Here is Fred Thompson's comment on the Libby trial. Notice the snarky AP editorial comment at the end that this is the same complaint that Democrat's made about the Special Prosecutor that investigated President Clinton. There is one difference: Clinton was guilty while it was known from the beginning that Libby did not leak the name of a covert CIA agent did; if Plame was indeed covert, Libby was not the person who revealed it. Based on what I have seen of the trial I'd say that Tim Russert is more probably the liar. Russert is certainly revealed as a weasel who criticized other reporters for talking to the FBI when he had done it himself, but not admitted it.

Fred Thompson contends Libby prosecutor out of control

WASHINGTON Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson today criticized Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's handling of the C-I-A leak investigation.

The Republican former lawmaker said the prosecutor had to have known from the start that it was not a crime to disclose Valerie Plame's identity as an agent.

That isn't what Libby is charged with.

The C-I-A asked for a Justice Department inquiry into possible violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which led to the five-count indictment charging Libby with perjury and obstruction of the F-B-I investigation.

A fundraiser for the defense of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Thompson depicted Fitzgerald as out of control, telling A-B-C News there was "no brake and no check and no balance" on the prosecutor.

Thompson's objections are the same ones Democratic politicians made in the 1990s about independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who spent six years investigating President Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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