Prosecutor Fitzgerald Wants More than Perjory

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald must be feeling smaller and smaller every day. What began as a serious inquiry related to national security has turned into a very weak purjory charge against Scooter Libby. And from all appearances, even that will be difficult to prove.

As Byron York points out in the National Review, Fitzgerald seems to want this case to be more meaningful and he is therfore not letting go of the "national security" aspect.

Libby's new filing, and the Fitzgerald filing that preceded it, suggest that the CIA leak case, if Libby case goes to trial, will move far beyond the issue of Valerie Wilson. Fitzgerald's discussion of the National Intelligence Estimate and of the administration's general response to Joseph Wilson, Libby argues, "indicates that at trial all aspects of the government's response to Mr. Wilson will be relevant — including any actions taken by the President." If that is the case, then the trial, which Fitzgerald has said will be a limited criminal inquiry into whether Lewis Libby lied, will more resemble a broad inquiry into the politics of pre-war intelligence.

Who can blame Fitzgerald? At least it wouldn't appear that he wasted the last three years of his life and millions in taxpayer funds.