Libby Guilty

[barrons]

<p>System working.</p>

[MallomarCookie]

<p>Hahah yeah my thoughts exactly. It’s only been about 17 minutes though. We’ll have to keep our eye on it.</p>

[menloparkmom]

<p>Yaaaa!..</p>

[Dorothy_ParkerX]

<p>…the office of the Vice President is not currently accepting collect calls from Mr. Libby…</p>

[NYMomof2]

<p>Anyone want to start a betting pool on when the pardon will be issued?</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>If you mean that the sytem works in that it reached a verdict, then yeah it did - just like it did for the OJ trial. However, if you mean justice was done - I highly doubt it. </p>

<p>I wonder when Clinton goes on trial for his perjury?</p>

[WashDad]

<p>

I wonder when Clinton goes on trial for his perjury?

</p>

<p>Disbarment is the best you’re going to get on that.</p>

[Dorothy_ParkerX]

<p>

I wonder when Clinton goes on trial for his perjury

Here, one is left to do no more than apply the gag rule.</p>

[NYMomof2]

<p>Guilty on 4 of 5 counts. This was predicted on Feb. 14 by Emily Wheeler (emptywheel on thenexthurrah.com and firedoglake.com; author of Anatomy of Deceit). She has been in the courtroom for the entire trial and has posted running commentaries on firedoglake. Her pronouncement on 2/14:</p>

<p>"I predicted on the PTV clip that Libby might get off on the Cooper charges (a false statement and perjury charge). Partly, that’s because there are just two witnesses to the charge, against Libby. The difference in statement is relatively minor. And I think Jeffress was effective enough with his play on Cooper’s notetaking that he might have raised some doubt in juror’s minds.</p>

<p>“But the Russert and obstruction charges, IMO, are very strong. There are about 8 witnesses that Libby lied. And while Ari and Judy were not the most credible PEOPLE, I think their testimony was fairly credible.”</p>

<p>Ari = Ari Fleischer; Judy = Judith Miller</p>

[NYMomof2]

<p>Link to Wheeler’s statement:</p>

<p><a href=“Comments: The Libby Defense Rests (Almost)”>Comments: The Libby Defense Rests (Almost);

[Marilyn]

<p>Kind of sad because we figured out last year that he’s actually my H’s second cousin - obviously never knew him growing up. But poor Cousin Scooter!</p>

[MallomarCookie]

<p>Lol Marilyn that is great!!! Invite him for Thanksgiving dinner and address him as the turkey</p>

[parent2noles]

<p>If he lied before the grand jury he got what he deserved. President Clinton got impeached, Libby gets convicted. Could be a message here… </p>

<p>Did Sandy Burglar (such a clever nickname :)) ever get convicted for stealing classified documents from the National Archives?</p>

[bullwinkle]

<p>I was wondering what form of non-sense would be raised to skirt this circumstance or downplay it. What on earth does bill clinton have to do with this. </p>

<p>The Bush administration went out to destroy a political enemy in their ongoing efforts to “sell” this ridiculous war; cowards that they are they’ve let Libby be the fall guy in this situation with Joe Wilson and his wife and by the time the appeal process is exhausted, Bush and Cheney will finally be out of office and down the road or the pardon card will be played.</p>

<p>Rather than raising bill clinton, the analogy to this grotesque administration is the Nixon White House and it’s fall from grace.</p>

[barrons]

<p>This was hardly at the Nixon level. It was some political hardball with a guy that was nearly as guilty of twisting truth as any Bushie. The only crime was in the lying about it. Burger tried to hide and destroy an important historical record. At least as bad.</p>

[citygirlsmom]

<p>and gosh obstructing an investigation…so the truth wouldn’t get out</p>

<p>serves libby right and maybe now people won’t be so ready to fall on the sword for these men</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>

The Bush administration went out to destroy a political enemy in their ongoing efforts to “sell” this ridiculous war; cowards that they are they’ve let Libby be the fall guy in this situation with Joe Wilson and his wife and by the time the appeal process is exhausted, Bush and Cheney will finally be out of office and down the road or the pardon card will be played.

</p>

<p>That’s the way the lefty blogosphere would portray it. Too bad it has nothing to do with reality. Nowhere did any testimony indicate that there was a concerted effort to out anyone for retribution or otherwise. Fitzgerald very quickly got to the essence of the investigation as to who was the original leaker (it wasn’t Libby and as Novak said, it wasn’t a political hatchet man) and concluded that no law had been broken. Unfortunately he continued his investigation until he could come away with something/anything. Unfortunately Libby was the fallguy. </p>

<p>The bottom line is this is yet another reason why anyone in their right mind would run from public service as fast as possible. No longer are one’s political opponents content with just smears - they want you put in jail. So, like I said, under these new guidelines for political retribution, when does the Clinton perjury trial start? In his situation there is absolutely no defense that he may have “forgotten” that he did indeed have sexual relations with that woman. The jury wouldn’t have to deliberate more than a few minutes.</p>

[citygirlsmom]

<p>its okay, FF…who was Libby the fall guy for, btw…hmmmmm…as for Fitzgerald, he couldn’t DO the full investigation because Libby and othes lied…imagine that!!!</p>

