Dems Pin Hopes To Two Ludicrous Legal Cases

[drlogic]

Dems Pin Hopes To Two Ludicrous Legal Cases

October 17, 2005

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RUSH: All right, from last Friday: "Travis County prosecutors," this is Ronnie Earle (story), "admitted that they lack physical proof of a list of Republican candidates that is at the heart of money laundering indictments against Tom DeLay and two of his associates. The list is key to prosecutors being able to prove that corporate money that could not be legally spent on Texas candidates was specifically exchanged at the national level for donations that legally could be spent on Republican candidates for the Texas House. Indictments against DeLay, Jim Ellis and John Colyandro state that Ellis gave 'a document that contained the names of several candidates for the Texas House' to a Republican National Committee official in 2002 in a scheme to swap $190,000 in restricted corporate money for the same amount of money from individuals that could be legally used by Texas candidates. But prosecutors said Friday in court that they only had a 'similar' list and not the one allegedly received by then-RNC Deputy Director Terry Nelson. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates, but only seven are alleged to have received money in the scheme. A lawyer for Ellis said prosecutors' inability to produce the list mentioned in the indictments is on par with the tactics used by U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the communist witch hunts of the 1950s.

"'I'll tell you what I think about this list. In the 1950s, a man named McCarthy claimed to have a list of 200 communists in the State Department, and he didn't,'" [said J.D. Pauerstein, a lawyer for Jim Ellis.] "'They (prosecutors) don't know what list they're talking about, even though they specify it in their indictment.'" Now... "Without the exact list, the prosecutors' case against DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro likely turns on," the testimony of a man named Terry Nelson, the RNC deputy director. "Nelson testified at least twice to grand juries hearing the case. 'That would be something Mr. Nelson could testify to, and the jury could weigh the testimony and decide whether to accept it or whether he's confused about what list he saw three or four years ago in the midst of a heated election cycle,'" said one of the lawyers, the lawyer for Ellis, a man named Pauerstein. Now, folks, let me give you a quick crash course here in the law. Go ask -- if you know any -- go ask a defense lawyer. If a prosecutor gets a grand jury to indict in a case like this and there's no list of these candidates, then there is no basis for the indictment. You're going to have people scratching their heads saying, "Wait a minute. How do you get an indictment here? How do you even get an indictment when there's no list? The list is the evidence, and there's no evidence to support the indictment," and what you're going to be told is that this is unfathomable. What happens is, is that the grand jury is given all the evidence and told it adds up to this, and that prosecutors, "We want you to indict."

How many grand juries refused to indict? Was it one or two before they got the first one to indict on the conspiracy charge? There were two grand juries that refused to indict. Now we know why. Then they got the third grand jury with that foreman who went on KLBJ in Austin and admitted that the evidence in the grand jury room meant nothing to him, that he had already formed the basis of DeLay's guilt on television commercials that he didn't like and we found a connection that that foreman has to a defeated sheriff's office candidate who blamed his defeat on DeLay. Then that indictment turned out to be flawed because it didn't even specify a crime within the correct date range, the time that the crime was alleged to have occurred, it wasn't a crime, so he had to tear that one up and go to a different grand jury, come back with this money laundering indictment, but there's no list. Now, you should take this and learn from it and apply from this story what's going on in this whole Valerie Plame special prosecution investigation with that grand jury. Here are the similarities. In both cases -- well, actually, that's not a similarity. Let's describe the first one. In the DeLay case, there has not been any suspicion of the prosecutor at all on the part of the mainstream press. Ronnie Earle... In fact, there have been profiles how he's not political. "Oh, no, no, no! He doesn't have political enemies. Why, that's Democrats. Twelve out of 15 political people he's indicted have been Democrats." Conservative Democrats in his way, but we don't get that little added nugget thrown in. Throughout this story, "Sources close to the investigation say--" and somehow sources close to the investigation are never wrong?

"Sources close to the investigation" can be cited as lock, stock and barrel accurate? They're never named? Apparently my first theory on this was true. What they really want is simply the destruction of DeLay's character and to get him out of the legal ability to be the leader in the House. They want him to have -- because the House rules are, if you're indicted you have to give up your leadership positions, and DeLay did, and this is all about stopping the Republican agenda in the House of Representatives. There's no evidence to support the indictment. It's purely political, it appears, and yet I can't find much news. This story hit Friday. I didn't see a whole lot of this news in the mainstream press, did you? Folks, in any other circumstance, I guarantee you, if Ken Starr had ever gotten his grand jury to indict say Bill Clinton or high-ups in that administration and it was learned that there was no evidence to support the indictment, that's all you would have heard about for three weeks. Starr would have been run out of town on a train, Amtrak or whatever. But here we have scant notice of this. Now we move over to the Valerie Plame business. The media, which has Karl Rove indicted, convicted, resigned, which has Scooter Libby indicted, convicted and resigned, and they're hoping the same with Vice President Cheney and maybe President Bush -- know nothing. There hasn't been one indication from a source close to the investigation of where this prosecution is headed. They don't know. They are inferring everything from what witnesses who come out of the grand jury, those who do talk about their appearance, are saying.

