies. We've had our hands full.

QUESTION: Just to go back to your comments about the damage that was done by disclosing Valerie Wilson's identify, there are some critics who have suggested that she was not your traditional covert agent in harm's way, that she was working, essentially, a desk job at Langley.

Just to answer those critics, can you elaborate on, aside from the fact that some of her neighbors may now know that she was -- and the country, for that matter -- that she was a CIA officer, what jeopardy, what harm was there by disclosing her identity?

FITZGERALD: I will say this. I won't touch the specific damage assessment of what specific damage was caused by her compromise -- I won't touch that with a 10-foot pole. I'll let the CIA speak to that, if they wish or not.

I will say this: To the CIA people who are going out at a time that we need more human intelligence, I think everyone agrees with that, at a time when we need our spy agencies to have people work there, I think just the notion that someone's identity could be compromised lightly, to me compromises the ability to recruit people and say, "Come work for us, come work for the government, come be trained, come invest your time, come work anonymously here or wherever else, go do jobs for the benefit of the country for which people will not thank you, because they will not know," they need to know that we will not cast their anonymity aside lightly.

FITZGERALD: And that's damage. But I'm not going to go beyond that.

QUESTION: What happens to Mr. Libby now? What's your understanding? Is he going to be arrested or will he just have to appear at the first hearing? What's your agreement with his attorneys on that?

FITZGERALD: My understanding is we will not be arresting Mr. Libby. We will arrange for him to appear before whatever judge was assigned. You may know who the judge was assigned, but I don't because I came from there to here. And whatever the judge tells us do, we will do.

QUESTION: A federal shield law has been discussed in the wake of your arrest of -- your holding of Judy Miller and other issues in this trial. If there had been a federal shield law, and there may be in the future, how would that have affected your work? Are you for or against a federal shield law protecting reporters' confidentiality of sources?

FITZGERALD: I see there's three questions. Am I for or against the shield law? And I don't think I should, in my capacity, opine for the Department of Justice on the shield law. I know Mr. Comey gave some testimony recently about one proposed shield law. Mr. Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney in Texas, gave written and oral testimony in the Department of Justice. I'm not schooled to tell you what the Department of Justice's position is on the shield law.

I will also tell you there are many people -- and a shield law can be a very generic description.

FITZGERALD: Does it mean an absolute shield, is it a qualified shield? What are the exceptions?

And I've heard lots of people comment that many versions of the shield law would still have allowed us to subpoena the testimony we did in this case.

And I can tell you that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Hogan, who said if there was any qualified privilege, whatever the hurdle was, no matter how high, it was exceeded in this case.

And I think what people don't understand -- I understand why it is that newspapers want sources. And I read newspapers and I'm glad you have sources.

This is different. This was a situation where the conversations between the official and the reporter may have been a crime itself. It wasn't someone saying, "Hey, so and so is doing something really, really awful down the hall, but I'm going to get fired if I tell you."

If you're transmitting classified information, it's the crime itself.

But also the reporter is the eyewitness, and what I think people don't appreciate is we interviewed lots of people, very high officials, before we ever went to the reporters.

And if it is apparent the grand jury was investigating to find out whether Mr. Libby lied under oath about his conversations with reporters, how could you ever resolve it without talking to the reporter?

FITZGERALD: You couldn't walk in and responsibly charge someone for lying about a conversation when there were only two witnesses to it and you talked to one. That would be insane.

On the other hand, if you walked away from it with a belief that that conversation may have been falsely described under oath, you were walking away from your responsibility.

And that's why, when the subpoenas were challenged, we put forward what it is that we knew and we let judges pass on it.

So I think people shouldn't read this exceptional case as being something more than it's not.

And I think there's a pendulum that shifts. I'm not recommending that reporters be subpoenaed to my colleagues. I don't -- you know this is not -- we have to maintain a balance. And I think what people will recognize is that this was narrow grounds, that they were justified, that we followed attorney general guidelines, that the court found that we satisfied those guidelines, the court found that we met any bar.

