"Politics" and the Libby Prosecution:
The Scooter Libby case has triggered some very weird commentary around the blogosphere; perhaps the weirdest claim is that the case against Libby was "purely political."
I find this argument seriously bizarre. As I understand it, Bush political appointee James Comey named Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the Plame leak. Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Fitzgerald filed an indictment and went to trial before Bush political appointee Reggie Walton. A jury convicted Libby, and Bush political appointee Walton sentenced him. At sentencing, Bush political appointee Judge Walton described the evidence against Libby as "overwhelming" and concluded that a 30-month sentence was appropriate. And yet the claim, as I understand it, is that the Libby prosecution was the work of political enemies who were just trying to hurt the Bush Administration.
I find this claim bizarre. I'm open to arguments that parts of the case against Libby were unfair. But for the case to have been purely political, doesn't that require the involvement of someone who was not a Bush political appointee? Who are the political opponents who brought the case? Is the idea that Fitzgerald is secretly a Democratic party operative? That Judge Walton is a double agent? Or is the idea that Fitzgerald and Walton were hypnotized by "the Mainstream Media" like Raymond Shaw in the Manchurian Candidate? Seriously, I don't get it.
I find this argument seriously bizarre. As I understand it, Bush political appointee James Comey named Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the Plame leak. Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Fitzgerald filed an indictment and went to trial before Bush political appointee Reggie Walton. A jury convicted Libby, and Bush political appointee Walton sentenced him. At sentencing, Bush political appointee Judge Walton described the evidence against Libby as "overwhelming" and concluded that a 30-month sentence was appropriate. And yet the claim, as I understand it, is that the Libby prosecution was the work of political enemies who were just trying to hurt the Bush Administration.
I find this claim bizarre. I'm open to arguments that parts of the case against Libby were unfair. But for the case to have been purely political, doesn't that require the involvement of someone who was not a Bush political appointee? Who are the political opponents who brought the case? Is the idea that Fitzgerald is secretly a Democratic party operative? That Judge Walton is a double agent? Or is the idea that Fitzgerald and Walton were hypnotized by "the Mainstream Media" like Raymond Shaw in the Manchurian Candidate? Seriously, I don't get it.
Dammit Orin, now I'm going to have to activate the regional sleeper agent and have you killed. Where did I put Tyler Cowen's phone number.
When you're a big shot lawyer or judge it's hard to admit, there's nothing here I wasted my time and the government's money. You need to come up with something. Anything. In this case Libby was the victim. In another case it was lacrosse players.
Is that really the best you can do -- speculation that perhaps all of these Bush political appointees got "caught up in an anti-Bush frenzie [sic] in anticipation of a Hillary presidency in 2009"?
Anyone who gets in the way of Bush, his administration, and his cronies, has made their actions "political." I suppose it's just a logical extension of their theory that when you politicize absolutely everything, anyone who disagrees with you must be doing so for political reasons.
This reminds me of the old prosecutor's summation, in which, to bolster the cooperating witness's credibility, the pros launches into a speech beginning with "you might not like this drugdealer, and you might prefer that we brought a priest or a rabbi to bear witness to these crimes, but the truth is, priests and rabbis don't generally have knowledge about the details of organized crime killings."
To say that a "nobody" wouldn't have been prosecuted is really a meaningless statement; because by definition no "nobody" could have been involved in this investigation. Scooter Libby was convicted because he perjured and obstructed a criminal investigation at the highest levels of our government. No "nobody" would be involved in such a scenario.
I'm curious -- do you think the case against Clinton was political?
So, had Bush let Libby go to jail, a whole lot of Bush administration would officials would be in a flipping panic right now. And start turning informer, or at least bailing out with Bush unable to find replacements.
So it really is political.
22 CFR 40.21 (a) (6)
Political offenses. The term "purely political offense", as used in INA 212(a)(2)(A)(i)(I), includes offenses that resulted in convictions obviously based on fabricated charges or predicated upon repressive measures against racial, religious, or political minorities.
I let you draw your own conclusion as to whether Libby's conviction meets that definition.
Of course, when you look back at Clinton's defense of
his more controversial pardons... wow. How I miss having a President like that, even if you disagreed with him.
Question for the people who bring up Sandy Berger: What sentence do you think Berger would have gotten if, instead of pleading guilty, he lied about his crime and never accepted responsibility even after he was convicted?
The appointment of a Special Prosecutor was entirely "political." At the time it occurred, the President was being buffeted by incessant claims that there was some sort of high level "cover-up" going on to protect the Plame leaker-- who was assumed to be Dick Cheney.
The facts turned out to be much less interesting (at least from a "political" point of view. There was NO cover-up, and there was no murderous cabal at the highest reaches of our government. Scooter Libby got caught up in that poisonous atmosphere, and was caught by a Special Prosecutor who knew that he had zip, nada, zilch to show for his $70million dollar investigation. He threw the book at Libby because he believed that he would look like a fool if he came away completely empty handed.
That's the politics people are referring to. If it still isn't clear, Orin, then I ask you, "Was Kenneth Starr "politically" motivated?" Did he have an axe to grind? Was he hellbent on politically damaging President Clinton? Why do you think he is any different than Fitzgerald?
Just another small observation-- I remember being told, over and over, by the press exactly how many tens of millions of dollars the Starr investigation cost. Strangely, I haven't seen one, not a single one, story about how much money Fitzgerald's Folly cost us! Strange....
In summation, the politics was two-fold-- there was Fitz struggling mightily to save himself from ridicule should he come away from the Plame affair empty-handed, and there were the usual denizens of the Left who were willing to fluff and hype the Plame story for their own benefit. Clear? Libby was a necessary fall guy, not for the White house, but for ass-covering Fitz and his Democratic cheering section. Ever heard that politics makes for strange bedfellows?? Well, here's your proof.
(I'm too tired to edit/proof this thing so... I beg your indulgence.)
Fitzgerald himself tried to make it political issue to the jury. I'd also be much more comfortable if he had charged the actual leaker. Even if he had granted immunity to Armitage, the grant was no longer valid because Armitage lied to Fitgerald by concealing his earlier leaks to Woodward and Pincus. It is Fitzgerald's own statments and his disperate treatment of Libby and Armitage that make it seem like there was a political element to to the prosecution to me.
Joe Wilson's op-ed was one of a number of revelations that held the promise of exposing what actually happened in the run-up to the war. This could have publicly validated the suspicions of those who are politically opposed to the President's policies, who believe that he has followed a fundamentally mistaken strategy and has governed unwisely.
The Fitzgerald investigation into the administration's exposing of Wilson's wife as a CIA agent and the subsequent Libby trial for obstructing the investigation are only important, in the wider sense, in that they could have exposed to the light some of the misdeeds of the administation.
The disappointment is that this promise has not been fulfilled, though there are plenty of strong indications of dubious behind-the-scenes machinations.
The political aspect is that the real story of the beginnings of the Iraq war has not yet been told.
Why should the views of people not involved in the case matter? And what's the basis for your speculation about Fitzgerald's motives?
Reg,
I make no such claim, obviously.
for anybody who paid any attention, politics played a significant role in everything that happened in this case.
Reg, can you explain why? What were the political motives of the Bush political appointees here?
So tell me, Professor Kerr, do you REALLY like the idea of prosecutions occurring for political reasons?
Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence. See post, supra.
"Was the case against Clinton political?"
C'mon. He went on camera, took an oath and lied. People told him not to, told him he'd be indicted or impeached, and he went and did it anyway. How is objecting to that "political"?
Just so I understand, you agree that the case against Libby is not political? (C'mon, he went before the grand jury and lied, right?)
The prosecution/investigation as a whole was partisanly political - the NYT editorial page and Schumer D-NY, at least, were screaming for a Special Prosecutor, and the Bush Administration gave them one, and let him go unsupervised. One might have thought that the lesson of the devastation caused by unsupervised prosecutors had been learned, apparently not.
Personal politics
Some time ago, but I think earlier this year, I read that there was bad blood between Comey/Fitzgerald on the one hand, and Libby on the other as a result of Libby "interfering" in something that Fitzgerald, at least, and Comey, his bud, were doing. Pay back is a bitch. I'm sorry, I don't remember any more than that. Maybe it was a Novak column, I don't remember.
"there was no underlying crime"
With respect to the "there was no underlying crime", I ask this: Since Fitzgerald's charge was to find out who leaked Plame's status to the press and so "outed" her, and since Armitage and Colin Powell said Fitzgerald was told on his first day on the job that Armitage outed her, why did Fitzgerald continue on for another two years? Why did he put Judith Miller in the can? Just WTF was going on?
What about the facts in evidence? If lying to the FBI, a prosecutor, or a Grand Jury is a crime, why was Armitage let off the hook? Armitage concealed from Fitzgerald that he had leaked Plame to Woodward and Pincus. We know that because Fitzgerald said at his original press conference that Libby was the first to leak Plame. Later when it came out that Armitage concealed the real first leak, why wasn't he charged? Admittedly there are two other possiblities, one that Armitage didn't conceal the earlier leaks from Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald lied about it in the press conference announcing the Libby's indictments, or it could have been incompetence, if Fizgerald didn't ask Armitage if he talked about Plame to anyone else besides Novak. But I don't think anyone believes Fitzgerald is a lier or incompetent, so the only conclusion I can draw is that Fitgerald decided for political reasons that Libby made a more compelling case than Armitage.
Of course the politics Fitzgerald was considering could have been his own political future, rather than national politics.
A book coauthored by NEWSWEEK's Michael Isikoff details Richard Armitage's central role in the Valerie Plame leak.
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
Link, which may or may not be good
What are Fitzgerald's personal political ambitions? Why would a GOP political appointee ruin his future in GOP politics if his goal was to be elected? Why would you think that Democrats would nominate and elect a Republican like Fitzgerald? For what office? Seems like some extremely far-fetched speculation to me.
As for the Armitage issue, I don't quite follow: If Armitage committed an equally serious crime, then presumably you think he should be indicted, too, right?
"Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald ... has spent $1.4 million in his probe over the past three years" whereas "Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr's investigations of President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica S. Lewinsky and his ties to the failed Whitewater land investment cost $71.5 million and took eight years. Independent Counsel David M. Barrett's examination of Clinton housing secretary Henry G. Cisneros over an extramarital affair and potential illegal payments cost $21 million and lasted 10 years."
So, comparatively small, quick and inexpensive investigation that avoided leaks and resulted in convictions, compared to Starr's boondoggle?
Once he knew Armitage leaked Plame, to both Woodward and Novak, why did Fitzgerald continue on? Armitage didn't know Plame was in a covert status of some sort, so he hadn't violated any statute. Why wasn't that the end of the investigation?
Why nominate and elect? Why not appoint and confirm, to an AG position? Has he no ambition to move up in the DoJ hierarchy?
Some high profile Republican scalps hanging from the belt of a Republican prosecutor in a Democratic state like Illinois certainly wouldn't hurt said prosecutor running for a statewide office. I'm just speculating of course, but clearly you can acknowlege that it wouldn't hurt.
And yes I do think Armitage should have been indicted. It probably wasn't a crime to leak Plame, but it does seem pretty clear that Armitage was at least as guilty of lying and obstruction of justice as Libby was. And whatever immunity he might have been granted could have been withdrawn when it came out that he concealed information.
In fact it was because Armitage was not indicted that I suspect Fitzgeralds motivations in the case. He should have been livid that Armitage lied to him, but didn't seem to care.
We all must agree with you that perjury before a grand jury is not always a bad thing.
I suppose. The one thing that doesn't really sit well with me is the Judith Miller situation. I am still not entirely sure why someone needed to go to jail when Fitzgerald knew it was Armitage. For all the ridiculous Clinton shenaningans, I don't recall the Starr affair leading to anyone going to prison.
"Libby (and others who probably committed perjury and/or obstruction of justice, but have not been prosecuted) obstructed an investigation into matters affecting the lives of millions of people and the integrity of the American democracy."
Except he didn't. Just because the investigation was tangentially related to those issues doesn't mean it actually was, and Libby's perjury did not relate to any of that at all. Again, the prosecution troubles me since it boiled down to misplaced aggression. I don't like the idea of a prosecutor searching for a crime.
