Mr. Clean Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, fresh from his conviction of Scooter Libby for perjurously forgetting details about a non-crime, is now engaged in a coverup of his own.
Fitzgerald jailed a reporter for the Gray Lady for 85 days so that she would reveal her sources for the so-called "leak" of the nearly-public knowledge that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. It seems, however, that when he did, he already knew the source of the leak. So he used contempt proceedings to compel testimony from a reporter, whose first-amendment rights were at least debatable, whose testimony he already knew would be inaccurate and, as no crime was actually committed, pointless.
So the coverup is this: Fitzgerald has sealed his records on this point, making it impossible for other members of the Fourth Estate, let alone the Congress that is considering legislation on reporters' protection of their sources. The purpose of his doing so can be nothing other than protecting his own reputation, as far as we can see.
Power corrupts. Our federal government's generation-long flirtation with special prosecutors who work without restraint has proved as much, even with a high-minded idealist--so called--like Fitzgerald.
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