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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend....
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To: Sully- who wrote (524)1/5/2004 10:38:18 AM
From: Sully-   of 35834
 
Ashcroft's Recusal: Avoiding Going After the Press.

Indiana Law Blog:
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I just realized there is a third reason beyond the two of No Prosecution and Unexpected Criminals for Attorney-General Ashcroft's removing himself from the Plame Affair prosecution: He doesn't want to put reporters in jail. They hate him already for his politics and religiosity, and if he vigorously pursues an investigation in which reporters are the main witnesses, he will have to make reporters talk, which they don't want to do. The media will scream "Reporters jailed for contempt--- Nazi Tactics!" if he pursues the investigation, and "Officials allowed to leak without punishment--Nazi Tactics!" if he does not. How clever of the Democrats! But recusal gets him out of it. Here is what Time says.

It's plain that White House officials are under some pressure to sign the documents. "They can't refuse," said one individual who's familiar with the case. "The worst thing to be accused of here is not cooperating with the investigation." But reporters are not likely to feel the same pressure. Journalists rarely divulge the identities of confidential sources even when threatened with contempt citations so the releases may make little difference. Still, in a post-9/11 world, a case involving the disclosure of a covert agent's identity could be taken very seriously by a judge, who would have the power to jail a member of the press for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury.
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For an administration that at times holds a very dim view
of the press, the reputation of the Bush White House and
the future of some of its officials may hang on the
profession’s ethical standards.

This captures Ashcroft's problem. The White House is fully
cooperative, and in any case an official who refused to
talk could be jailed for contempt unless he took the
Fifth. But journalists are uncooperative, and although
they too could be jailed for contempt, they would claim
their refusal to help a criminal investigation
was "ethical", a matter of high duty rather than just the
self-interest it is.
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