This seems more and more a conviction that was intended not for justice but to make a statement to Bush and Cheney that they are both basically sons of Satan. I don't think it's a stretch to say Fitzgerald crapped all over Libby simply because he was the weakest link, and without him Fitz would have walked away in disgrace without ANY kind of conviction.
We ought to call for a special prosecutor to investigate the special prosecutor. :-)
As an extra special bonus, Libby continues to have the convenient option to take the 5th, to avoid testifying to Congress.
And as an extra, extra special bonus Bush may give him a full pardon in Bush's final days in office.
It is clear that the Administration considers itself above the law. No habeas and indefinite detentions for accused unlawful enemy combatants, commuted sentences and zero jail for administration officials actually convicted in a court of law with full benefit of the finest council money can buy. Laws are for other people.
You're claiming that you know how much Fitz has spent, and then in your next breath you point out that you haven't seen a report indicating how much Fitz has spent. Huh? As Brian pointed out, you seem to be mixing up Fitz and Starr.
"There was NO cover-up"
The White House said that Rove and Libby weren't involved. Trouble is, they were. That's a "cover-up." It's also a lie.
Libby et al, while outing Plame, insisted that reporters hide their identity. That's also a "cover-up."
I asked this question on the prior thread, but maybe you missed it. If Libby was acting properly, and believed he was acting properly (in discussing Plame's employment status with Miller), why did Libby insist that Miller hide his identity?
lev: "Armitage outed her … Why wasn't that the end of the investigation? "
Because he wasn't the only one who leaked. Libby, Rove and Fleischer (at least) did, too.
I tend to think some of the people who are saying this was political simply mean that this was a high profile prosecution about a case that involves issues that a lot of people care a great deal about, and in all the fuss it became something very different from a prosecutor who is simply doing his duty: that is, a neutral investigation into the facts to see if a crime had been committed.
I don't know whether Fitzgerald is a Republican or a Democrat, or a supporter of the Bush administration or a fierce opponent. I think it very possible that he had no partisan motivations whatsoever-- maybe he simply began a costly, high profile investigation and didn't want to come up empty. Maybe he liked the limelight. It is not rare at all for prosecutors not to want to let go of a case, even if the facts aren't panning out the way they thought.
But to me the bottom line is that Fitzgerald knew, three years ago, that there was no underlying crime. He kept going with the investigation hoping some one would commit a crime during its course. And he was lucky enough to find someone stupid enough to do so. There is something truly wrong in that. A prosecutor ought to be prepared to drop his investigation when he knows a crime has not occurred. And though I believe that what Nifong did was in an entirely different league, the similarity is that inability of a prosecutor to see dropping a case because no crime was committed as a successful outcome.
I am not a supporter of the Bush administration-- not by a long shot. In fact, if members of either party drew up articles of impeachment right now I'd probably cheer them on-- that's how much I'm not a supporter of the Bush administration. I think Bush has ruined practically everything he touches. And I think Libby was very wrong to lie to investigators. He should have just shut up. But I don't want to live in a society where prosecution fishing expeditions are a common occurrence, no matter how much I hate this administration.
From the article linked in the post:
It sounds like he is being sentenced for his role in the 'leak' that wasn't a leak, rather than the lying.
Also from the article:
Again, is he being sentenced for the leaking information, which he was not convicted of, or for obstruction and purjury?
I don't know what Walton and Fitzgerald's motivations are here, be they political, personal, or brain washing. But I just don't get why they are making these arguments here. They seem to be arguing that he should be punished for the "Underlying Crime" that isn't there. Stating that there WAS no underlying crime seems fair in this circumstance, if these are the arguments given by those prosecuting and sentencing him.
Maybe this is just media characterization, though. I guess secret agents, government cover ups, and CIA leaks are a more interesting story than false statements in front of grand juries. The article doesn't really go into what Libby lied about.
Also, when it came time to actually charge Clinton, Starr was in a weak political positition. Clinton took advantage of that and got a good deal. And if you don't deal, you get hammered.
Now, Mr. Kerr, given the fact that almost everyone thinks the contrary about Iraq, Bush and Cheney, Libby and Wilson/Plame, wouldn't you be boiling mad at this conviction? Of course you would! Libby was a scalp in the hands of Leftist conspiracy fanatics, proving that Bush "fixed" the intelligence falsely justifying the war against Iraq (despite the fact that the Clinton authored and signed Iraq Liberation act of October 1998 had the same policy aims as Bush, and that President Clinton said he would have done the same as Bush after 9/11 (but taking longer at the UN, of course - Clinton always took longer) and removed Sadda. Thus, they claim, Bush/Cheney deserve to be impeached!
Even that dour Dean of Washington pundits, David Broder, counseled against the bamboozling the mediacracy succumbed to in promoting the "Bush lied" Wilson/Plame game story line (September 7, 2006; Page A27),
citing Sidney Blumenthal, Newsweek, and The American Prospect among those who had gone off the rails of all reason. Surely, entire books about this wrong-headed witchhunt remain to be written, which will wildly expand the list of the few culprits Broder cites.
Broder concludes: "all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts." The Left that not many years ago embraced the slogan "move on" just can't.
Clinton lied in the Paula Jones lawsuit, THE MAN holding the highest office in the land, sworn to uphold the law! In a case brought under a law Clinton himself signed into law.
There are none of the multiple ironies at work in the Libby case that there were with Clinton. And why Clinton and Blumenthal get almost no punsihment while Republicans do, I can only point to withunts led by Democrat-cheering MSMers. Certainly, even Murray Waas, whose new book on the Libby case even acknowledges justoneminute.typepad blogger Tom McGuire's efforts - while expunging all of McGuire's context-filled facts-based posts, and recycling the hoary cliche: Libby lied to coverup Bush's lies about Iraq and punish Joe Wilson, the Truth teller!
Such fantasies keep on selling because of how Libby was lynched by an MSM-led mob, unlike the facts surrounding Clinton that remain the unalterable Truth.
The WP editorial you cited is even more careless with the facts than a key WP article that I discussed here.
It's an interesting comparison, because many of the same phony talking points appear in both places.
Nice try. Actually the Jury suggested that Libby was a fall guy for crimes which were actually comitted. They never suggested he was innocent or should be pardoned.
Sorry sparky, a REPUBLICAN controlled senate acquitted him. Scooter was found guilty.
But the arguments will fail miserably:
Good point. The core message of the whole story is this: convicted felons end up in jail, except if you're a big shot in the GOP.
Obviously, there is no good answer to your question. The political conspiracy theorists could maybe deal with Fitzgerald on a runaway prosecutor theory, but that storyline becomes unsupportable when you include Judge Walton (who was actually responsible for giving Libby the sentence President Bush commuted), and simply laughable when you include the appellate panel.
So why do they keep reiterating this talking point over and over? Because it has been their assigned talking point from the very beginning (that all this is just the "criminalization of politics"), and as you should know by now, these folks do not let facts and subsequent developments get in the way of their talking points.
The criminal justice system is suspect.
I would expect that all of these people who suspect juries can make mistakes would now shudder in horror that we might actually execute a person, just because a jury says that they are guilty.
One of the saddest parts of the commentary on this affair is that people are more or less explicitly making the argument that our excessively punitive criminal justice system is still perfectly fine for THOSE criminals. It is just a problem when applied to people like Libby, who everyone can see is not one of THOSE criminals.
Is it typical for both the District of D.C. and the D.C. Court of Appeals to deny a stay of a sentence following a conviction? I am not a criminal practitioner and simply don't understand this process, but it struck me as strange that both courts refused to stay Libby's prison sentence pending his appeal. I don't think there was any reason to believe that Libby was a flight risk, and I'm sure that he could have posted a (big) bond.
At least some of my Republican friends have imputed this into the "conspiracy theory," arguing that the courts denied Libby a stay in order to force Bush to commute the sentence. I don't want to believe that either the District of D.C. or the D.C. Circuit would engage in that kind of politicking, but I'd feel more confident if I knew they didn't deviate from "standard operating procedure" in denying him a stay.
There isn't. If there was, then it would be a trivial matter to leak government secrets left and right anonymously, and then the next shrug and say "hey, cat's out of the bag" and then confirm them officially. Further confirmation of a rumored but as yet unsourced claim is just as much a violation. I mean, people today are STILL arguing over whether Plame was covert in the sense covered by the statute even AFTER the CIA has plainly said she was.
So it makes no difference at all if someone "first" leaked the story to start things off. The main question in Fitzgerald's investigation was whether he could show that anyone _knowingly_ revealed the status of a covert agent: a fairly hard thing to establish in court. Though we don't know all the details, it seems that he felt there was reason to believe that it was known and reckless, but that he couldn't adequately prove state of mind with the evidence, in part BECAUSE people like Libby stonewalled and lied, obstructing the investigation.
The conservative cover story for this, of course, is that if Armitage revealed Plame worked for the CIA without knowing that she was covert, there was no issue. Nonsense, of course, but that's what an alternate reality wiki will do for ya.
I imagine judges almost always refuse such stays. Flight risks and all.
Also, as Public Defender mentioned, you get the book thrown at you if you go trial in Federal Courts. Furthermore, everyone knew Libby's sentence would be on the high side of the guidelines. Judge Walton has a well know (and well deserved) reputation as tough on sentences.
Was it purely political? No, but only in that neither being a Republican nor being a high-ranking Republican has yet to be criminalized. The crime of perjury is not an inherently political crime and it is a serious one.
Fitzgerald is just your average prosecutor going about his work, at the apex of his career and really, really, really, needing a conviction for anything to justify the resources he expended. For Fitz, this is just a matter of his being quite disengenuously, self-congratulatingly overzealous and succeeding in getting a guilty verdict on evidence too thin to support any conviction, let alone the sentence imposed. In short, nothing your average prosecutor isn't tempted to do on a regular basis, and what they do too commonly.
It became a primarily political prosecution when the overwhelming number of witnesses against Libby were persons of an opposite political persuasion, when his conviction was desperately bayed for by the Democratic Party, and when applying the same standards to the witnesses as were applied to the defendant could only justly result in their conviction as well, and on the same flimsy grounds.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Since he did nothing that was criminal, why should he suspect he would go to jail at all?
Ypurs, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
If Congress doesn't like it, they can impeach and remove.
If the voters don't like _that_, they can vote the bums out.
In the end, it's in the hands of the voters, and the government's fear of them ; not the legal system.
Similarly, with Libby we see a long chain of individuals, from Richard Armitage to Judith Miller to Valerie Plame who seem, to my mind, to have memory lapses at least as extensive as Libby's. When Judith Miller forgot discussing Plame on a particular phone call with Libby, Fitzgerald refreshed her memory with her notes; he didn't indict her for lying about the phone call. Ms. Plame has given several different, rather contradictory versions, under oath, of her role in her husband being sent to Nigeria on his mission. No special prosecutor has been appointed and given an unlimited budget to determine whether she lied to the FBI or Congress. As I understand it, there remains significant discrepancies between Ari Fleischer's testimony and the sworn statements of David Gregory, but nobody is being prosecuted for that, either.
Finally, sure, all those people were appointed at some level or another by President Bush. But the decision to appoint a special prosecutor was largely a political one, with Democrats and the New York Times and others demanding prosecution of this awful, terrible leak. Yes, the President made that decision to appoint a special prosecutor to devote the unchecked resources of the federal government in an effort to find a crime, but it was still a political decision, the President giving in to the demands of his political opponents. And frankly, I'm of the opinion that none of us live such pure lives, and have such pristine memories, that no special prosecutor, given unlimited resources, couldn't find some good reason to indict us.
See opinion from the D.C. Circut CoA in the Libby case:
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Judges Sentelle, Henderson and Tatel say the following:
“Upon consideration of the motion for release pending appeal, the opposition thereto, and the reply, it is
ORDERED that the motion for release pending appeal be denied. Appellant has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under 18 USC Sec. 3143(b)(1)(B). See United States v. Perholtz, 836 F.2d 554, 555 (D.C.Cir. 1987) (per curiam) (substantial question is one that is “close” or that “could very well be decided the other way”).
Notwithstanding the weeping and wailing of the right wing, Scooter's case was a slam dunk. Luckily for him, Scooter had a get out of jail free card. Here's how I imagine the scene:
Libby: Dick, I'm not going to jail.
Cheney: Scooter, George doesn't want to pardon you, you know it'll look bad.
