"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!