UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. I. LEWIS LIBBY, also known as "SCOOTER LIBBY"

It's painfully obvious that if Libby's conviction is upheld, Bush will pardon him in January 09. That's what Presidents do for the people who work for them.

 

Indeed it is. Libby is taking a bullet for Cheney, Rove, and possibly Bush. (although I wouldn't put it past Bush to be stupid enough not to understand what is going on) Libby won't see any jail time. That's my prediction. Fitzgerald, IMO, didn't go after Cheney, in particular, because he didn't think he could get anyone to testify against the guy.

A sad day for American justice.



D&D. The Smoke Coming Off the Steaming Pile.

 

A question for the lawyers here.

I heard that Libby's lawyers are asking for the judge to put aside this ruling and ask for a new trial. I can understand that there might be some basis to appeal this ruling but what basis is there to ask for a whole new trial?

It sounds like they are asking for a mulligan and now are going to take the real shot.

 

I'm no lawyer, but I think I understand the basis. Libby's lawyers are referring to notes from the jurors, questions asked by the jurors, and comments by the jurors, and saying that the jurors didn't understand the charges. If they didn't understand the charges, the conviction couldn't possibly be honest. But since the jury didn't come back with anything crazy, and the judge instructed the jury, the judge is very unlikely to give them a new trial. But it will offer good fodder for an appeal.

 

the judge is very unlikely to give them a new trial. But it will offer good fodder for an appeal.

That sums it up nicely. Now to find a sympathetic judge (ie a Republican appointee who knows his place) who will let the appeal process move at glacial speed ...

 

That's what we'll see. This will drag on until after the '08 election, so Bush can give Libby a pardon, The Three Amigos can breath a sigh of relief (Bush, Cheney, & Rove), the pardon won't impact the elections, and Libby will "be taken care of." Heck, in Libby's mind, he may be making a patriotic sacrifice. It's hard for me to get worked up about him. The real culprits here are walking away, scot-free.



D&D. There's an Odor in the Air.

 

Perhaps in a legal sense, but not in a political sense and certainly not in a historical sense. The evidence presented in the trial would be enough to impeach just about any other VP in history.

 

This happens over and over again, like Caspar Weinberger and the Iran Contral scandal. It's sad that this practice has been and will be legal, and it's sad that Americans accept that bitter pill.

 

Let's not under play the significance of this conviction though. It is the highest level WH official to be convicted since Iran Contra.

 

Forgive my ignorance...

Is there a chance that he or others will be tried for the original crime?

I'm not sure there's a murderer on death row anywhere in America more deserving of a death sentence than this traitor.

 

If you're referring to who revealed Plame's identity it doesn't sound likely since the prosecutor has ruled out more indictments, for now. Its also known that Richard Armitage, Ari Fleischer, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby had revealed Plame's identity so the culprits are known. Why they aren't being charged on that I'm not very clear but my impression is that they might've cut some sort of deal with the prosectutor regarding that.

 

^ I think you're right about the statute having a high intent threshhold. I also heard on a legal analysist on NPR saying that the rest of the individuals had agree to cooperate with the prosecutor and came clean regarding what they said and when they said it whereas Libby blamed Russert and other reporters. Fitzgerald felt that since Libby wasn't cooperating perjury and obstruction of justice was more fitting. To me that sounds like Armitage, Fleischer, and Rove cut deals while Libby didn't.

 

lest we forget, Libby's conviction doesn't mean joe wilson didn't lie.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html

[rquoter]Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission
Report Disputes Wilson's Claims on Trip, Wife's Role

By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 10, 2004; Page A09

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.


Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

Yesterday's report said that whether Iraq sought to buy lightly enriched "yellowcake" uranium from Niger is one of the few bits of prewar intelligence that remains an open question. Much of the rest of the intelligence suggesting a buildup of weapons of mass destruction was unfounded, the report said.

The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him.

Plame's role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.

Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush's foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame's identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her 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." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger.

"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: "I don't see it as a recommendation to send me."

The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA's request to her husband, saying, "there's this crazy report" about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife's suggestion.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson's reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.

Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."

According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.

Still, it was the CIA that bore the brunt of the criticism of the Niger intelligence. The panel found that the CIA has not fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium in Niger to this day, citing reports from a foreign service and the U.S. Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin.

The agency did not examine forged documents that have been widely cited as a reason to dismiss the purported effort by Iraq until months after it obtained them. The panel said it still has "not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa." [/rquoter]

 

Hilarious. Pulling an article from 2004? Really Now. On top of it, the quotes about Wilson and his wife come not from the body of the Report, but from the "Additional Comments" section authored by Senators Roberts, Bond, and Hatch. (Do they have anything in common?) On top of that, the article is written by Sue Schmidt who is infamous for parroting GOP Talking Points in misleading articles, as this one is... note it leaves the impression that this is part of the Bipartisan Report when it is really a Republican addendum. And notice how the article conflates the idea that Wilson was appointed by his wife with (at the time) uncertainties about some of the intelligence relating to Niger found in the body of the Report.

Here's Wilson's response to the Report:

 

Funny you should drag out this old already debunked BS. The author is wrong, and leaves out half of the stuff.

Please note how this addresses specifically the memo Schmidt and basso use as the basis for their charge

Look at how wrong Susan Schmidt was. Look at how well Wilson shows her factual errors which basso has drudged up from the garbage heap of falsehoods from the past.

As for the "bi-partisan" senate report saying that Wilson's finding support rather than debunk the idea of Niger being inovolved in the yellow cake mess, basso apparently didn't read the last assignment I gave him.

The report says no such thing in relation to evidence. Two republicans included those statements in their own conclusions, and site no evidence of that at all. All parts of the bi-partisan report related to evidence and not personal individual summaries do indeed back up Wilson's claims.

basso, perhaps you can do a search and find the thread where you posted the report and I pointed that out to you previously.

Link for my quoted material------- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson

 

QFT. There is zero doubt about this.