Libby: Dick, I'M NOT GOING TO JAIL. (looks meaningfully at the notepad next to him with Pat Fizgerald's phone number underlined)
Cheney: I . . . understand. I'll see what I can do. Don't worry, I'll make sure you can still take the Fifth.
Presto: Commutation!
While I agree that there's no "cat's out of the bag" exception, one can't leak and then confirm officially because the leak itself is still a crime.
And the CIA did not "plainly say that she was" "covert in the sense covered by the statute." They plainly said she was covert, but not in the sense covered by the statute (which, incidentally, is a question for a judge, not the CIA. The CIA can authoritatively state the facts, but cannot authoritatively interpret the statute.)
Take the case of the boy who was sentenced for 10 years in prison for getting a consensual blowjob from someone just two years younger than himself all because it had happened in the wrong legislative year (since the law was changed to not be as ridiculous subsequently).
The prosecutor in this case has been harsh, but his defense is legitimate: the clear instruction of the law says to be harsh, and he is doing his duty. He could, of course, bend or break that law to reach a more sensible outcome. But that sets a terrible precedent.
The alternative is for the board of parole in this case to issue a pardon or commutation. That serves justice, but without any abuse of the idea that lawyers can stretch the law to reach the "right" results.
And I should add, the jurors should have been selected to be the most apolitical possibly jury, and I wonder about the part preferences of the jurors. Such misfortune for Libby is the only thing I can think of to explain a guilty verdict when the benefit of doubt was so clearly called for.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Considering the relative significance of the targets, I'd say there is no discrepancy here.
Also, impeachment is entirely a political judgement and not a criminal matter at all. It is the removal from office.
There is no reasonable doubt about whether Clinton perjured himself, he did.
From the collusion and story changing plaausibly going on among the journalists witnesses, doubt is certainly reasonable in the Libby case.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
They were? Can you provide a cite for this baseless assertion?
Of course not, you're just making this stuff up as you go.
Go ahead. Tell me it's not political.
Before someone gets the urge to repeat this nonsense, you must first actually quote one of us on this cite who addressed the Clinton issue head-on and defended his actions. Otherwise, STFU.
"It'd be a heck of a lot easier if this were a dictatorship. Just as long as I'm the dictator. hehe"
This is a non-response. Did you miss the part about how the initial leak is anonymous? i.e., yes it's still a crime, but one for which its near impossible to prove. Meanwhile, the confirmation and repitition by an official or in-the-know source is ALSO a crime.
Another example: if your client is accused of murder by someone, you can't come out and say "well, hey, I guess you all know now: he really is a murderer!" especially given that you could use that ability to tip the police off originally without them or anyone else tracing it back to you.
"They plainly said she was covert, but not in the sense covered by the statute (which, incidentally, is a question for a judge, not the CIA. The CIA can authoritatively state the facts, but cannot authoritatively interpret the statute.)"
True, but it's really not that hard. Simply knowing that she was a CIA agent who had been in the field was enough to compromise many of the sources and people she worked with overseas, which of course posed real dangers to many people's lives.
I'm not sure I understand how so many people thinks Fitzgerald already knew the "underlying" investigation had no merit. What evidence helps people reach this conclusion? Cause everything I've read indicates that the Fitzgerald had plenty of evidence (enough for probable cause and an indictment at least) that the IIPA was violated, but that proving intent would be a bear- since Fitz would have to prove that Scooter knew Plame was covert (and there was no evidence that) beyond a reasonable doubt.
I would only add, in response to Orin's question, that part of the answer is what you see in the blogosphere isn't always representative of what the bulk of Americans think. Bush is down to the low-thirties in approval rating, which means he's lost the middle of the country. Huge majorities, in polls, were against pardoning Libby, and I would bet that would extend to this demi-pardon. The people defending him on blogs represent a hardcore right-wing attitude that isn't going to desert Bush on Iraq-related matters, especially matters that indicate Bush and/or his administration was dishonest, vindictive, or otherwise badly motivated about the war. They have too much invested in believing otherwise. And they especially won't join in anything they believe aligns them with the hated liberal/left.
Now, the sophistries one has to tell oneself to stay on this message can indeed be bizarre. More importantly than Libby, we *still* see "The surge is working, we're winning!" stuff. As to Libbly, yeah, you have to somehow belive that all these Republicans and Republican appointees were out to get a Republican because . . . . he was a Republican? So far, the response you've gotten was, "Well, just because they were appointed by Republicans doesn't mean they were rabid ideological Republican hacks!" Of course, even if they weren't, that's not sufficient to show it was some sort of witch hunt, or to counter the obvious evidence against that theory. But we're getting down to a hard-core of true believers that, frankly, aren't going to be convinced by anything.
The moral high ground was available. Republicans just tossed it away, EXULTING in the claim that "Well, you did it too!"
&
What is the terrible precedent? That justice might be done.
Heavens forfend!
In fact:
fiat justitia ruat caelum
I do not fear any society or government wherein the organs of law enforcement and crime investigation forebear to prosecute if the feel justice will not be done. Negative liberty is all that is worthwhile and enduring true.
It's when the stretch the law and the facts to be just that little bit more harsh--or ridiculously so as in this case--then justice is not being done.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
It is self-evident. The witnesses were journalists. If this is not obvious to you, I suspect no evidence would serve to convince you.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
What?!? What case were you following? It is pretty clear that Libby perjured himself. Besides the fact that a jury found him guilty, there was never much doubt by either side that he would be found guilty. This case truly was a "slam dunk."
So sad, yet so true.
Those who still support Bush and Cheney aren't true conservatives, and certainly aren't libertarians. This shit ain't a game folks, and we do not belong to teams. This administration has been slowly destroying this country since Day 1, and the lack of outrage amongst seemingly-intelligent people is eerie. Whatever happened to suspicion of government? What about the fact that they're supposed to be working for US and serve at OUR pleasure?
The biggest irony regarding the "but but Clinton" crowd is that their perceived opponents are considerably less partisan than they. Many of the America-hating crazy liberals that I know would take Ron Paul, a true libertarian, over most if not all of the mainstream Dem. candidates right now.
But why let truth get in the way of some good talking points?
Re: Plunge’s link to Clinton’s op-ed piece explaining why he granted the pardons of Marc Rich and Pincus Green.
Reason #7: “the case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated ... by three distinguished Republican attorneys … [including] Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.”
So, does this mean Scooter had excellent foresight in favor of recommending pardons, was this fate, or irony, or something like that?
Re: Plunge’s link to Clinton’s op-ed piece explaining why he granted the pardons of Marc Rich and Pincus Green.
Reason #7: “the case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated ... by three distinguished Republican attorneys … [including] Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.”
So, does this mean Scooter had excellent foresight in favor of recommending pardons, was this fate, or irony, or something like that?
That said, the actual conviction depends on an investigation in which the actual perpetrator (Armitage) was known to the prosecution at the onset --- but went uncharged; in which the prosecutions theory about the whole case ("cloud over the Vice President's office") contradicts known facts, at least unless we posit that Cheney is Lucifer, responsible for the Fall of Man and all evil in the world --- since Armitage is the leaker and neither worked for Cheney nor was a political intimate of Cheney; in which one reporter was jailed for not revealing sources thought to be damning to Cheney et al, while others were apparently never even asked about sources exculpatory; and in which the final theory of the case depended on finding criminality in differing recollections of a few phone calls and conversations, months after the fact.
I realize that straining at gnats and swallowing camels is a required class in law school, but I would think that this simply strains credulity. Whatever the motivations.
You haven't seen the mass demonstrations &flag-burning of the 60s in this case because it's counterproductive. Liberals know that winning back the country means taking back hearts and minds from independents and moderates. In other words "we're just like you! And this Bush guy is a rich, sleazy, good ole boy!"
The defense was free to make all those points to the jury, but a conviction was still the result.
And the sentence was mandated by the Congressional sentencing guidelines, guidelines insisted upon by the Republican party in order to prohibit judges from taking into account such extraneous circumstances when deciding on a sentence for the defendant. Live by the guidelines, die by the guidelines, there's no exemption clause in the guidelines for defendants with friends in the White House.
And the "contradicts known facts, at least unless we posit that Cheney is Lucifer" hyperbole, is, IMHO, evidence for the point that I was making earlier about who is going to the wall to defend Bush's decision. It's really your hatred for liberals/the left (or your caricatures of them) that's motivating you here.
This is quite misleading (although explaining why is risky because it requires being politically incorrect).
Judge Walton is not conservative or a Bushie.
He's a scrupulously moderate judge who was nonetheless appointed in part because (a) Bush needed to appoint black judges to appease the Democrat-controlled Senate, which seeks "diversity"; (b) Judge Walton is black, and (c) there aren't many qualified conservative black judges in staunchly liberal Washington, D.C. (before his federal judicial appointment, Walton sat as a judge in the D.C. Superior Court), so a moderate like Walton had to do.
For Libby, Walton was a bad draw, both because Walton (a) is a relatively tough sentencer, and (b) wanted to show that he could be just as tough in sentencing a rich white guy as he is in sentencing the typical Washington, D.C. defendant, who is not white or wealthy. (Of course, Libby is no longer wealthy, having incurred a bankrupting $5 million in legal bills).
As I have noted before, Libby's sentence exceeded what the Federal Probation Office thought appropriate, and vastly exceeded what former Clinton Administration official Sandy Berger received for much worse conduct (lying and deliberate destruction of classified documents that were irreplaceable). Berger received no jail time.
So Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence but keep the $250,000 fine was not unreasonable.
(I am not disparaging Judge Walton's overall record. I think Judge Walton handles most civil and criminal cases well. But I think that in Libby's case his zeal to make an example of out what he perceived as a "privileged" defendant led him to impose an overly harsh sentence).
This would have been more difficult to prove to the jury. Possible, but more difficult.
I quote Milhouse, who wrote ("they" is the jury, below):
Doubt as to Libby's guilt is not merely reasonable, it is almost required by the full evidence available. Ceratinly, the unanimty a guilty verdict requires could not be arrived at absent partisan motivations.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Politics, lol.
Again, even after being debunked over and over the "Armitage spilled the beans" still keeps coming back, right in this very comment thread. That's because the MO here is to look into this issue just long enough to form a coherent enough _sounding_ argument (no merit! Spilled beans!) for consumption by people who haven't looked into or thought about the issue very much. It's a lot like creationism or 9/11 denialism: they hunt for strange sounding anomalies, but then stop there and look and think no further once they've satisfied hearing what they wanted to hear.
One can only hope this concern will extend to discussions of cases such as that kid in Georgia who got the 10-year sentence for consensual sex with an underage girl two years younger than him. Might it be worth knowing how many white kids were similarly prosecuted and sentenced for that sort of thing (hint: the answer would be "zero")? I look forward to right-wingers investigating thid sort of thing in the future.
And the number of black kids prosecuted under even vaguely similar circumstances is 1--the victim of prosecutorial overreach in question.
Don't be obtuse.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
A) Only very vaguely on point for this thread and;
B) Certainly true. There are parts of this country where a Republican being accused of a politically motivated crime is dramatically less likely to be able to have an unbiased jury, even if they exercise all their privileges to dismiss a prospective juror. There are also other parts of this country where I would hate to be a Democrat on trial for like reasons.
yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
So you're so far in the tank that Libby's singular case shows that the jurors must have exhibited partisan bias -- despite Republicans and Republican appointees being the prime movers. There's just no other explanation for you. But an incredibly excessive sentence against a black kid in Georgia isn't evidence of anything. And I'm the "obtuse" one?
Almost. It's actually the case against the case against Libby that is purely political.
If true, this is itself evidence the jury arrived at it's verdict because of political bias.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Incidentally, TDP's assertion that "[d]oubt as to Libby's guilt is not merely reasonable, it is almost required by the full evidence available" is what requires the ridiculous conclusion that not only the jury but also the Republican-appointed trial judge and the Republican-appointed appellate judges on the unanimous panel have "partisan motivations".
"Patrick J. Fitzgerald was special prosecutor in the investigation of the “leak” of Plame’s name. After Libby was found guilty of perjury on March 6, but before the judge sentenced Libby on June 5, Fitzgerald slipped into a court filing his opinion that Plame was a “covert” agent. Fitzgerald had never said this before, and making this argument prior to Libby’s sentencing was totally unethical.
