HUFFINGTON
07.01-08.12
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
SQUELCHING SECRETS
now a public affairs consultant,
said his former colleagues’ actions
seemed justified to him.
“My take on it is pretty simple:
He broke one of the cardinal rules
of the intelligence world, which is
exposing the name of a covert operative, and because of that is being indicted,” Miller said. “People
in the intelligence community
take that more seriously than just
about anything.” He added: “As
for why others did or didn’t get
prosecuted, it’s just impossible to
say from the outside.”
Fitzgerald told reporters at a
May 24 press conference that his
departure would not affect pending cases. Dean Boyd, a Justice
Department spokesman, said in
an email, “The Kiriakou case will
continue to be handled by the
team of veteran prosecutors who
are assigned to it.”
Fitzgerald has never appeared
in court on the matter himself.
“Who might be charged with
overseeing the team after Mr.
Fitzgerald’s departure on June 30
is still to be determined,” Boyd
told Huffington.
THE WRONG MAN?
The bitterest irony of the case is
that if Kiriakou had actually tor-
tured, rather than talked about it,
he almost certainly wouldn’t be
in trouble.
The torturers and their commanders have no fear because
Obama has vowed to “look forward instead of looking backward”
when it comes to crimes committed during the post-9/11 period in
the name of national security.
Indeed, the same month Kiriakou was indicted, former CIA officer Jose Rodriguez, who oversaw
the interrogation program, was
on a book tour, proudly defending
waterboarding and his own decision to destroy videos of interrogations in which it was used.
In the Kiriakou case, prosecuting the actual torturers wasn’t in
Fitzgerald’s purview. Unlike the
Valerie Plame investigation, where
Federal
Prosecutor
Patrick
Fitzgerald
heads to court
in 2005.