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Were you the juror who was dismissed?</p>
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He may well have believed it - however, none of the charges were related to that. So, why bring it up other than to start the process of trying his case outside the jury system by vilifying the accused about something that he was not going to charge him with.</p>
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Oh, well, if that is your idea of justice then Bill Clinton deserves a lethal injection. Face it, the only thing that matters to you is that Libby was a Republican. From that point it is a matter of him having to prove his innocence. It is a shame how low politics in this country has sunk.</p>
<p>So, what evidence convinces you that he was guilty?</p>
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<p>Why bring it up? Because it was relevant to the case. Motive.</p>
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<p>I wholeheartedly agree!</p>
<p>80% of american think many acted illiegally, welcome to the world of the minority</p>
<p>ff, i surrender, you were a fly on the wall and know all…those jururs, well they were just stupid, according to you</p>
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<p>So, this is your idea of justice where a prosecutor goes on national TV and vilifies a defendant knowing full well that Libby was not the person who had talked with Novak and also knowing full well that there was never any “sand” thrown in his eyes? Sounds a bit like the Duke rape case if you ask me.</p>
<p>So, CGM, I’m waiting to hear what the key testimony was that convinced you that Libby was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. </p>
<p>And, please recall that this case had absolutely nothing to do with bringing us to war - it was about a presumed lie that happened long after after we were at war.</p>
<p>Your continually bringing this up is the real indication that Libby did not receive a fair trial - how many others think that somehow this case revolved around our going to war? Certainly Harry Reid, thinks the same. But that is more an indictment of his feeble thought process than anything else.</p>
<p>He knew that Libby had talked to Judy. And he knew that Judy was covering for Libby and (?) . He knew that he couldn’t get all the facts he was supposed to be investigating because Libby’s lies were obstructing the investigation. It’s all a part of the piece - you can’t separate Libby from the Plame outing because that’s what the original investigation was about. Libby’s lying is tied to it. You make it sound so complicated, when it’s really not.</p>
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Your theory does not hold up. While Fitz claims that he couldn’t complete the investigation because of “sand” thrown in his eyes, the fact is that he knows all of the details now (and knew them then), yet he knew that there was no case to be had. No laws had been broken. If they were, why didn’t he charge anyone? Instead, he needed some charges, knowing that if he just closed up shop and told the truth - that after completeing his investigation he has found no laws that have been broken- that the left would have asked for his (Fitz’s) scalp.</p>
<p>the theory does not hold up?</p>
<p>we haven’t seen the end of this…and charges may well come</p>
<p>I finally get it!!! if you are a republican or a conservative you never do anything morally or legally wrong, but if you are a liberal you want to “get everyone”</p>
<p>Libby was pure as the driven snow…</p>
<p>ff - you’re kidding, right?</p>
<p>You don’t charge what you can’t prove in a court of law.<br>
There are all kinds of things Fitz may have known, but couldn’t prove without cooperative witnesses - and more than one witness to corroborate testimony. He had this with Libby.</p>
<p>And this isn’t my “theory.” It’s what Fitzpatrick has said.</p>
<p>asap…its okay, FF wants us to go through the entire court transcript for him…see, he knows everyone was lying except for libby, I guess…</p>
<p>I know it’s hopeless 
Just want to get the record out there.</p>
<p>Time to move on…place to go, people to see.</p>
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<p>So, your point is that after years of investigation and hours and hours of testimony by reporters, and other administration officials that the full story is not yet known? And that Libby holds the key to this vast rightwing conspiracy? Yeah, riiiight.</p>
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<p>Oh, so what you are saying is that you have no clue as to what evidence there is that proves his guilt without reasonable doubt … yet you are willing to rejoice in him going to jail. As I said before, it is a shame the levels that politics has sunken to - politics is now a criminal activity.</p>
<p>“Instead, he needed some charges, knowing that if he just closed up shop and told the truth - that after completeing his investigation he has found no laws that have been broken- that the left would have asked for his (Fitz’s) scalp.”</p>