No jury ever found Plame’s position to be “covert.” No trial had been held on that point. .. For introducing untested and prejudicial evidence before sentencing, Fitzgerald should have been held in contempt. For the prosecutor’s abuse of power, Libby deserved mercy."
It's sweet of you to try to set the limits of the topic, but in fact, it's your side -- defenders of Bush, and Libby -- that keep making the argument that Libby couldn't get a fair trial in DC (and that Clinton couldn't get convicted there either). Us liberal types have long noted that the race of a defendant can make a difference especially, say, in the deep south. Glad you're now with us!
Lev, American Cassandra get it almost exactly right, from diferent directions.
Kazinski gives the most plausible theory of Fitzgerald's motivation to state-wide office in Illinois.
I'm surprised that no ione yet has speculated that Fitzgerald wanted to flip Libby until the end - and was annoyed he was unable to do so. I'm also surprised that the paranoid partisan crowd hasn't yet claimed that Libby was being punished by Bush for supporting Clinton in anything.
Doesn't it strike you as odd that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald already had the answers to the questions he was appointed to discover prior to questioning Scooter Libby?
I don't know that he was treated unfairly in the judicial process but, I think it rather odd that Fitzgerald would question Libby at all given that he already knew Richard Armitage was the culprit who "leaked" Valerie Plame's name.
I think his history as a public servant, the lack of any other prosecutions from the same series of events, combined with the president's view his crime caused no harm and, but for an overzealous investigator, probably would not have occurred at all.
My 2 cents worth.
And the prosecutorial and judicial principles in the case were agreed to be very middle of the road straightshooters by both parties. I do not claim political bias on the part of Fitzgerald or Walton. Try to reply to what I wrote, not what you wish I wrote.
The judge unquestionably departed upwards in terms of the harshness of the sentence, I don't care what his motives were, the result was unjust.
Fitzgerald had the same motivations for his overreach that prosecutors of his ilk commonly do--he spent a lot of money, he had to get a scalp.
The jury I feel did have political bias, and the above quoted statement on the part of vrk supports that contention.
And yes, you are being enormously obtuse in the matter of Gennarlow Wislson. Exactly one person in Georgia has been persecuted (that is not a typo) under such circumstances, and that is Gennarlow himself. The Georgia legislature and Georgia establishment has relatively moved heaven and earth to undo the terrible injustice done him, and it is undone.
What's your beef?
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Don't know how no one else caught this one, but its terribly incorrect on three levels:
1) Judge Rogers did not serve on the panel. Judge Henderson did.
2) Of Tatel, Sentelle, and Henderson, only Tatel is remotely "liberal." Sentelle and Henderson are quite conservative.
3) They did not uphold the sentence, they denied staying it pending appeal. Big difference.
But I don't expect you to understand that.
The Wilson affair, and then its Plame add-on, was from the start an entirely made-up partisan media event of zero significance outside the Beltway. Its biggest effect has been on Democratic fund-raising, and that may have been the objective.
Fund-raising is the objective of many otherwise inexplicable media events, such as the inside-the-NRA fight about cop-killer bullets. That one was about control of the NRA's fund-raising apparatus.
Do not mistake fuss for fury or consequence.
If this is odd, prosecutors across the country are doing odd things all the time. What is amazing here is how ignorant most people are of how most prosecutors do their job. Of course prosecutors set traps for people. This happens all the time. It gives them leverage. What Nifong did in the Duke case also happen all the time. What is rare is for the prosecutor to run up against defendants with the resources of Libby or the Duke LAX players. Hopefully these cases will open some eyes and show what it really means to be "tough on crime."
What you write, directly above, is as follows. The judge, for reasons unknown, was unfair in his sentencing. Fitzgerald was unfair because he had to get a scalp. The jury was unfair because of political bias. Indeed, what you wrote earlier was that they MUST have been partisan, because doggone it, you understand the facts of the case better than they did (but see ATRGeek's point that "the witnesses that contradicted Libby's statements to the FBI and the grand jury included several Administration officials, not just reporters").
I don't have any beef, except to wonder at the mental gymnastics required to see this as some unfair partisan witch-hunt against poor old perjuring Libby.
really, really, really, needing a conviction for anything to justify the resources he expended
Really? (Oh wait, you said that.) Wouldn't it have been a good joke on him, then, for Libby to have TOLD THE TRUTH and left Fitzgerald high and dry?
Compare Rove, who was summoned back again &again to the grand jury ... that is, given CHANCE AFTER CHANCE to get his story straight. Had Fitzgerald really wanted to prosecute Rove, there was no reason to keep him coming back -- indict him, and let Rove explain it to the petit jury.
Having an aversion to jail and no one to protect, Rove came clean eventually. Libby chose not to do the same.
But what crime might that be? The only crime that I've seen even suggested is Libby's leaking of Valerie Plame's identity--and I don't see how that could possibly be a crime, unless the exact same proven set of facts that got him convicted of perjury, also would have gotten him convicted of the illegal leak.
Is there any plausible set of facts consistent with (1) a crime having been committed, (2) Libby's perjury having been relevant to the investigation of that crime, and (3) the facts apparently proven beyond a reasonable doubt in Libby's trial not also directly proving Libby guilty of that crime?
Please see Milhouse's and vrk's posts for more in that vein.
Unhappily for Libby, vrk's post would indicate the jury was ready to find Libby guilty by association for crimes unnamed, regardless of what he may or may not have done.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
That comment displays an ignorance of how sentencing in the federal system works.
During sentencing, the sentencing judge can make finding of facts with respect to relevant factors under the Sentencing Guidelines on a preponderance of the evidence standard (both the prosecution and the defense can submit evidence). As an aside, the Supreme Court held that this practice was a violation of the constitutional right to a jury trial when the Sentencing Guidelines were mandatory, but in a controversial move they remedied the issue by rendering the Sentencing Guidelines advisory, rather than mandatory.
So, this is the standard sentencing practice in the federal courts, and many still object that any factors which will have an impact under the Guidelines should be submitted to the jury. In fact, I would personally welcome calls for a general reform of federal sentencing practices along those lines. But I would not support making an exception to these practices just for Libby.
How often has a (or typical is it) president (or other executive official, e.g., governor) commuted a sentence in which the appeals process was still on-going?
Can the President commute only that portion of a sentence which is jail time? Or could the President have commuted the entire sentence - jail time, fine(s), and probation?
I welcome your concern with the Federal Rules of Evidence, and I assume you have reviewed how they have limited the ability of other defendants besides Libby to put on a defense as they see fit, and I assume you are prepared to propose general reforms. So let's hear them.
The most notable possibility fitting your criteria would be a conspiracy to violate the IIPA.
Libby's lawyers had an opportunity to rebut the claim that Plame was covert during sentencing, but chose not to. Probably because they understood that Plame was indeed covert.
There's no way Fitz doesn't know this -- he's a bright guy. His actions in the Libby case could not possibly have anything to do with any desire for office in Illinois, because he'd already torpedoed any chance of that by going after the Chicago Democrat machine as well as the George Ryan gubernatorial administration including Ryan himself. Can't win the election if you'll never make it past the primary.
Nope, Fitz did this because he was doing his job, which is what he's done as the USA here. Sorry folks, all the big time partisans in Illinois don't like the guy because he goes after corruption wherever it lies, regardless of party. Bush's people should have known this when they made him the special prosecutor. Then again, why should we be surprised that they didn't do their due diligence and made a bad selection, it's not like they haven't had some notable screwups in nominations. This time the problem was that they picked someone too competent, when an incompetent would have been what they really wanted.
I am unaware of any opportunities I may have missed here on this blog to advocate for fully informed juries. I suppose you don't truly care about it yourself, you seem to have missed that.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
One thing I find surprising and consfusing is the statement that Libby "wasn't the leaker" that we hear so often on one side of this argument. From my occasional readings about the case, my understanding is that Libby leaked Plame's CIA employment to Judy Miller, and that he was the confirming source for Matt Cooper, who initially learned it from Karl Rove.
This doesn't appear to be a case where there was a single leaker. Armitage leaked to Novak and Woodward. Rove leaked to Cooper. And Libby leaked to Miller and Cooper.
That leads to the question of intentionality. Fitzgerald seems to have decided not to prosecute accidental or inadvertent leaks, even if he could under statutes related to disclosure of classified materials.
Armitage got his information from a classified report, which didn't indicate Plame was covert.
Libby first got his information from the Vice President himself, who apparently told him that Plame worked at the CIA's counterproliferation division.
That's sets off a few alarm bells, because Cheney and Libby both could be expected to know that counterproliferation is on the covert side of the agency.
My take on this case, based on limited periodic reading, is that the whole exercise has been Fitzgerald trying to find out if Cheney and/or Libby deliberately burned a covert agent. There's some evidence that they did. Libby would know, and his patterns of mis-remembering may suggest an effort to avoid that issue.
Of course, I could have some or all of my facts wrong. I wonder what a fully informed but genuinely disinterested person would make of it?
Now Bush has been very reluctant to grant pardons in the past, and as such it seems odd to see him do so now It seems to me, however, that the correct course of action is to criticize him for the many pardons that he should give out but is not, not the pardons that he is actually giving out.
I am waiting for your proposed reforms of the Federal Rules of Evidence.
How do you figure this? He sentenced within the guidelines. There was no upward departure. After cross-referencing with the guidelines for the underlying crime--as he is instructed to do regardless of whether the underlying crime is proven in court (this is necessary when perjury prevents the prosecution of the underlying crime)--he imposed a sentence within the guidelines.
Very well put. I'd like to hear TDPerkins on this issue. I'm fine with someone defending the commutation. It's just rather surprising to hear an argument like the following:
"No amnesty for illegals! They broke the law. You don't do the crime unless you can do the time."
alongside the following:
"Libby? Of course he shouldn't serve time. The prosecutor and judge were Democrats! The jury was from D.C. (hint hint). It was all politically motivated, from start to finish. . . . "
Wasn't James Comey in on the selection? Isn't he one of those old-fashioned, integrity-before-party conservatives?
Btw, Fitzgerald's response was very classy, I thought.
As for Walton, the only political motivation would be the knowledge that this was a high profile case with intense partisan interest. He always knew that a Bush pardon was likely, so why would he put himself in the partisan spotlight by giving Libby any lenience? I think the same can be said of the Appellate panel that ruled on the motion to stay the sentence pending appeal. They also knew that a pardon or commutation was likely, so denying the motion was playing it safe, i.e., avoiding accusations of partisanship in favor of Libby.
What will be interesting is to see how the actual appeal is decided. I think there is a strong liklihood that Fitzgerald's appointment will be held unconstitutional and the sentence will be thrown out for that reason.
I am waiting for you to read my last post.
TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Illegal immigrants are here illegally however.
If they're, y'know, here.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
That's adorable Toby. I don't know why you care about my personal life; that's a little bizarre. But you seem to have misunderstood my posts (9:55 &10:23). Lemme try again:
1. On many "political" threads generally, and on this one in particular, a common refrain is as follows: "You crazy liberals never cared about Clinton doing x, y, and z. But HA! Now that someone in this Admin. does something similar you are hypocrites because you're criticizing it."
2. My point is actually quite simple: in all likelihood those who write this actually have NO idea whatsoever what me, JosephSlater, Anderson, Justin, and the rest of the evil liberal cabal think about Clinton and his conduct in office.
3. If anyone cared to ask, I, and I suspect my co-conspirators, would indeed take Clinton to task for much of what he did while in office.
4. That being said, I, and I suspect many of my co-conspirators, believe that what this Administration is doing pales in comparison to the worst of Clinton's misdeeds.
Indeed, a Korean war vet is calling into Air America radio as I write this stating how, despite the fact that he has carries the flag every 7/4 for his Veteran's Hall, he will not do so tomorrow b/c he finally reached the last straw. This coming from an old conservative man in mid-America. Apparently, the masses are finally awakening to the madness. Yet, people who should know better have the urge to defend this fascistic cabal to the bitter end. Who're the partisans again?
Is that clearer? Reasoned enough? Or does my use of an occassional "shit" and "ass" negate everything else I say and render me a bully?
And apparently you're the only one who didn't understand my points, so I apologize to the others.
