Fitz's TWO wintesses... EPIPHANY TIME

[berni_mccoy]

From the U.S. Constitution:

Section. 3.
Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Things that make you go hmmmm...

Could it be...

[texpatriot2004]

1. Hmm. nm

[helderheid]

2. HMMMM!

[MADem]

3. VERY WELL DONE berni!!! VERY WELL DONE! nt

[berni_mccoy]

6. Thank YOU MADem

You always make great posts.

[MADem]

15. You just hit a home run, yourself--short, oh so sweet, and to the point!

You may now go to the head of the class!!!

[dubyaD40web]

4. Hmmmm......

[alittlelark]

5. interesting........

:evilgrin:

[Tom Joad]

7. Aid to our enemies? Like giving Bush a campaign contribution? nt

[IndyOp]

8. Fitz's -- Patrick Fitzgerald -- not Fritz's

For a second I was wondering what Fritz Mondale had to do with Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation....

:eyes:

[NYC Liberal]

11. I read it as FRIST..heh

[berni_mccoy]

14. DOH! Fitzed it.

[IndyOp]

24. Interesting insight by the way - ;-) (nt)

[Catrina]

9. hmmmmm!!!

[Pharaoh]

10. BW#AA BBBWWAAHAA!!

hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!

[yodermon]

12. so what is the legal requirement for proving:

levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort?

How many cases of Treason have been prosecuted? When was the last one?

Depending on what the destruction of Brewster Jennings & assoc. wrought on our intelligence capabilities, and in what manner it aided al Queda, Taliban, etc., could it be construed as "adhering to our enemies", or even an overt "act of war"?

Hmmmm indeed.

[merbex]

13. By "outing " an agent of the CIA -this gave our enemies aid and comfort

and it looks like way more than 2 people could be witnesses to the same overt act

[berni_mccoy]

27. Sounds like TREASON to me!

:-)

[leesa]

51. Especially an agent tracking WMDs at a time we were about to go to war

for WMDs. It's about as treasonable as you can get, it seems.

[goclark]

16. Does that mean that Rove and Libby have to go?

And, can we get more in the package like GW and DC ?

[spuddonna]

17. SNAP! It's on!!!

lol Nice catch! :)

The question is, who will the testimony be against?

[mzmolly]

18. Things that make ya go hmmmmm, hmmmmmmm, hmmmmmm

*snaps fingers*

[soothsayer]

19. Is all the "hmming" because we know there are 2? I'm lost! help!

Sounds like we should all be happy about this? Someone say why. I must be behind the curve a bit.

[DemReadingDU]

20. Hmmm - John Hannah & David Wurmser

[hvn_nbr_2]

22. I think it's because of recent rumors that a second person close to Cheney

has flipped. I'm drawing a blank on names, except the second is something like David Wumser???

[On the Road]

55. Yes -- the "Wurmster" Has Turned!

:smoke:

[soothsayer]

33. thanks!

[hvn_nbr_2]

21. I've been speculating about this for some time and nobody ever responded

I've wondered if the reason he was so hot on getting Judy Miller's testimony was that she was a second witness to something, but I couldn't come up with a good idea of what. Given news of the last couple days, David Wumser(spelling?) might be a second to something. If he does have treason in mind, it's probably from very early on in the investigation, based on info from CIA/Brewster-Jennings, and the two (turning?) witnesses may not even have a clue that treason is what he's after.

[TNOE]

23. B.E.A.U. TIFUL!

God I hope so!

[lala_rawraw]

25. Brilliant!

[lovuian]

26. Republicans the traitors Party!!!

Treason is what this is!!!

[rustydad]

28. Yes, yes, but.....

What if Fitz is going way beyond the treason of outing a CIA operative? The real treason here is the use of forged and false *evidence* to get Congress to give bush the war powers and invade Iraq. The yellow cake forgeries were key to the convincing of Congress and the American people. Now we have 2000 war dead soldiers, 10,000 wounded, 100,000 Iraqis dead, God knows how many wounded. All this because bush et all lied, lied, lied. That is a crime beyond any outing of an agent. If Fitz is going after the real crime prepare for a violent reaction from the bush crime team. Bob

[berni_mccoy]

29. That too is a distinct possibility...

And both issues are intertwined, so it would not be suprising.

[berni_mccoy]

30. It just occurred to me...

Imagine if EVERYONE IN THE ADMIN involved is convicted of TREASON. We would be looking at a DO-OVER Administration...

21 TRAITORS IN the BUSH ADMINISTRATION!

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. I write four months ago that Fitz was going after

treason if he could nail it, and I think he has.

Good, somebody else is paying attention

Now here is the next question. What is the penalty for treason in time of war? If you said the gallows you are correct (and the only case where I support it fully, not becuase it has any effect on preventing it, but so far we have close to 3K of our troops and over 100,000 Iraqis who have died)

[renate]

32. happy happy joy joy!!!!!

