Prosecutors have agendas and keep score cards, anyone disputing that is uninformed or in denial.

Mike Nifong indicted three players from the Duke Lacrosse team after he had specific information the three student-athletes were more than likely not involved with a rape allegation. Nifong has since recused himself from the case but may face sanctions or disbarment because of misconduct and ethical violations.

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is facing trial after being indicted in a case that should not have come to trial. In the Libby case the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, indicted Mr. Libby of lying to cover up a leak he didn’t commit and Fitzgerald new well in advance Libby didn’t lead anything.

Prosecutors claim that Mr. Libby discussed Ms. Plame with at least three reporters. However, last September, Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state, acknowledged publicly that he was the original source who told Mr. Novak that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. Mr. Fitzgerald apparently knew that Mr. Armitage was the original source throughout his two-year investigation.

Fitzgerald claims Mr. Libby lied when he told investigators he learned of Ms. Plame’s identity from Mr. Russert, Washington bureau chief of NBC News. The government alleges Mr. Libby learned of Ms. Plame’s identity from his boss, the vice president.

Prosecutor’s Motivation

The Wall Street Journal is reporting Libby and Fitzgerald “have crossed legal paths” previously. Here is where the details get very interesting.

Before he joined the Bush Administration, Mr. Libby had, for a number of years in the 1980s and 1990s, been a lawyer for Marc Rich. Mr. Rich is the oil trader and financier who fled to Switzerland in 1983, just ahead of his indictment for tax-evasion by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bill Clinton pardoned Mr. Rich in 2001, and so the feds never did get their man. The pardon so infuriated Justice lawyers who had worked on the case that the Southern District promptly launched an investigation into whether the pardon had been “proper.” One former prosecutor we spoke to described the Rich case as “the single most rancorous case in the history of the Southern District.”

Who were the Justice lawyers that became so “infuriated”  at Clinton’s pardon of Rich?

Two of the prosecutors who worked on the Rich case over the years were none other than Mr. Fitzgerald and James Comey, who while Deputy Attorney General appointed Mr. Fitzgerald to investigate the Plame leak. Mr. Fitzgerald worked in the Southern District for five years starting in 1988, at the same time that Mr. Libby was developing a legal theory of Mr. Rich’s innocence in a bid to get the charges dropped. The prosecutors never did accept the argument, but Leonard Garment, who brought Mr. Libby onto the case in 1985, says that he believes Mr. Libby’s legal work helped set the stage for Mr. Rich’s eventual pardon.

Connecting the Dots

Mr. Libby and Mr. Comey tangled more recently as well. In 2004, as Mr. Fitzgerald was gearing up his investigation, Mr. Libby was the Administration’s point man in trying to get Justice to sign off on the NSA wiretapping program.

In early 2004, Mr. Comey was acting Attorney General while John Ashcroft recovered from gall bladder surgery, and Mr. Comey reportedly refused to give the NSA program the greenlight, prompting the White House to seek out Mr. Ashcroft in the hospital in a bid to circumvent Mr. Comey.

In the end, Mr. Libby had nothing to cover up, so what would he have been lying about? The evidence is as thin as canned chicken soup. Politics and “payback” should not allow prosecutors free rein to abuse an individuals Constitutional rights, which could lead to personal financial ruin, lost reputations and prison time.

The Duke and Libby cases both had extensive pre-trial publicity provided by the prosecutor’s in each case. So much for rule of law and a fair judicial system when the prosecutors have motivation unrelated to enforcing the law.