1. In 2002 Valerie Plame arranges for her husband Joe Wilson to go to Niger to sabotage Bush's case for war.
2. Bush admin finds out about Plame/Wilson sabotage and decide to retaliate by outing her status, whether truly covert or not.
3. Bush people get caught and pay the consequences. Honestly, they never gained anything by it, so I have to attribute it to sheer political stupidity. If they could have intimidated Wilson into never going on the Niger trip, that would have been better.
You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
Illegal immigrants are here illegally however.
Doubleplusgood, TDPerkins. You're quite the goodthinker.
From all appearances, Mr. Fitzgerald is an upstanding and impartial prosecutor who follows where the evidence leads and prosecutes where the evidence supports a prosecution. We must also not forget that Mr. Fitzgerald successfully prosecuted the bombers in the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, and that he has successfully prosecuted members of the mafia in New York. Yet after this impressive body of work over the course of his career, we are to believe that Mr. Fitzgerald became a prosecutor run amok and decided to single out Scooter Libby for purely partisan or political purposes?!?!
So, to those of you who premise your defense of President Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence by attacking Mr. Fitzgerald's character and motivation, stop!!!! You have lost all perspective and have no idea what you are saying. And for those of you who attempt to compare Mr. Fitzgerald to Mike Nifong, the recently disbarred and disgraced prosecutor in the Duke rape case (and here I am thinking of Victor Davis Hanson's recent column), stop again!!! There is no similarity between the two. The attorney general of North Carolina set forth the litany of abuses that Mr. Nifong committed in attempting to convict three innocent people of a crime they did not commit. Conversely, none of Mr. Fitzgerald's critics can point to anything to support their baseless accusations that he overreached or abused his prosecutorial discretion. Such attempts to link Mr. Fitzgerald to Mr. Nifong are the basest forms of libel and defamation.
Justin: I imagine judges almost always refuse such stays. Flight risks and all.
I agree whole-heartedly with Justin's comment. I don't know much about the USDC-DC or the CCA-DC, but once upon a time I was a court room clerk for 2 lowly state circuit court trial judges for 2 years while in law school. The judges I worked for never once ever allowed a convicted defendant to remain on bond pending an appeal of the conviction. Such a motion would have almost been laughable. In fact, one of the judges I worked for would routinely -- nearly always -- cancel the bond for a defendant immediately following a guily verdict and remand the defendant into the custody of the sheriff if there was a high likelihood that the defendant was going to get some jail or prison time.
Your occasional use of profanities just prove your lack of class and render your credibility nil.
You're over-eagerness in defense of Fitzy-boy betrays much.
Could you elaborate? How could there have been such a conspiracy, without Libby's actions, as proven at his trial, themselves constituting a violation of the IIPA? And if they did constitute such a violation, then why wouldn't he have been prosecuted for it?
Which the President can selectively declassify at his pleasure, he gets to do that.
Which does not mean she was a covert agent, a la the statute in question.
Of course they burned a CIA officer, the officer--of the executive branch--was trying to burn them, and with lies to boot. There is no evidence whatsoever, however, that they burned a covert agent.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Hardly, I think a great many unapproved thoughts.
I am not not sure you think at all, however.
You did, after all, imply that the tautology, "illegal immigrants are illegal," was in some way actually false.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Karl Rove lied until the last possible moment, before "clarifying his position" before the Grand Jury. I have no doubt that if Fitzgerald had wanted to be a hard-ass, he could have hung Rove along with Libby. Rove came clean, and Fitzgerald promptly forgave previous 'mistatements'.
In short, Fitzgerald followed his usual pattern, which was to lean on those involved until he got the truth, and prosecute the actual movers and shakers.
I find it ironic that Rove -- Bush's flunky -- apparently didn't trust the power of pardon enough (or wanted to keep working in the White House), and thus spilled the beans. Whereas Libby bet on that pardon, despite being Dick's boy.
I have not read every one of the above posts, but i would like to know, if any lawyers can speculate about this, whether Libby' appeal will continue. It would be very interesting to have the legal questions of his appeal resolved."
There are no serious legal questions on his appeal. Notwithstanding right wing fantasies about how the jury was partisan (after skilled voir dire by Libby's attorneys), and that more evidence should have been let in (after skilled advocacy by Libby's attorneys and exhaustive opinions by Judge Walton explaining why such evidence was not let in), there are no serious grounds for appeal and Libby's conviction will be AFFIRMED in due course.
This case does show the appalling ignorance of court procedure by the American people. You aren't qualified to comment on Judge Walton's procedural rulings or the likelihood of reversal on appeal unless you have some basic understandings of the legal doctrines at work, i.e., besides "I THINK ITS UNFAIR! THE JUDGE IS OBVIOUSLY WRONG! THE JURY IS LIBERAL! IF I SAW THE TRIAL AND HEARD THE EVIDENCE IT WOULD BE OBVIOUS THAT LIBBY JUST GOT CONFUSED AND THAT HE DIDN'T KNOWLINGLY LIE TO THE GRAND JURY!" Oh wait. You didn't sit through hours of trial and hear all the evidence. You haven't read the relevant cases or the Federal Rules of Evidence. You don't know the standards for reversal on appeal. Get a clue or stop acting like you know what you're talking about. (not directed at you, srg).
Not at all. I just applaud the doublethink involved in these two statements:
(1) Illegal immigrants have done the crime. Even though they haven't been charged or prosecuted. Therefore, they should be punished.
(2) Libby did not do the crime. Even though he was charged, prosecuted, and sentenced. Therefore, he should not be punished.
Truly a bravura performance.
Libby "didn't do the crime"? Oh wait, that's right, the jury verdict doesn't count because all those jurors must have reached their verdict exclusively because of partisan reasons. Innocent until proven guilty, heck, let's go with innocent even AFTER being proved guilty.
But gosh, given that Scooter is Actually Innocent, why didn't Bush just go ahead and pardon him fully? Wait, Bush is a rabid anti-Bush partisan too!
Adeez:
The first rule about being in the evil liberal cabal is not talking about the evil liberal cabal.
Ummmmm...Bill Clinton wasn't even criminally prosecuted--let alone convicted and sentenced--for what he did.
Do you recommend that Bill Clinton be criminally prosecuted for his actions in civil court or his responses to the special prosecutor's office? If not, why not? For example, do you think he told the truth in both cases?
Who here (Democrat) is saying that the "Clinton perjury" should be criminally prosecuted?
P.S. Truth in commenting tidbits:
1) I'm neither Republican or Democrat, and didn't vote for Bush or Clinton. (I would have voted for Clinton in 1992, but was called out of town on emergency business on election night. So I was saved by the grace of work.)
2) I personally don't think any prosecutor should attempt to prosecute Bill Clinton for false statements he may have made (very probably did make!) either in the civil case or to the special prosecutor. I don't think any prosecutor should attempt it, in large part because I don't think there's any way a prosecutor could attain the unanimous vote required for conviction (unless all Democrats were excluded from the jury).
Considering that a dozen highly respected (according to the Washington Post) constitutional lawyers wrote Libby's appeal, it seems unlikely that there are no important issues to be resolved. I appreciate that some will say that Viet Dinh and Robert Bork and even Alan Dershowitz are not highly respected, but this would be a highly partisan position.
Exactly right.
I find it ironic that Rove -- Bush's flunky -- apparently didn't trust the power of pardon enough (or wanted to keep working in the White House), and thus spilled the beans.
Interesting point, and a reminder that Rove looks out for # 1.
Ha, ha! Excellent snark!
Evidence, of course, is not equal to proof. There are non-covert people who work at CPD, but the bulk of their professional staff is covert. Knowing that Plame was CPD dramatically increased the likelihood that she was covert. So this is evidence, right?
In other news, considering that a "Dream Team" of highly respected (according to a newspaper) criminal defense lawyers defended O.J. Simpson, it seems unlikely that he was in fact guilty.
What a relief -- I was afraid a miscarriage of justice had happened. I hope his quest for the real killers is making progress.
You clearly missed the point if you think there is a parallel between highly respected, highly paid defense lawyers and highly respected (and, presumably, unpaid) authors of an appeal brief. In the first case, overwhelming evidence for guilt is perfectly possible; in the second case, the absence of any serious issues needing resolution is highly unlikely.
By definition, yes.
Glad you agree with me.
Yes, despite that. What, you think OJ didn't do it?
No, he shouldn't.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
The problem with your theory is that you have a long series of federal judges with lifetime tenure refusing to comply with their legal duties because they do not want to appear "partisan". And since they do have lifetime tenure, that motivation makes no sense for any of them, let alone all of them.
Dan Simon,
First, even if the crime was Libby himself violating the IIPA, not all of the necessary elements of such a violation were charged and proved during his trial.
Second, if the crime was a conspiracy to violate the IIPA, Libby's actions may not have constituted a violation of the IIPA. For example, it could be someone else in the conpsiracy who actually violated the IIPA, or a combination of people, none of whom individually violated the IIPA, but whose actions together did. In fact, people can end up unwittingly furthering a conspiracy without actually being co-conspirators. Moreover, the conspiracy need not have actually succeeded in violating the relevant underlying law, and so on.
In short, once you understand conspiracy law, it immediately becomes obvious why the actions of a single person may not be sufficient to establish the crime.
The good news is that we don't need to rely on indirect evidence of whether Libby's attorneys (paid or volunteer) had raised a serious issue meriting bail during the pendency of the appeal (indirect evidence being things like the quality of his attorney's resumes). And that is because a panel of the DC Circuit decided that issue.
The DC Circuit decided 3-0 against bail, by the way. And unfortunately for Libby, the defendant's attorneys do not get to vote, regardless of the quality of their resumes.
This presupposes both that you have a general familiarity with the applicable evidentiary laws (to wit, the Federal Rules of Evidence) and furthermore have some specific examples in mind of how they are not being followed correctly in general (and presumably, in this case).
So, let's have them. Or else perhaps you can just admit that you "feel" the full truth did not come out in these proceedings, but don't actually have a basis in the law of evidence for claiming thus. There is no third possibility.
Because impeachment takes 2/3 of each house, and the Dems don't have that, and the Repubs won't cross party lines, and the whole thing would be a huge backfire like the Clinton impeachment.
James Madison apparently considered impeachment the proper avenue for proceeding against a president who pardoned crimes committed on his behalf, but Madison could be naive sometimes.
I'm unaware of the CIA running Special Access Unacknowledged programs within the US, where Plame was based for the time frame considered in the statute in question. So strictly speaking their is no covert "side" to the agency in the US. Some of the things the CIA does requires that agents be covert as per the meaning of the statute, and there is no evidence was one such officer.
It isn't even evidence, it simply has no bearing.
What they do day in and day out, and the fact that they are the individuals doing it, may well be quite classified, however, this does not make them covert agents as per the statute.
No, because she either was or was not. In the case of Valerie Plame the individual, matters lay 100% percent in one direction or another, the odds are unity.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
The ENTIRE INVSTIGATION was purely political. A very small possibility (obviously so from the beginning, based on marriage- and birth-dates) of the "outing" of a "covert" agent, long after it mattered anyway, due to sveral mistakes on her part, which was done as part of a suggestion of nepotism (that is, her husband getting the job because of her connections) gets a HUGE investigation, but revealing highly sensitive classified information about a currently ongoing and very important intelligence gathering operation gets... nothing?!?
Yeah, nothing political here... :-/
Uh, because Ken Starr is a rightwing political hack who left his job defending tobacco companies to head the prosecution of liberal democrat Clinton and then after the proceedings decamed to the nutsy right wing christianist law school at Pepperdine.
There - starting to see the difference.
If Fitzgerald had spent his career at the ACLU and was now on his way to teach law at Harvard you just might be able to make the equivalancy argument without looking like a fool.
Cornellian, actually, they weren't. Look at what defense evidence and arguments were was excluded by Walton.
Actually, I specifically didn't chastise Orin --- I pointed out that speculating on motivations was a two-edged sword.
On the reason Bush didn't pardon Libby, again, that would require me to speculate on motivations --- but I'll note that this means Libby's appeal isn't mooted, and at least raises the possibility that Libby could prevail on appeal and then have a shot at having his legal fees paid by the government.
William, I'd like to see you source that without using NBC or the New York Times. I don't think that testimony was in evidence.