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:
Oh, and for those who will be convicted of treason,
:nopity:
one lone violin.

[Straight Shooter]

34. Hmmmmmm. Osama was most certainly comforted by the B/J exposure

When Brewster Jennings was blown wide open thanks to Cheney and his gang of merry thugs, with the duped assistance of Rove, you can bet that Osama was very pleased. Why try to destroy the U.S. from without, when its very own (mis)leaders are doing such a grand job of destroying it from within?

BTW, Berni, nice to see someone else misspells "witnesses" like I do, "wintesses" :)

[berni_mccoy]

35. Doh! Damn, I thought I spell-checked it!

[lovuian]

36. Not only did Osama knock out (9/11 but he got B& J too

all in one stroke with the help of Cheney!!!

[goforit]

38. Beg to differ, but Osama is them. Inside - outside.

[Straight Shooter]

39. Shhhhh .... fweepers watching.

Don't want to burst their little twin bubbles of illusion and delusion. ;)

[No Exit]

41. Yup!

But we can't say this because then we're "crazy conspiracy theorists". And the people who call us that are people who believe in the craziest conspiracy of all: that which says 19 Arabs just happened to drive jetliners into buildings, leading us to "have to" invade Afghanistan (because Afghanistan was harboring "their leader"), coincidentally right around the time an attack of Afghanistan had ALREADY BEEN PLANNED because we needed to get control of Afghanistan so Unocal could build a pipeline there.

[goforit]

37. Hmmmm......Hats off to Bernie!! Chavez hands free copies of const. to all

[berni_mccoy]

40. UPDATE: WHOA!

This article http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5119625

SUPPORTS THAT FITZ IS LOOKING AT TREASON.

I don't usually dare get my hopes up, but this is one thing that Bush CAN NOT PARDON (technically he can, but he would likely be impeached for doing so).

I've been extremely pessimistic in the past because the crimes I thought would come out of this, Bush could just pardon away.

But now..., I'll pull a little hope out on this news.

:popcorn:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

42. No.

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

Unless you think they were working for the Iraqi insurgency or al-Qaeda.

[berni_mccoy]

43. Read several posts above, it IS TREASON

The destruction of Brewster Jennings and the Outiing of a secret CIA agent in charge of PROTECTING US from WMD is AIDING our ENEMIES. PERIOD.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

44. No, again.

Because that isn't the definition of treason.

Here is the relevant text:

adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort

In other words, you must be an adherent of the enemy and intentionally give them aid and comfort as part of your adherence to them.

So it doesn't apply here. Incidentally assisting the enemy is NOT treason.

[berni_mccoy]

45. There is nothing incidental about what the administration has done.

And there is NO NEED to have a specific enemy to help in order to be considered a traitor.

Here is the list of convicted U.S. TRAITORS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_convicted_or_accused_traitors#United_States

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

46. First of all...

That list is factually wrong in at least two places, and probably more. Neither John Pollard nor Timothy McVeigh were ever convicted of treason.

Second of all, I don't see one single instance in that list where the person being charged with treason (again, excluding the places where the list is factually incorrect) was doing anything other than working specifically for a foreign government.

Which makes sense, since that is what the definition of treason requires.

Edit: The case of Pollard actually demonstrates why treason isn't applicable here. I don't know how I can make it any more clear than that.

[berni_mccoy]

47. I understand what you are saying

You are taking a strict interpretation of the letter of the law (Constitution). However, this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason#United_States

Shows that treason isn't that tightly defined in the U.S. The Congress has expanded the definition to include things like espionage.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

49. Espionage is espionage...

...and it is a different crime. Legally speaking, it is not treason and therefore isn't relevant to the assertion made at the top of the thread.

I don't know whether or not they could be tried with espionage because I don't know enough about the espionage statutes to make an informed comment. I do know, however, that they are not treason as has been discussed in the context of this thread. Whether you want to call espionage treason is entirely up to you, but the legal definition (which is what I thought this thread was about) is not up for debate.

[leesa]

52. I personally think they ARE AlQaeda.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

54. Well, George Bush *is* an Islamic Fundamentalist.

(obviously)

Dammit, can't find the lyrics to that song now.

[dogday]

48. Let's put it this way

What would the Republicans say? They would yell indignantly from the rooftops that this is treason. They would be so disgusted and appalled.... They would make the biggest deal of this that they could, it would be the talking point of the party.....

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

50. Yeah, they used to use the T word with Clinton all the time.

Of course, they've accused Clinton of every possible criminal act in the US legal code at one time or another.

[berni_mccoy]

53. MORE developments indicating a TREASON tract for the investigation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5123059&mesg_id=5123059

Fitz is narrowing in on WHY A REPORTER would be given SECRET CLEARANCE. I think Fitz will find that she either
1. WAS NOT given clearance or
2. was given clearance but certain officials didn't know it (as she testified) or
3. WAS Ordered to release the info by certain officials in an orchestrated attempt to destroy the CIA operation on WMD