Now, if you take a look at Judy Miller and this big brouhaha in the New York Times, what you have to conclude, it's very simple. It isn't complicated at all. She doesn't remember who told her Valerie Flame's [sic] identity. That's how she referred to her in her notes: Valerie "Flame." Well, I thought before she went and testified, it was Scooter Libby. Scooter Libby gave her the waiver a year ago and reaffirmed it as a personal waiver just weeks ago, and that got her out of jail, and "I don't remember," right out of the Hillary Clinton how to testify before a grand jury handbook. I can't recall. I don't remember. She doesn't know who told her the identity of Valerie Plame? Well, if she's going to say that, how can you conclude it was Scooter Libby? Only if you want to. There's so much about this story that has been misreported because there are hopeful assumptions being made. Remember, the left looks at this administration in its entirety as Watergate, and so this whole story is just the next one after the National Guard and after Richard Clarke's book and after all these things. Everybody is talking: "Bush administration had a tough week this week, the next couple weeks. Indictments going to be coming down. Rove may have to quit." They don't know diddly-squat, and the last time I looked the Bush administration has gone through a lot of hard weeks. They went through a bunch of hard weeks in the 9/11 investigation.

They went through a lot of hard weeks, the 60 Minutes putting Bill Clinton and Richard Clarke face first for two or three segments on 60 Minutes to talk about their books about what a rotten guy Bush was; what a liar he is. We've had Cindy Sheehan up there. We've had all of these things that the left has dragged forth to try to destroy Bush since -- well, basically since he was inaugurated, but the real intense effort was after 9/11, and yet the administration has withstood it all. They might say, "Well, poll numbers are way down. He's weak." Yet the Democrats still forget. Have you seen the polls on congressional Democrat approval in the Congress? They're lower than Bush's. Bush's number is at 42%. Democrats in Congress are in the mid-thirties? Well, they ignore that. "Oh, we got Bush right where we want him! Bush is gone! Bush had it! We're going to win the House in '06, take it back in '08." With what? Nobody still knows what your plan for anything is because you don't have the guts to be honest to tell us. So here you have two legal cases, one in which the prosecutor gets an indictment with no evidence whatsoever, other than the testimony of a guy who's gotta have to remember things three or four years ago, which is not enough to get an indictment in most people's book, and now you've got this Valerie Plame case where it is assumed that the White House is guilty all the way to the top. Yet nobody has given anybody any indication because the special prosecutor is not talking. There are no sources close to the investigation in this one because they're not leaking.

They're not talking. When you strip it away, the people reporting this story don't know anything. Just as they accept the word from every prosecutor, whatever sources close to the investigation say, it is accepted as gospel and truth, and yet now we're learning that the Ronnie Earle sources close to the investigation can't be trusted. They don't have any evidence. It's just an amazing thing to watch, and how does this happen? It happens because there is a desire on the part of people who report this for the worst to be true, particularly when it involves Republicans. So the Plame case; it has to be about Rove. I don't know where this is going. I haven't the slightest idea where it's going, folks. I can't tell you. I can tell you what I'm hoping. I hope this prosecutor has this case thrown out on him down in Texas, Ronnie Earle, on the basis this indictment is worthless. I hope it that when this independent counsel, Mr. Fitzgerald, does whatever he does, that it is a total shock and a surprise to the people who have Rove convicted, who have "Scooter" Libby convicted. My hope and dream is that the person passing around her identity was a member of the media. But I don't know what's going to happen. But yet, even now, you will find people on television and in the newspapers saying, "These are gruesome days. These are very, very, very, very, very pressing and troubling days for the Bush administration." They are convinced that they know where this is going. They've got themselves convinced now, "Hey, you know, this is not even about the original crime because there wasn't a crime there. Her identity? She wasn't covert, so there's no crime. This is about perjury. This is about obstruction of justice."