Re the amicus brief, you should understand that it went only to the issue of whether the use of an independent prosecutor in the case was itself unconstitutional. It didn't go to the merits of the case, i.e., whether Libby had committed perjury or not. And, as ATRGeek noted, even on that issue, the amici lost 3-0, including two relatively conservative judges.
Red herring. Five yards and loss of down.
No, you don't get both sides of the aisle worried about you if you're not a successful prosecutor. Mike Nifong had both sides worried about him, but he certainly wasn't a good prosecutor (and not just in the Duke case. Durham County, and NC in general, are sort of notorious for choosing the guilty party first and finding the evidence later.)
Orin can defend himself (or, more likely, not stoop to adress these things), but let's not kid ourselves. You wrote:
Orin, I don't like to speculate about people's motives, if only because motives are frequently opaque even to the people having them. (If I did, I'd have to wonder about the hidden motives suggested by your "effectively pardoned" slip yesterday --- one might, I think, wonder how often a law professor on a pre-eminent legal blog makes that kind of amateur error.)
I'll let other readers decide whether or not you were "chastising" Orin in that remark. I wouldn't want to speculate further. (If I did, I would have to wonder about the motives for your "wonder" at "how often someone like Orin makes "that kind of amateur error.")
And again, Charlie and others, if Scooter is really innocent, why didn't Bush just go ahead and pardon him?
As to the harm done to the integrity of the justice system when public officials deliberately obstruct investigations and lie . . . well, it's a tangible harm, whether it's done by a White House flunkie or a President. If President Clinton had been criminally tried for the same conduct that resulted in his impeachment (and received a sentence similar to that of Libby), I doubt that many of those who argued for clemency or pardon would have been upset--am I wrong? Is there anyone of note in the public sphere that thinks *both* the Clinton investigation and the Libby one were unduly "political"?
My "defense" of Mr. Fitzgerald comes not from overeagerness, but from outrage. However, since you do not state what it betrays, I can only assume that my "defense" of Mr. Fitzgerald betrays:
1) My appreciation of the fact that Mr. Fitzgerald was able to successfully prosecute terrorists under our systems of laws without designating them as enemy combatants and wisking them away to a secret location where they are tortured into making "confessions" and then tried in front of a secret tribunal without even the most rudimentary forms of protection or due process.
2) My admiration of Mr. Fitzgerald's stand against organized crime and his efforts to put career criminals in jail.
3) My disgust with the culture of corruption that has infested and continues to infest local, county and state government in Illinois, which Mr. Fitzgerald has done much to decrease (although much work remains to be done).
4) My respect for the truth in all its forms and by all people, no matter what position they hold. Thus, in the Libby case, Mr. Fitzgerald was correct that lying or obstruction of justice damages the entire system.
If you had other things in mind, please let me know and I will be happy to discuss them.
SRG: "Considering that a dozen highly respected (according to the Washington Post) constitutional lawyers wrote Libby's appeal, it seems unlikely that there are no important issues to be resolved."
The dozen highly respected constitution lawyers did not write Libby's appeal; his privately retained lawyers will be writing his initial appellate brief, which I believe may be due sometime by the end of the summer. Rather, these dozen lawyers wrote an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in support of Libby's argument that he should receive a lieniant sentence. Judge Walton was under no obligation to review or address the brief, although his opinion on Libby's sentence did take great pains to discuss ths brief.
It may be that these same lawyers will also seek to submit an amicus brief in support of Libby's trial as well, although now that he is not facing any jail time they may be less inclined to do so. In any event, just because a group of lawyers says something doesn't make it so. After all, every case that goes to trial has a winner and a loser.
I thought you once said that Comey worked at the DOJ when you did during the Clinton years. You were a Clinton appointee, if my memory is correct wasn't Comey also a Clinton appointee??
Question for the gaggle here: Who was Marc Rich's lawyer when he purchased a pardon from Bill Clinton??? Answer: Scooter Libby.
So O.K., the Clinton DOJ lawyer, thinks this is a bad pardon. Gee that's a surprise.
Says the "Dog"
I agree--this newfound concern on the part of some people for the federal criminal process (the relevant details of which they cannot quite articulate, incidentally) is a red herring.
JYLD,
The DOJ has non-political employees as well as political appointees. I believe Comey was originally hired as an AUSA in the USAO for the SDNY during the Reagan Administration, and continued to work there under Bush I and I think briefly Clinton as well before joining a law firm. He later worked as an AUSA in the USAO for the EDVA under both Clinton and Bush II. I believe his first political appointment was as US Attorney for the SDNY by Bush II, and then of course he was appointed DAG by Bush II.
I can articulate them. The defense was unable to present exculpatory evidence as the judge forbade it, the jury was not fully informed, due process was not rendered.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
A: 1. A fool. 2. Someone who believed what he was taught in law school. 3. I repeat myself.
Don't believe in the jury system, or is there something particular about residents of D.C. that troubles you?
While I do not trust my memory implicitly in this matter, I believe the jurors were drawn disproportionately from the DC economic underclass, who managed to elect Marion Barry post conviction, and also the ranks of the beaureaucracy, a group not known for conservative or even middle-of-the-road leanings.
With so many unknowns and people involved, odds do begin to play a role.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Ah yes, those "underclass" folks -- especially the kind that, well you know, vote for Marion Barry, if we get your meaning -- should not be allowed to judge their betters. And of course the "beaureaucracy" is poisoned against the better types too.
Again, shocking that Scooter's lawyers didn't exercise their right to make jury strikes, and again this was a unanimous verdict, but sure, it's all a pure partisan witch-hunt.
"Don't believe in the jury system"
I believe a randomly selected jury pool, where jurors are subject to much less baroque standards of objectivity and conflict of interest than are current, and a one where the jury is permitted to hear any fact, theory, and plea for mercy the defense feels to be of interest, and they are free to judge the same--a fully informed jury--is one which will make the least errors as to guilt, innocence, and justice.
I have been of that opinion for a very long time and have heard no evidence that this is not a part of what is meant by "due process".
Of neccessity, such a jury would not see merely the tainted results of today's rules of evidence, and we'd see less of this.
Juries get it wrong in 1 of six cases.
Personally I'd like to think this study looks at the wrong proxy, but I don't feel it's far off.
And a jury that in convicting Libby for other crimes which no one is charged with (as poster vrk mentioned), is plainly one where the prosecutor has shouldered it off the rails and the judge never put on the brakes.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
If you care to make the case that Marion Barry was a fine mayor and that people who voted for him don't have something wrong with their values systems, go ahead and make the case.
And I suppose you think yourself late to tell that uppity Cosby to shut up and sit down. You must not care for what he has to say any more than you do my words.
And yes, I think a survey of the federal beaureaucracy will not leave even you with the impression they are unbiased.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfppp
Libby was convicted by a jury in D.C. (9 to 1 Democrat). The charge was politically motivated (Chuck Schumer &Joe Wilson whipped the MSM into demanding a Special Prosecutor). The foreman of the juror pool is a former WaPo employee with personal ties to two of the prosecution witnesses. (how does one not find that in voir dire??? or did the juror simply answer 'no' when asked?). The jurors, upon interview, question why they did not get testimony from the VP and have questions about the Iraq War. (Huh? Where they at the same trial that Libby was in?).
Even liberal law professors would have to admit that the Libby/Plame/Wilson/Fitzgerald matter is mostly unprecedented. Never has there been a sitting President so naive as to hand over his entire administration to a politically appointed prosecutor. As lawyers, would you seriously ever tell your clients to walk into a grand jury 5 times for anything?
Which one of you law professors thinks you couldn't find at least three major grounds for appeal here? And at least five good reasons not to hire Ted Wells if the Federal Government decides to charge you with something/anything?
And why would Libby have not used the Stephanopolous defense and just repeat "I don't recall" (even though he took enough notes to complete a later-released book)? Libby must certainly have perjured himself but the real question remains: Why? The best answer I can think of it fear of prosecution for telling the truth originally (ie, that Plame got Wilson hired because she worked for the CIA).
On the merits of jury trials, I'll just note what others already have: what you propose, unclear as it is, would be a departure from current court practice in various ways. To paraphrase an earlier poster, what's "partisan" about this is the anti-anti-Libby folks: you only want to argue that the jury system, rules of evidence, and sentencing guidelines are unfair when it's pointed out to you that these were applied as written to Libby.
Beyond that, I lived in DC when Barry was mayor, and while I was not one of his supporters, I'm not ready to condemn all the folks that voted for him as "having something wrong with them." Not, of course, that you have any idea whether anybody on that jury voted for Barry. Let's be explicit: the Barry reference and you now mentioning Cosby shows that you were essentially saying that poor black folk can't fairly judge Libby. This shows how desperate and shameful the twists you folks have to take to continue to categorize the Libby case as "partisan."
Again, I am waiting for your thoughts on how to reform the Federal Rules of Evidence.
BP Jam,
Indeed, Libby could have just taken the 5th. To help explain why he didn't, you might note that he actually concocted an elaborate lie about the relevant events. So, it appears that he might have been hoping, foolishly or not, that his lie would be accepted as truth. Or he might have expected that even his lies did eventually get found out, they would still serve the purpose of derailing the investigation, and he would get pardoned later anyway.
BPJam, please distinguish between "generally accepted facts" and "stuff I made up."
Your fantasies about the power of Schumer, Wilson, and the "liberal media" to influence Ashcroft and Comey are not relevant to the topic under discussion.
if you aren't ready to condemn most of the people who voted for him, then I think that says as much about your poor judgement as theirs.
Well, why be factual when you are JosephSlater. I am saying people who vote Democratic are unlikely judge Libby fairly, and the demographics of the jury pool make it unlikely he got an in fact unbiased jury. Also, vrk's uncontested report of the jury's motives goes to show the jury did not treat Libby fairly.
As JP BAM put it:
"Libby was convicted by a jury in D.C. (9 to 1 Democrat)."
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
What part of that do think is false?
And by the same logic, presumably, people who vote Republican would *also* be unlikely to judge Libby fairly, from the opposite end.
Fortunately, America has no shortage of people who don't vote at all, or else our system would be in BIG trouble.
Ah, so the reference to Marion Barry was just to show that DC residents are Democrats? Not any little snide innudendo about race? Please forgive me for not seeing the significance of your mentioning a racially polarizing figure who was elected mayor a decade ago when -- again -- we don't know if anybody on that jury supported Barry.
More broadly, and I'll try to make this my last point. What I think is "false" is the sort of thing Orin was describing in his original post. You and the handful of dead-enders who are claiming some sort of partisan conspiracy have to go through so many hoops, to explain why Republicans, Republican appointees, an entire jury, etc., engaged in a PARTISAN witch-hunt against Libby.
I've already mentioned how I think a fully informed jury would have seen differing evidence from what the Libby jury saw.
If that doesn't do it for you, may I make a suggestion about where you can put your red herring?
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
They could even in DC have picked a quorum of Libertarians.
Who else would be stupid enough to vote for the man, and why else but that he was the right party?
It's really interesting where your head goes, or is that where it's stuck? And if you want to hang your hat on it not being likely someone on that jury thought Barry was framed, go ahead.
You buy many lottery tickets?
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Sorry, but having a crackhead elected mayor of your nation's capital sticks in the mind.
For me it ranks up there with the shuttle explosions, 9/11, and the Berlin wall falling as events I will not soon forget.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Actually, you haven't explained what evidence the jury should have seen that they didn't see, and why that evidence was not admitted, and how you would modify the Federal Rules of Evidence to allow that evidence to be admitted. But I understand that you have moved on from the Federal Rules of Evidence to the right to a jury trial, which you interpret as a right not to be tried by Democrats (particularly not THOSE sorts of Democrats--you know, the Marion Barry/Bill Cosby sort). Since I imagine you have similar insights on the Federal Rules of Evidence, I am probably better off remaining uninformed about your views.
An important point, much overlooked. This point is corroborated by the language associated with Form SF-312 ("information remains classified until it has been officially declassified"), which was signed by Libby et al.
SF-312 also makes it clear that confirmation (like Rove's "I heard that too" to Novak) is also a form of leaking.
td: "the overwhelming number of witnesses against Libby were persons of an opposite political persuasion … the witnesses were journalists."
