Billmon: Conspiracy Theory

Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus at the Washington Post offer a new theory about Patrick Fitzgerald's legal intentions in the Plamegate investigation. They suggest Tom DeLay may not be the only Republican capo looking at a conspiracy charge:

A new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.

It's not clear to me from the story what that criminal purpose would have been. If using the White House propaganda machinery to try to discredit a critic is a crime, then every administration since John Adams could be considered a criminal enterprise. Presumably, then, the crime would have been the leak of Plame's name -- not under the torturous and possibly inapplicable Intelligence Identities Protection Act, but under one of the sections of the Espionage Statute, perhaps the same ones being used against the AIPAC Three.