FITZGERALD: The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed unanimously. The Supreme Court declined certiorari.

I think we ought to step back, take a deep breath and appreciate what the facts were here that are not the ordinary case before we rush into debates about balancing two very important things: the First Amendment and national security. And I don't take either lightly.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, can you say, does your request to witnesses that they not discuss the case publicly continue beyond this point through the trial? If so, how long will it continue for?

And is there a point at which that request conceivably could impede Mr. Libby's right to gather witnesses and facts in his own behalf?

FITZGERALD: I'll be perfectly frank: I haven't even thought about that. It's been a long day, and maybe I need to sleep on that.

QUESTION: Well, but are you continuing to request -- what about the first half of that? You're not sure if you think witnesses should remain silent?

FITZGERALD: I probably need to take a step back and figure out what requests we're going to make or not. I don't want to wing it from here if I haven't thought it through.

QUESTION: You used the phase, "not quite done." There will be lots of speculation on what you mean.

QUESTION: Can you help us by being any more specific?

FITZGERALD: No, because I probably -- if I choose other words -- you're reading tea leaves, and don't, because I don't draw a very good tea leaf.

So if you're not quite trying to figure out what's going on, on the grand jury, sorry, but that's a good thing. We're not supposed to tell you what's going on in the grand jury.

I'm trying to let the public know that we're trying to do our job responsibly, we're trying to do things as quickly as we can, and we want to get things wrapped up.

I've got plenty of other cases. I've got a full-time job. Jack has a full-time job in Philadelphia. My full-time job is in Chicago. Everyone working on this case has another full-time job.

So we want to get this resolved, but I'm trying to give you just a brief read out on where we are without compromising anything on the grand jury.

QUESTION: How confident are you that there will be a trial?

FITZGERALD: That's not for me to determine and I'm not going to...

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: That's not a conversation that I have through a camera. And in all seriousness, if any case when I have been asked about people charged with other crimes, when people talk about plea bargains, you have to say, "Look, we brought a serious charge. The person's presumed innocent."

FITZGERALD: I'm not going to have a conversation about a plea bargain that assumes a person's willing to admit their guilt when they haven't been proven guilty.

So that's for Mr. Libby and his counsel to decide. And I'm not going to be presumptuous and I'm not going to discuss anything like that on national television.

QUESTION: Maybe we can hone this down just a little bit.

We know that there could not be a conspiracy of one -- and he has not been charged with conspiracy. Considering that with which he is charged at this point, do you believe that Mr. Libby acted alone?

FITZGERALD: I'm going to comment beyond the indictment. Don't read anything into that. But I just -- the indictment sets forth a charge. We're not going to go there.

I've been told two more...

QUESTION: Let's assume we're winding down (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: OK.

I hope we're winding down.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: You said you're eager to go back to Chicago. How long do you think the second phase, the trial phase might last, years, a year?

FITZGERALD: I thought I ducked that question several times.

But if I didn't, I'm not going to put a time frame on it -- as quickly as we can.

QUESTION: And secondly, if you empanel a second grand jury, is it always 18 months or is it 12 months?

FITZGERALD: I don't know. They vary.

And I'm just -- I'm not going to give you any time frame questions because I'll be as vague as I have been already and just waste time.

QUESTION: In the absence of an independent counsel statute, there's been no suggestion here of political interference and the attorney general and the previous attorney general both recused themselves.

But I'm wondering after what you've been through, whether you think the special counsel rules under which you conducted this investigation gave you the absolute assurances that you needed throughout the whole process that there could not possibly be political interference for your team by this or any future Justice Department?

FITZGERALD: Let me put it even more starkly.

There was no political interference whatsoever with my team or our work on this case. That's all I can vouch for.

QUESTION: Did Harriet Miers' withdrawal yesterday have anything to do with the timing of your indictment today?

(LAUGHTER)

FITZGERALD: No. You did confuse me.

Thank you.