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Reader Looseheadprop had some very astute observations about the legal wrangling and back and forth between Team Libby and Team Fitz.  In case folks missed it yesterday, I wanted to highlight a big portion of the comment for everyone to read.  I think it is spot on in terms of tactics as well as being a hopeful little statement on the potential for more to come down the road.  Here's the comment:

PJF did say he would be getting them their Jenks Act and Giglio in a matter of weeks not months (even though it is not actually due until AFTER the witness testifies and if you change your mind and don’t call the witness it is never due–unless the witness shows up on the defense’s witness list and, oh, they haven’t given ANY discovery yet so no witness list).

He did seem to indicate that he would try to give Wells some of it even sooner as a courtesy. He’s killin’ em with kindness.

They are being cut off from one appealable issue after another. I just love this.

He’s got em. I can feel it. I can hear it in the tone of his written and spoken remarks. He’s just doin’ Kabuki with them and letting them run out the defense fund.

EVERY FREAKIN TIME, Team Irving pitches a fit about ANYTHING Team Fitz is doing, their position (at least in public) deteriorates a little (or alot) more.

From several comments Wells has made about having a tough row to hoe and about how if the court doesn’t let him expand the scope of the case he has no case, suggest to me that privately they have known all along that they are screwed.

There was a period shortly before the first GJ expired when Fitz was walking a guantlet every couple days on CNN as he went into the courthouse. He started looking really peaked, pasty faced, bloated, vaguely ill.

Then one day maybe a week 10 days out, he shows up and he looked like the sun breaking out from behind the clouds.

One of the goddeses even made a reference at about that time about integrity being good for the complextion.

I think that is the moment (if 3-4 days constitutes a moment) when he figured out what he was going to do and how he was going to do it.

And ever since he has known he has Irving by the short hairs and it’s all about giving him and everybody else enough rope to hang themselves.

No matter what, absent some huge mistake, Scoots is toast. Right now it’s all about having the rest of them self select whether they are going to be witnesses or defendants.

On the last thread,I told the story of Martha Stewart and how the FBI agents working the case expected her to come in tell what she knew appoligize for having inadvertantly crossed over a line and go on her merry way.

It’s kinda the same thing here, I think. basically decent people who did not intend evil will come in (it is obvious some already have and I am SURE there are cooperation agreements in place, probably very generous ones at that)told what they knew and expressed regret that things got out of hand.

People with evil in their hearts, will lie, fight, obstruct and reveal themselves to be worthy of criminal prosecution.

Poppy Bush accused Larry Walsh of trying to “criminalize policy disputes” and said that policy disputes should be resolved in the election booth not the courtroom.

in several places in the transcript and in the Indictment Press Conference, Fitz said that a court room is not the right place to try the issue of whether we were correct to go to war.

I think maybe our boy Fitz studied Iran Contra very carefully. Many of the same players are involved and he had a free window into their personalities and preferences. I think maybe he learned a lot from what happened to Larry Walsh.

Not only that, he may well disagree that the criminalization of policy disputes is a slippery slope that the nation cannot afford to go down. And he would have a point IMHO.

So what’s he to do? Answer, let the bad guys step up to the plate themselves and let them essentially choose themselves for prosecution, by their own actions.

This is why I think he has set up the finest piece of lawyering I will ever see in my life. It is about justice, it is about truth, and he does not set himself to judge what is what. The entire method starts from a postion of basic humilty. Although he was given broad discretion and has enormous power, he is exercising unheard of dicipline and humilty in its use.

I don't normally reproduce a quote this long, and I hope looseheadprop doesn't mind my doing so -- but the whole of this comment was so spot on that cutting it too much would have detracted from the whole.

So much of legal trial practice is tactics and maneuvering -- and that is especially true for criminal practice, because you have pressure being applied in the form of a threat of loss of liberty and imprisonment with criminal charges and investigations hanging over someone's head.  It has to be tempered with justice and care on the part of the prosecutor, but at the same time those charges have to be tested by defense counsel to ensure that the system is operating fairly and not charging people inappropriately or without cause.

It's a tough balance.  But the differences between the way the Starr investigation operated and Pat Fitzgerald's team are just striking, aren't they?

I do feel like things are coming to a head, somehow.  And not just because the Cheney note revelations hit the front pages, but with all of the information that has trickled out bit by bit in all the legal filings and the fact that Gold Bars Luskin and Ted Wells and company have clammed up to all but the Hair Boy set.  You guys can feel it, too, can't you?  Don't have a clue as to when we'll get any final answers -- investigations take a long time to firm up and Fitzgerald and his team are absolutely right to take the time they need to be certain any charges filed are appropriate and deserved.

Here's hoping that the entire cabal of smarm merchants gets exactly what they deserve and nothing less.

(graphic by Dark Black)