Those terms are right out of Watergate, are they not? "Conspiracy to obstruct justice." Oh, God, sounds so bad, and then we've got stories. "Yes, Rove will resign. Yes, Rove will resign if he's guilty." Well of course he will! It isn't news. But it's all presented as just a fait accompli, folks. We know it's going to happen -- and I don't have the slightest idea, but I will tell you that I hope something as big as shocking a surprise as anybody could conceive is -- I guess the biggest thing that could happen is for Fitzgerald to come out and say, "I've got nothing. Thanks for your time. We looked everywhere but we got nothing." He'd be vilified. Well, maybe not. He's been respected now. I mean, this guy is the greatest prosecutor (interruption). Ah, ah, ah! Ken Starr was not. Ken Starr (interruption). No, no, they've said some great things about Fitzgerald. "He's doing great work out there, this guy is a no nonsense prosecutor. He's taken on the Chicago city mob and he's doing all these great things," blah, blah, blah. Again, bottom line is, nobody knows, folks, and so whatever you're reading from anybody who claims to know where this is headed, forget it, because you don't know, we don't know, they don't know. By the way, you know, October 28th, he could impanel a new grand jury for 18 more months. This may not be over as soon as they think. We don't know. We just don't know.

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RUSH: All right, to the phones and Traverse City, Michigan. Hello, Ann. You are up next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Hello, Rush, and multiple dittos and I want you to know you make more sense than anybody on the planet. So I wanted to tell you that.

RUSH: I appreciate that. I agree, and thank you very much.

CALLER: You're welcome. But I have a question and I hope you can answer it. If Judith Miller -- back to her. If Judith Miller does not remember who told her about Valerie Plame, if she doesn't know, why did she spend all those months in jail?

RUSH: Well, there are only theories on that. The two big theories are -- how shall I say? -- she feels distant from her liberal media colleagues. See, what is not well known is that, and especially if you go to these left-wing websites that are the Democrat base, they hate this woman, because she was the one person of the New York Times pushing the fact that there were weapons of mass destruction. They think Bush lied, they think Bush made it all up, they don't think there was any intelligence from other intelligence agencies, from other nations around the world, the whole thing about weapons of mass destruction was made up, and she helped. She in effect was using the pages of the New York Times to advance the Bush agenda, and she is estranged from her colleagues in the mainstream press. So one theory holds that she went to jail to do some hard time so that she could get back in their good graces to show what a committed, principled journalist she was.

CALLER: Oh.

RUSH: The second theory is that she did this to get a big book deal. Did she get one? Well, they're saying she's got one, but she said in the New York Times over the weekend that she doesn't have one, I think, in this interview. But those are just some of the theories. I'll tell you something else. I mentioned the crackup. The crackup on the left is even deeper because I was reading -- the left has a website, very left-wing website called Editor and Publisher, and it's a bunch of people who claim to be representatives of the mainstream press on morals, ethics, objectives, and they're just a bunch of left-wing hacks. And they've got some story from some ex-CBS journalist who was in the foreign correspondent area, and he says it's even worse than we knew because Judy Miller got a security clearance from the Department of Defense when she was embedded with one of these teams looking for weapons of mass destruction, and what they say that means is that Judy could not report anything she saw that was of a secure nature. So that means to them that she agreed to keep the administration secrets if there were any, and they're really mad at her. So now the left-wing blogs and the kooks out there have had it with the New York Times. They've had it with Little Pinch. They've had it with Thomas Friedman, because he's defending Miller. They've had it with the whole New York Times. The New York Times is in the tank for Bush, because of Judy Miller and because they're supporting Judy Miller. They want Judy Miller hung up probably next to Bush when both of them go down. The crackup on the left that is happening -- unreported and unseen unless you go out and look for it and find it yourself -- is hilarious.

CALLER: Well, in her purported reason for going to prison is false. She didn't really go to prison to protect a source. Is that correct?

RUSH: No, no, no, no. I said these are theories. I don't know why she went to jail. I don't know the woman. Maybe she didn't want to go on that Mediterranean cruise with her husband.

CALLER: Well, okay. It's all a mystery. I hope it gets solved pretty soon because I'm really curious.

RUSH: What is there to solve? She says she doesn't know who gave her the name.

CALLER: I know. But, this being made a very big thing, and it's much ado about nothing I think.

RUSH: It is much ado about nothing. In fact, this Wilson guy... Actually my hope and dream is that this guy is going to get nailed by the special prosecutor. This guy came back, told an absolute bunch of lies in a New York Times op-ed. He never filed a written report when he got back from Niger, when he was supposedly sent over there by Cheney to check on the Iraqis trying to buy yellow cake uranium. He never filed a written report, yet he's out there saying that Cheney read the report and said we gotta get even with this guy because he's selling us out. In fact, he came back, gave an oral report that pretty much confirmed what everybody thought about the Iraqis trying to get yellow cake. This is such a convoluted thing it defies explanation.

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