The reporters were not the witnesses most harmful to Libby. The witnesses most harmful to Libby were the other government employees who testified about all the times they discussed Plame with Libby. Libby had a hard time explaining why he had amnesia and they didn't.
Nice job repeating mythology.
pat: "Ms. Plame has given several different, rather contradictory versions, under oath, of her role in her husband being sent to Nigeria on his mission."
I addressed this in detail in the other thread. One of the relevant comments is here.
"As I understand it, there remains significant discrepancies between Ari Fleischer's testimony and the sworn statements of David Gregory"
First, government employees have an legal obligation to protect classified information. Reporters do not (although arguably they have a moral obligation). Second, Fleischer made a deal, if I remember correctly. He talked early and extensively in return for some form of immunity. Smart move.
"I'm of the opinion that none of us live such pure lives, and have such pristine memories, that no special prosecutor, given unlimited resources, couldn't find some good reason to indict us."
Libby wasn't just indicted. He was convicted and sentenced. Even though he enjoyed the assistance of some very expensive lawyers.
david: "While I agree that there's no 'cat's out of the bag' exception, one can't leak and then confirm officially because the leak itself is still a crime."
I think you're missing the point. The point is that lots of people are trying to float this absurd notion: once Armitage leaked, Libby et al were automatically granted a free pass to leak some more.
milhouse: "they said they heard evidence that Libby had seen Cheney's note wondering whether 'the wife sent him on a junket', when in fact they had heard no such evidence, and Fitzgerald never even made such a claim."
I wonder how you know all that. Did you attend the trial? Have you seen an official transcript? As far as I know, such a thing is not publicly available.
"this was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the president's reelection in 2004"
Yes, it makes perfect sense that a bunch of Republican appointees at Ashcroft's DOJ would be interested in doing precisely that. Same deal with Mueller's FBI. Not to mention a bunch of Republican-appointed judges.
charlie: "the actual perpetrator (Armitage) … Armitage is the leaker"
Nice job pretending that there was only one leaker. Trouble is, there were four, at least.
"the final theory of the case depended on finding criminality in differing recollections of a few phone calls and conversations"
The prosecutor was a Republican appointee. So was the judge. So was most of the appelate panel that just ruled against Libby. He had the best lawyers money could buy. He had a fair trial. He's a liar. Stop whining.
jimmy: "Richard Armitage was the culprit who 'leaked' Valerie Plame's name"
There were at least three other culprits.
"the president's view [that Libby's] crime caused no harm"
It's better than that. From Dubya's perspective, it's not just that Scooter's crime "caused no harm." It's that Scooter's crime shielded Dubya and Cheney from harm. Bush is only doing what any gentleman would do: demonstrate his gratitude for the protection Scooter provided him.
hans: "Sandy Berger"
Berger made a deal. Libby decided he wanted a trial. There's a difference. Maybe Libby knew all along that he had nothing to lose.
dan: "Is there any plausible set of facts consistent with (1) a crime having been committed, (2) Libby's perjury having been relevant to the investigation of that crime, and (3) the facts apparently proven beyond a reasonable doubt in Libby's trial not also directly proving Libby guilty of that crime?"
Yes.
joseph: "amnesty"
Perfect.
td: "If you care to make the case that Marion Barry was a fine mayor and that people who voted for him don't have something wrong with their values systems, go ahead and make the case."
Way too many people in this country voted for Dubya, twice. So we have a "value systems" problem that's way bigger than Marion Barry. But then again, you probably think Dubya has been a "fine" president.
How so lowered? It started pretty low. A Clinton appointee--OrinKerr--wondering how on earth anyone could think there was a substantial political component, much less an invalidating component, to this prosecution. It need not be a "purely political" thing for it not to be a valid finding of guilt, and vrk's, leCompte's, Bader's, Holsinger's, and Milhouse's posts have all contained points which show this trial to be founded more in politics, whether of the Democratic party or of personal satisfaction, than in either the supported facts of the case, or of a standard of truth which was applied to the defendant which the witnesses could also withstand.
vrk's post in particular indicts the jury as one with which Libby never had the benefit of the doubt--and I think well shows it was because the jury was biased against his Republicanness and his participation in the administration.
It does come perilously close to showing the open criminalization of politics, which when done openly justifies politics continued by other means.
And Orin Kerr does not see it, and defends it.
I cannot imagine what possess EV.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
It's not quite that simple. Many people were quite surprised when push came to shove and Miller ended up behind bars. And even then, she held out for a long time before she decided she had enough.
I think all the leakers were counting on the idea that the leakees would go to great lengths to protect the leakers. And they had good reason to count on this idea. The leakees starve, in the long run, if they burn leakers.
Keep in mind, for example, that Cooper kept his mouth shut during the period prior to the 2004 election. He had some very interesting things to say, and he chose not to say them. I'm sure this helped to make him popular with his wife, who is a Democrat.
Also, just wondering if you're registering a protest of all the criminal verdicts rendered in complaince with normal voir dire and the Federal Rules of Evidence, or just the vercit convicting Scooter Libby? Sounds like you'd agree that the Rules of Evidence Advisory Committee could use some lobbying on the criminmal defense side.
I have reiterated or pointed out to you in other's posts, what it was that the jury was not permitted to see--that there was no leak of a covert agent's identity, that FBI notes and journalist's notes corroborating Libby were missing, and so on. I do not care why they were not permitted to see it, there can be no justification for forbidding it. The Rules of Evidence should as opposed to being rewritten in detail simply be over-ridden by the right a of defendant to a fully informed jury--the defense can make the case they think they best can. Personally, I have confidence a jury will see through the Chewbacca defense, maybe you do not.
Having dealt with it ad nauseum, yes.
What sort of Democrat would that be? What sort do you imagine I am thinking of? I am imagining the run-of the mill voter in the DC area, whether poor or GS15 federal bureaucrat, and trying to imagine picking 12 at random a majority who don't think Bush stole the election in 2000, or that Rove didn't sucker Rather with fake TXANG memos.
I can't do it, I can't imagine you could find 12 DC metro area voters who would as a body give Libby a fair shake.
And as for Marion Barry/Bill Cosby--I'd hate to see Libby judged by Marion Barry over a parking ticket, he has no good judgement. Cosby, from what I've heard, I'd trust as a juror over Libby in a capital murder trial, he seems like an honest and perceptive man.
Sorry I my views aren't founded in the prejudice you want them to be. I loathe Democrats, not African Americans.
And the more I see of Democrats, the more I loathe them.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Now we're getting somewhere! You criticism of the rules of evidence, in a nutshell, is that they exist! Wouldn't it have been so much simpler if you had just said that earlier? And never mind the fact that the rules of evidence came into being over time precisely because certain types of evidence and certain methods of presentation -- in short, just allowing either side to present whatever they wanted in any way they wanted -- were in fact *more* likely to produce erroneous truth determinations.
I would be most comfortable with as apolitical a jury as possible, and failing that, a jury of terribly partisan 3rd party jurors who are about as pissed at one party as the other, i.e., Libertarians.
"And I get the Federal Rules of Evidence re-written so my case works out better for me?"
Everyone should be able to avail themselves of the defense they think will work best. I have no fear this will cause juries to free the guilty unjustly to any great degree, but think it will lead to prosecutions which are more in line with what society will support, as opposed to what loud political minorities persuade legislators to criminalize.
I think fully informed juries are part of what is meant by due process, and I think we haven't had much of that in that regard since 1895, when the SCOTUS got it wrong in Sparf vs US.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Wow. Maybe Bush will retroactively pardon everyone convicted during the 20th century on his last day of office.
This is the claim you're challenging:
There are really three claims there:
A) Libby leaked to Miller
B) Libby leaked to Cooper
C) Rove leaked to Cooper
In Libby's grand jury testimony, he readily admitted A and B. Here are a small sampling of the many passages where this is very clearly established:
All this is corroborated by separate statements made by Miller and Cooper.
Let us know if you're also in denial about C, and I'll gladly show you some proof.
Please try to keep up. No one, at this point, is seriously denying that Libby leaked to Miller and Cooper. That talking point is so 2006. 2005, even. The new talking point is that it's perfectly fine, because Plame wasn't covert (even though DCI Hayden says she was). Also, it's perfectly fine because Armitage did it first (so the cat was already out of the bag, right?).
Also, it was critical to our national security to spread a phony story about how Plame sent Wilson. This was necessary because it was important to discredit Wilson. And, pointedly, there was no remotely legitimate way to do this, on-the-record, based on the merits of the underlying facts (regarding Nigerien yellowcake), so a decision was made to secretly smear him, by floating the idea that Val gives good junket, and that this is the only reason he got the job. And it was important to discredit Wilson, because otherwise the public might believe Wilson's op-ed. Because if the public believed Wilson's op-ed, they might end up thinking what Duelfer eventually concluded: that Saddam wasn't really trying to get his hands on Nigerien yellowcake, after all. And the public might end up thinking what Silberman-Robb eventually concluded: that the 16 words were ultimately based on forged documents (because underlying the UK intel was nothing other than rumors which trace back to the forged documents). And the public might end up understanding that the CIA spent over a year pretending that the obvious forgeries were real. Imagine that! And then the terrorists would win.
(A) We're getting somewhere now!? Only now!? I've said that before--WRT jury nullification--on this thread long before and in every thread I can think of it possibly applying to on this blog. Only NOW!!!
(B) I don't have a problem with them existing, I have a problem with them applying to the defense, WRT things like facts which are inconvenient to the prosecution and deemed too prejudicial for the jury to hear. Get it? The prosecution has enough advantages already.
And if you haven't noticed, I'm not saying the prosecution should be able to say what they think they need to, only that no facts the defense wants in should be barred, and that the defense can make whatever theory it wants known to the jur--also including frank appeals to nullification, a readiness to do which shall be no impediment to being seated on a jury--and that the prosecution should be held roughly to the set of facts which obtain currently. We have no general problem with false findings of innocence in our courts.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
I doubt it. I doubt he should. Do you have a substantive response to the quandary posed by the inherent and historical incorporation of appeal to jury nullification as being a part and parcel of due process, or of how the SCOTUS either did right or wrong in sparf vs. US?
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
One actually begins to feel sorry for all of the straw men in this thread.
By the by, it stands to reason we wouldn't have a problem with false findings of innocence if for no other reason than people are not found "innocent" in criminal proceedings. They're found "not guilty."
Beyond that rather mundane point, purely as a matter of logic, it seems false verdicts would weigh heavily toward the side of false-guilty rather than false-not-guilty. In fact, the only way you could believe otherwise would be to believe that (at minimum) more than half of the people actually tried on criminal charges in our courts are in fact not guilty of whatever it is they are accused of doing.
You get more and more defense oriented by the post, TDP. I assume you, like the signers of that Libby bail-hearing amicus brief, will be deploying that vast intellectual power in the defense of the less fortunate defendants who get railroaded by the system?
I think it's been shown by a variety of people that those "posts have all contained points" that are utterly fictional.
"It does come perilously close to showing the open criminalization of politics, which when done openly justifies politics continued by other means."
That ("other means") sounds "perilously close" to an oblique threat of some kind.
By the way, since you object to the (alleged) "criminalization of politics," how do you feel about the politicization of the criminal justice system?
Anyway, I don't think what you really object to is the "criminalization of politics." I think you object to the criminalization of perjury, provided the perjurer is part of your team.
"there was no leak of a covert agent's identity"
Really? Prove it.
"I have confidence a jury will see through the Chewbacca defense"
The work of this particular jury proves that your confidence is justified.
You have written a truly pointless sentence. Six of one is half dozen of the same.
I have never been more or less in favor of the due process appeal to jury nullifiaction and a fully informed jury than I am now. I have always insisted, since I was like twelve, and with no good argument made by others to the contrary, that due process demands nothing less, and that the evolution to the state of error the courts exist in now began in 1895. I would love for you present evidence that my zeal in that regard has increased on the occasion of Libby's conviction, and more to the point, I welcome your spending hours of your life trying to support that proposition.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Well no. That hasn't been shown at all.
Take vrk's post. Dismantle it if you can.
That ("other means") sounds "perilously close" to an oblique threat of some kind.
I generally only spend hours (or minutes for that matter) trying to prove interesting and useful propositions. Though I have little doubt you get a warm feeling indeed imagining people squirreling themselves away for hours trying to refute your ironclad logic. Only in fiction can we truly be free!