<p>ANd it is so adorable when you go back to Clinton…how many years ago…</p>

[A.S.A.P]

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/washington/06cnd-jury.html?_r=1&oref=slogin[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/washington/06cnd-jury.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

For Jurors, Libby Might Be ?Fall Guy,? but He Was Guilty </p>

<p>By DAVID STOUT
Published: March 6, 2007
WASHINGTON, March 6 ? The jurors believed that I. Lewis Libby Jr. was a decent man, worthy of their sympathy. They believed what his chief lawyer, Theodore V. Wells Jr., told them at the outset: that Mr. Libby was at least partly ?a fall guy? for others in the Bush administration.</p>

<p>But, sadly for ?Scooter? Libby, as he has been known since childhood, the jurors concluded that the facts pointed to his guilt. It was just too much of a leap for them to think Mr. Libby?s contradictory accounts were from a bad memory.</p>

<p>As one juror, Denis Collins, put it, the jury found it was too hard to imagine that Mr. Libby ?could remember it on a Tuesday and then forget it on a Thursday and then remember it two days later.?</p>

<p>That was an allusion to the story Mr. Libby told about his conversation with Tim Russert, the Washington bureau chief of NBC News, a conversation that was all-important in the jurors? deliberations, Mr. Collins, a former reporter for The Washington Post, told journalists today.</p>

<p>Mr. Libby swore months ago that Mr. Russert told him about Valerie Wilson?s job with the Central Intelligence Agency around July 10 or July 11, 2003. Although Mr. Libby acknowledged he had earlier heard about Mrs. Wilson from his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, he said he had forgotten about it until the July exchange with Mr. Russert, when ?it was like hearing it for the first time.? </p>

<p>No, Mr. Russert testified during Mr. Libby?s trial in Federal Court here. . He never talked to Mr. Libby about Valerie Wilson.</p>

<p>And how, Mr. Collins was asked, did the jurors conclude that Mr. Libby was guilty of lying instead of ?an innocent mistake,? as one questioner put it. </p>

<p>?The primary thing that convinced us on most of the counts was the conversation, alleged conversation with Russert,? Mr. Collins said. By implication, then, it did Mr. Wells no good to try to embarrass Mr. Russert, showing in cross-examination that the television newsman had some memory lapses of his own, as did a few other Washington journalists who were subpoenaed to testify.</p>

<p>The jurors pasted little pieces of paper on a big bulletin board, with each piece listing all the times Mr. Libby talked to people about Mrs. Wilson in a relatively compressed span of time – nine instances in all, Mr. Collins recounted.</p>

<p>?We were told he had a bad memory, and we actually believed he did,? Mr. Collins said. One Cheney aide who worked closely with Mr. Libby testified how ?he would forget from morning to evening,? Mr. Collins recalled. </p>

<p>But the same aide testified that Mr. Libby ?had an incredible grasp of details and arguments,? Mr. Collins said, so ?it seemed very unlikely that he would have not remembered that about Mrs. Wilson.? </p>

<p>Mr. Wells wanted the jurors to think about people who were not on trial: Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state who acknowledged telling the columnist Robert D. Novak about Mrs. Wilson?s C.I.A. post; Karl Rove, the White House political guru who acknowledged having been another source for Mr. Novak, and Ari Fleischer, the former White House spokesman who also talked to reporters about Mrs. Wilson and testified at the trial under a grant of immunity.</p>

<p>?Where?s Rove?? Mr. Collins said, recalling the mood in the jury room. ?Where?s the other guys??</p>

<p>Yes, Mr. Collins said, the jurors believed that Vice President Cheney wanted Mr. Libby to try to undermine the credibility of Mrs. Wilson?s husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who had written critically of the Bush administration?s rationale for going to war against Iraq. (Mr. Wilson?s detractors tried to create the impression that his wife had arranged his trip to Africa to investigate rumors that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire uranium.)</p>

<p>But the jurors, regardless of their feelings, followed the instructions of Judge Reggie B. Walton. He told them not to concern themselves with people who were not on trial. Their job was to decide the guilt or innocence of Mr. Libby.</p>

<p>Nor did the 10 days of deliberations signal any dissension or indecision in the jury room, Mr. Collins said. The panel had some ?good managerial-type people? who led the way in picking apart the case, he said.</p>

<p>Mr. Collins said the jurors felt ?a tremendous amount of sympathy? for Mr. Libby, sometimes wondering aloud, ?What are we doing with this guy here?? </p>

<p>But the judge had admonished them not to be swayed by sympathy for Mr. Libby. And the jurors, following instructions, pushed their emotions aside, even as they felt for Mr. Libby as a human being, Mr. Collins said. Their first allegiance, as the prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald had hoped, was to the cold facts.

</p>

<p>One juror, apparently, did hear evidence that made her believe Cheney wanted Libby to undermine Wilson’s claim, and says that the jurors believed that was the case. Libby’s obstruction of justice makes it difficult if not impossible to get at the whole truth. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from the jurors as time goes on.</p>

[weenie]

<p>Ahhh, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.</p>

<p>And it is very Nixon-like. In fact the entire Bush administration is very Nixon-like. Obsessively putting retributions to one’s political enemies (all cloaked in extreme secrecy) above the nation’s work - it’s perfect Nixonism.</p>