The Scooter Libby trial is a "trial in error," Victoria Toensing writes in a Washington Post editorial today. Ms. Toensing also adds "my own personal bills of indictment," which she directs against Mr. Fitzgerald and what she perceives as a vast left-wing conspiracy against Libby and the Administration.
Toensing is a partisan advocate for the Administration, with a long track record of editorializing on their behalf, and she distorts the facts in ways she has many times before - including in the Post. Why is she being given this platform yet again?
Toensing accusing Fitzgerald of "ignoring the fact that there was no basis for a criminal investigation from the day he was appointed, with handling some witnesses with kid gloves and banging on others with a mallet, with engaging in past contretemps with certain individuals that might have influenced his pursuit of their liberty, and with misleading the public in a news conference because . . . well, just because."
Here's how she characterizes the indictment:
"Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald charged Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff with perjury on the theory that Libby had a nefarious reason for lying to a grand jury about what he told reporters regarding CIA officer Plame."
No, Fitzgerald charged Libby because "lying to a grand jury" is illegal. As for those "nefarious reasons," Toensing conveniently ignores the fountain of information about a Wilson vendetta that has erupted since this case began.
The Toensing piece is a hackneyed and clumsily written repetition of long-disproved Fox News accusations about the Fitzgerald investigation, including the widely discredited statement that Valerie Plame Wilson was "not covert."
She goes on to say that "Fitzgerald also knew that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage had identified Plame as a CIA officer to columnist Robert D. Novak," and suggests that Plame had not been on a foreign assignment recently enough for her disclosure to qualify as a crime.
What happened to her argument about Plame"not being covert"? This attempt at a technical defense (the crime had already been committed before, plus she was 'covert' but not on 'foreign assignment') tacitly acknowledges that she was covert. And besides, it's bogus. The law doesn't say what Toensing claims it says, although she's been making these claims for quite a while.
What Toensing fails to mention in this part of her rambling diatribe is that Libby isn't being tried for disclosing Plame's name, but for lying under oath. That makes this entire line of "defense" irrelevant.
Toensing also attackes the CIA. The former agents I've talked to are enraged about this leak, but according to Toensing the Agency's just trying to "cover its derriere." Needless to say, she uses stale accusations against Joe Wilson to characterize him as a liar - a "coy" one, in her words.
("Coy"? "Derriere"? Is this a national security breach or a debutantes' ball?)
And the media? Let's just say they're also in Toensing's "personal bill of indictment" - because, you know, they've been so aggressive all along in challenging the Administration's assertions about this war.
So, who is Victoria Toensing? She's a former Barry Goldwater staffer and Reagan Justice Department antiterrorism official who filed an amicus brief in favor of Judith Miller (something she fails to mention in her article).
Toensing also failed to disclose her personal friendship with Robert Novak when she wrote an editorial for the Post on the same subject two years ago, and makes the same omission today. In fact, today's piece is virtually the same editorial as the one she wrote in January 2005, with the same misleading statements.
Why is the Post giving her this platform again? You'll have to ask them.
Toensing has a long history of writing highly partisan pro-Administration and anti-Democratic editorials. That's certainly her right. But using her legal credentials to distort the law and the facts in this case, as part of her ongoing partisan attacks on behalf of her political allies? That's less defensible.
Hmm. Maybe I need to prepare a "personal bill of indictment," too.