Well no. That hasn't been shown at all.
Take vrk's post. Dismantle it if you can.
Well since you find it too oblique, I'll make it clear. War is the proper response to a government which becomes the tool a faction, or let's itself become such in guise that each individual is doing their duty, although a gross injustice becomes a sought after prize.
I think it is already an inherently politicized thing, since people participate in it, and people are political. What is forgotten is the need to have large supermajorities approve of the gross form and intent of the government, and to leave to the mere majorities of representatives only the details.
Put simply, the Libby conviction has not been made by a jury drawn from a sample large enough to make plausible it's evenhandedness.
Eh. You're wrong. I do not like the criminalization of politics. I do not think Libby is in fact a perjurer by a standard which does not also make the witnesses against him perjurers.
You know, that not how that works. You have to prove their was such a leak, and Ms. Plame's location and employment history argue against it.
The work of this particular jury proves that your confidence is justified.
Of course, many, many defendants besides Libby have been unable to admit evidence under the FRE. So I assume you want commutations for all of them.
How so, when vrk shows their intentions were to find someone guilty for something and bader shoes they didn't see allt he facts?
"Innocent" and "not guilty" are synonymous, as there is no "not proven" verdict in our courts. Your protest changes nothing in that regard.
So you admit you had no idea what you were talking about when you said I'd been increasingly favoring the defense WRT to jury nullification?
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Your linked article on the frequency of erroneous verdicts didn't mention how the errors were ascertained. Do you happen to know?
Enjoy your kool-aid!
Yours, FS, ie, qv, &ibid.
Take my wife, please. Just kidding.
It would help if you could be specific. Which post are you talking about?
"I'll make it clear."
Really? Still waiting.
"the Libby conviction has not been made by a jury drawn from a sample large enough to make plausible it's evenhandedness"
What a darn shame the system that the rest of us have to settle for isn't quite good enough for the likes of Libby.
"I do not think Libby is in fact a perjurer by a standard which does not also make the witnesses against him perjurers."
I'll assume you arrived at that belief by sitting through all the evidence the jurors sat through.
"You have to prove their was such a leak, and Ms. Plame's location and employment history argue against it."
Uh, no. I don't have to prove there was a leak of a covert agent's identity, because I don't claim that I know that, for a fact (at least not at the standard called for by IIPA, which is what's relevant). I only know that a bunch of Republican appointees in CIA, DOJ, FBI and the court system behaved as if they thought such a thing had possibly happened, and needed to be thoroughly investigated. I also know that a jury decided that Libby obstructed this investigation.
You, on the other hand, have flatly asserted, as if it's a proven fact, that such a thing did not happen. Unless it's some other TDP who said this:
"Ms. Plame's location and employment history argue against it."
You didn't say 'my opinion is that there was no leak of a covert agent's identity, because the little I know about Ms. Plame's location and employment history seem to argue against it.' You did something other than that. You flatly asserted, as if it's a proven fact, that "there was no leak of a covert agent's identity." Therefore, it is indeed on you to back that assertion with proof, unless what you're really trying to prove is that you're someone who likes to dress up conjecture as fact.
"their intentions were to find someone guilty for something and bader shoes they didn't see allt he facts"
There's no need to drag in the innocent footwear. I think it's time to replace the battery in your central processing unit.
I said that the commutation was founded in politics, not the trial. Unless office politics counts as politics.
The trial was founded in fundamental flaws in the special prosecutor concept.
Armitage. It's amazing how an Iran-Contra conspirator and PNAC member is "no partisan gunslinger". Says a lot for the real partisan gunslingers, like Libby.
But to the point. Fitzgerald couldn't prove that Armitage knew Plame was covert, and Armitage, unlike Libby, didn't lie. That's why he skated. There was no single "actual perpetrator". Rove was leaking too, as well as Libby. But all the evidence of the source for Rove, Armitage and Libby points in one direction - to the guys Libby lied to protect. You reckon he was promised a commutation and eventual pardon, if necessary, for being the fall guy?
"The outcry against President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's sentence is misplaced. President Bush acted hours after the U.S. Court of Appeals denied Libby bail pending appeal. That judicial decision was entirely political. The appellate judges had to see that Libby's arguments on appeal were sound and strong -- that under existing law he was entitled to bail pending appeal. (That is why I joined several other law professors in filing an amicus brief on this limited issue.) After all, if he were to be sent to jail for a year and then if his conviction were to be reversed on appeal, he could not get the year back. But if he remained out on bail and then lost the appeal, the government would get its year. In non-political cases, bail should have and probably would have been granted on issues of the kind raised by Libby.
"But the court of appeals' judges, as well as the district court judge, wanted to force President Bush's hand. They didn't want to give him the luxury of being able to issue a pardon before the upcoming presidential election. Had Libby been allowed to be out on appeal, he would probably have remained free until after the election. It would then have been possible for President Bush to pardon him after the election but before he left office, as presidents often do during the lame duck hiatus. To preclude that possibility, the judges denied Libby bail pending appeal. The president then acted politically. But the president's action -- whether right or wrong on its merits -- was well within his authority, since pardons are part of the political process, not the judicial process. What the judges did was also political, but that was entirely improper, because judges are not allowed to act politically. They do act politically, of course, as evidenced by the Supreme Court's disgracefully political decision in Bush v. Gore. But the fact that they do act politically does not make it right. It is never proper for a court to take partisan political considerations into account when seeking to administer justice in an individual case.
"The trial judge too acted politically, when he imposed the harshly excessive sentence on Libby, virtually provoking the president into commuting it.
"This was entirely a political case from beginning to end. Libby's actions were political. The decision to appoint a special prosecutor was political. The trial judges' rulings were political. The appellate court judges' decision to deny bail was political. And the president's decision to commute the sentence was political. But only the president acted within his authority by acting politically in commuting the politically motivated sentence."
Plame ceased to be covert a LONG time before her marriage, because Aldrich Ames revealed her (and a lot of other covert people) to the Russians. Once the feds learned that from Ames' interrogation, no prosecution of anyone for revealing her covert past would lie.
But her covert past became public knowledge when the society pages of D.C. papers identified one of her nominal employers (a known CIA front) during the wedding coverage.
Legally there was no basis for even a criminal investigation of the Plame story given what Ames had done. Fitzgerald's appointment was a political charade ab initio. Libby's prosection, trial and conviction was entirely a self-inflicted wound for the Bush administration, and arguably the single clearest example of its incompetence.
That's false; it's been repeatedly said to be false; and frankly, Mr. Holsinger, you display contempt for your fellow commenters when you ignore them like that.
If you have some argument why that's not false -- preferably one grounded in the law, and not in your idiosyncrasies -- please share it.
There was NEVER any grounds for prosecution of anyone for revealing Plame's past covert status during the entire present Administration. She was no longer covert. That statute is not like the communications intelligence criminal statute. It is like the one on classified information - classifying the time of day does not make it a secret.
Really? That's a new one. Got a source?
By the way, what's "a known CIA front?" Is that a front the CIA keeps using, indefinitely, even though it's known to be a front? And since there is such a thing as "a known CIA front," can you show us a list of known CIA fronts? I mean the fronts that CIA keeps using, even though you know they're fronts. But somehow they don't know that you know.
"She was no longer covert."
Really? How do you know? Here's a shocker: Hayden said she was covert. Since you know more about such matters than he does, why did Dubya hire Hayden to run CIA instead of you?
Just to set the record right, you might want to check out this link:
http://web.mit.edu/simsong/www/iraqreport2-textunder.pdf
It's the Senate SSCI report.
Conclusions start on page 72 (page 82 of the PDF).
Take a look at Conclusion #13
The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. Formost analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau ofIntelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq.
Contrary to your claims, that is in the main report approved by both Republicans and Democrats.
Also, check out #14:
The Central Intelligence Agency should have told the Vice President and other senior policymakers that it had sent someone to Niger to look into the alleged
Iraq-Niger uranium deal and should have briefed the Vice President on the former ambassador's findings.
Once again, a conclusion agreed to by both Republicans and Democrats.
And #19 puts the blame for the 16 words clearly on the shoulders of the CIA, not the president:
Even after obtaining the forged documents and being alerted by a State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analyst about problems with them, analysts at both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) did not examine them carefully enough to see the obvious problems with the documents. Both agencies continued to publish assessments that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa. In addition, CIA continued to approve the use of similar language in Administration publications and speeches, including the State of the Union.
Once again, a finding made and agreed to by both Republicans and Democrats.
The conclusions that you were refering too that were only in the Republican portion of the suplimental report are:
Since I know you won't actually read it, I'll post the key element up top
While there was no dispute with the underlying facts, my Democrat colleagues refused to allow the following conclusions to appear in the report
and
I believed very strongly that it was important for the Committee to conclude publicly that many of the statements made by Ambassador Wilson were not only incorrect, but had no basis in fact.
What cannot be found, however, are two conclusions upon which the Committee's Democrats would not agree. While there was no dispute with the underlying facts, my Democrat colleagues refused to allow the following conclusions to
appear in the report:
Conclusion: The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger wassuggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee.
The former ambassador's wife suggested her husband for the trip to Niger in February 2002. The former ambassador had traveled previously to Niger on behalf of the CIA, also at the suggestion of his wife, to look into another matter not related to Iraq. On February 12, 2002, the former ambassador's wife sent a memorandum to a Deputy
Chief of a division in the CIA's Directorate of Operations which said, "[m]y husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." This was just
one day before the same Directorate of Operations division sent a cable to one of its overseas stations requesting concurrence with the division's idea to send the former ambassador to Niger.
Conclusion: Rather than speaking publicly about his actual
experiences during his inquiry of the Niger issue, the former ambassador seems to have included information he learned from press accounts and from his beliefs about how the Intelligence Community would have or should have handled the information he provided.
At the time the former ambassador traveled to Niger, the
Intelligence Community did not have in its possession any actual documents on the alleged Niger-Iraq uranium deal, only second hand reporting of the deal. The former ambassador's comments to reporters that the Niger-Iraq uranium documents "may have been forged because 'the
dates were wrong and the names were wrong,'" could not have been based on the former ambassador's actual experiences because the Intelligence Community did not have the documents at the time of the ambassador's trip. In addition, nothing in the report from the former ambassador's trip said anything about documents having been forged or the names or datesin the reports having been incorrect. The former ambassador told Committee staff that he, in fact, did not have access to any of the names
and dates in the CIA's reports and said he may have become confused about his own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in March 2003 that the names and dates on the documents were not correct. Of note, the names and dates in the documents that the IAEA found to be incorrect were not names or dates included in the CIA reports.
Following the Vice President's review of an intelligence report regarding a possible uranium deal, he asked his briefer for the CIA's analysis of the issue. It was this request which generated Mr. Wilson's trip to Niger. The former ambassador's public comments suggesting that the
Vice President had been briefed on the information gathered during his trip is not correct, however. While the CIA responded to the Vice President's request for the Agency's analysis, they never provided the information gathered by the former Ambassador. The former ambassador, in an NBC Meet the Press interview on July 6, 2003, said, "The office of the Vice President, I am absolutely convinced, received a very specific response to the question it asked and that response was based upon my trip out there." The former ambassador was speaking on the basis of what he believed should have happened based on his former government
experience, but he had no knowledge that this did happen.
These and other public comments from the former ambassador,
such as comments that his report "debunked" the Niger-Iraq uranium story, were incorrect and have led to a distortion in the press and in the public's understanding of the facts surrounding the Niger-Iraq uranium story. The Committee found that, for most analysts, the former ambassador's report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported Niger- Iraq uranium deal.
During Mr. Wilson's media blitz, he appeared on more than thirty television shows including entertainment venues. Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the President had lied to the American people, that the Vice President had lied, and that he had "debunked" the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. As discussed in the Niger section of the report, not only did he NOT "debunk" the claim, he actually gave some intelligence analysts even more reason to believe that it
may be true. I believed very strongly that it was important for the Committee to conclude publicly that many of the statements made by Ambassador Wilson were not only incorrect, but had no basis in fact.
You posted that comment in the wrong thread. I see you eventually figured that out, and put it where it belonged. And I answered you there.
You should explain what makes you smarter than Hayden. He said she was.