<p>And this administration delivers scalps on demand to the left? Come on. They don’t fear what the left has to say, and they never have.</p>
<p>It’s an understatement to say that “Fitz” (a Republican), has a strong reputation across the political spectrum in the profession. He’s considered one of the greats of his generation in a number of ways, including dedication, guts, and objectivity. It’s not easy to get a bunch of lawyers to agree on anything, but there’s something like consensus among lawyers in his district that this guy is the genuine article.</p>
<p>This is NOT a matter of politics, as posted above. Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Those are some pretty heavy charges, espcially when leveled against the Chief of Staff for the Vice President of the United States.</p>
<p>If we can “run back the reel” here for a second and separate the apples from the oranges (and from the nuts too while we are at it), this trial was not about the act of “outing” Valerie Wilson and although it’s not tough to conclude that that was done (a la the tactics of Nixon enemy list dirty tricks), no charges were brought in that regard and no prosecution (yet) made.</p>
<p>Mr. Libby’s crimes go to his misdeeds carried out in attempting to thwart the prosecutor’s investigation of the “leak”, its source, etc. i.e. that he (Libby) committed perjury and acted to obstruct justice vis-a-vis that investigation and as to what was asked of him. After 10 days of deliberation the jury found him guilty on 4 of 5 counts for these acts.</p>
<p>If there is a bigger picture (and I think there is) did Mr. Libby just act on his own, was he protecting the V.P. and/or others, was he just the “good soldier”, was he instructed to act in this fashion???</p>
<p>I don’t know how or why this becomes a discussion of liberal vs. conservative, etc. unless I guess, as there appears to be for some a type of liberal truth or conservative truth. IMO, it’s just about the truth and about this one man’s acts but also how those acts reflect on what is easily one of the most corrupt, incompetent, deceitful and worthless administrations in this country’s history or that of the free world.</p>
<p>From the utter non-sense in Iraq and what brought us there, to the complete failure to address matters such as Katrina, to the latest horrors and the shame of Walter Reed, this is an administration cloaked in secrecy and mired in incompetence and duplicity. It is the darkest days of Nixon revisted. (One of the few differences being that Bush didn’t fire the prosecutor a la Nixon and Archibald Cox-).</p>
<p>Lets get real. Scooter will be free on appeal which will be timed to conclude before Jan, 2009. If the appeals fail, the President will then grant him a pardon. There is not the remotest chance that Scooter will ever see the inside of a jail cell.</p>
<p>I think we’re losing sight of the origin of the investigation, and that origin goes to the heart of why there has been no charge of underlying crime, I think.</p>
<p>The investigation began at the direct request of the CIA. (So anyone saying Plame wasn’t covert has to also accept they are implicitly accusing the CIA of wasting the country’s money.) Neither the CIA nor the appointed prosecutor knew when they started who had leaked Plame’s name. </p>
<p>Secondly, it is hard to say that Plame’s identity was no openly known by everyone, if at the same time so many administrative officials were calling around to make sure people knew it. Either a) it was revealed in the briefing papers and then disseminated by Libby, et al, in which case it can’t have been widely known beforehand; or b) it was widely known in advance, in which case it makes no sense that suddenly the administration officials have to run around calling all the reporters to tell them.</p>
<p>Lastly, once the investigation revealed that it was Cheney himself who told Libby, et al, about Plame’s position, and instructed them to tell people (and there was lots of evidence of this in the trial), there was no way that Fitzgerald could have charged anyone with the leak itself. If it had been Al Gore, or some previous VP, it would have been a crime. But the fact that Cheney revealed the information made it not a crime, since Bush had designated to Cheney for the first time the of any VP, the ability to declassify information at will, without presidential approval. </p>
<p>Therefore, the investigation uncovers the fact that Cheney was the one who shared the information with members of his administration, and probably instructed them to pass it around. Not a crime, since it’s legal for Cheney to declassify. But the members of his administration still don’t want to have the paper trail obvious, so they trusted in the reporters’ reluctance to report on their sources. What Libby didn’t realize was that the reporters to whom he spoke, felt free to testify to what they told Libby, as opposed to what he may have told them. </p>
<p>With all of this information, and knowing that Libby had lied to obstruct the progress of the investigation, how could Fitzgerald possibly have just ignored that?</p>