<p>Neither Libby nor anyone else was charged with illegally leaking anything!!!</p>
<p>That is a fact.</p>
<p>“Leaking” declassified material is neither a crime nor immoral. Wilson mounted a deceitful campaign of lies about his intelligence trip to Niger in his attack on the truthfulness of Bush’s state of the union address.</p>
<p>How else should that have been responded to but to demonstrate that he was lying!! The bad actor here is Wilson.</p>
<p>The follow-up question asked why was the administration employing such a twit. (Which is an eminently fair question to ask because Wilson’s behavior whether he was lying or not did not reflect well on the administration’s hiring practices.) The answer turned out to be that his wife recommended him. …and the answer to the “so what?” that followed was, “and she works for the agency”.</p>
<p>Again, none of this is illegal.</p>
<p>There is no underlying crime here! That the jurors made such statements as noted above only reinforces the notion that they did not get that. How on earth could Rove, Cheney, or anyone else have anything to do with the issue of whether Libby remembered his conversations with reporters correctly? </p>
<p>…and why is it so important that he remembered them correctly? </p>
<p>Neither his recollection nor any reporter’s recollection represented illegal actions on his part. But, that the recollections differed was in some way material? Hell, one of the reporters didn’t remember having the conversation at all. Only to find some notes at a later date and change her story.</p>
<p>FF- Is there a reason you left out the first paragraph, the one that is factual?</p>
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<p>The rest of the opinion, and the editorial’s position that the trial was a waste, is an opinion not shared by all, certainly not those of us who feel that the grand jury investigation and the trial have peeled away a lot of the secrecy and shed some light on the inner workings of this administration. The reports from jurors, grand jury transcripts and trial transcripts will be of great interest to scholars and historians, and to those of us who believe that this war was unnecessary and wrongheaded - those of us trying to figure out how we got in this mess, and how to prevent such a tragedy in the future.</p>
<p>I’m glad to see, by the first paragraph, that the writer doesn’t dismiss Libby’s obstruction of justice charges as unimportant.
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<p>To some of us, this lesson made it all worth it.</p>
<p>This blog goes to the heart of what this is all about, in my opinion. It puts aside the question of whether laws were broken in the case and talks about what really is at stake in this case and in how the Administration handled itself. And how a group of partisans have tried to cloud what really happened:</p>
<p>Actually it has been (subsequently) well documented that Valerie Plame was a covert agent. The problem with prosecuting someone for a “leak” in this regard is establishing that the person “leaking” the info had actual knowledge of her status and further establishing their intent in leaking/revealing the information.</p>
<p>As an aside, “W” stated publicly that anyone participating in this “leak” would be fired. Of course that was later revised that anyone engaged in criminal activity in this circumstance would be fired. I guess someone read him the law and the “loophole” that would save Rove et. al. from being terminated from the White House staff.</p>
<p>I happen to believe Larry Johnson, Bedhead, but you can bet the right has been smearing him as well, trying to discredit his firsthand knowledge. I’ve heard him speak many times, and he is consistent and credible.</p>
<p>It is disturbing that the right continues to push the line that Plame wasn’t covert- hurting her even more than she has already been damaged by insinuating that she’s (and her husband) is making the whole thing up. </p>
<p>Fortunately, Johnson is wrong about one thing. Because of this incident and the perserverence of Fitzpgerald, the next group of political hacks will NOT feel free to violate those codes which have been breached.</p>
Well, you probably won’t have to wait that long. The Washington Post reporter who was on the jury has already compiled a long digest of notes which I’m sure will find its way into a book - a book that will be much more lucrative now that someone has been found guilty. Conflict of interest, anyone? </p>
<p>Besides his likelihood to profit from this, when you look at his relationship with the key participants in the trial one has to wonder how in the world he was let on the jury: Next door neighbor of Tim Russert, personal friend of Bob Woodward. It would seem that Libby’s attorney was setting the stage for appeal by deliberately committing malpractice by allowing this to happen.</p>
I shed no tears for Joe Wilson. If his wife was covert, why did he go around making up false stories that he should have known would lead back to her? If he was so concerned about her cover being broken, why did he make such a big deal when he thought that the original leaker may have been Rove, but then was indifferent to the fact that it was really Armitage who talked with Novak. You would have to have very recently fallen off the turnip truck to think that his charges were not politically motivated - as are the rest of the hand-wringers who are so glad “that justice was done”.</p>
<p>Whether this is “malpractice” or not is entirely the judges call, not yours.
Apparently, this juror passed whatever tests of impartialily were required.</p>
<p>Because to him, his findings were not “stories”.</p>
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<p>He has continued to make this a big deal. A very big deal.</p>
<p>He suspected Rove early on because of conversations he had had with Cooper, and he was not entirely wrong about Rove. Wilson admitted all along the he didn’t have the whole story about who, what, when.
The Armitage name came out fairly late in the game, after the investigation was underway. And while he was the first source for Novak, he was not the only source, and not the source for the other reporters. Libby has TESTIFIED that Cheney directed him to go after Wilson.</p>
<p>Libby planted his leak with Judy Miller - turned out not to be such a great idea.</p>
<p>ASAP, you’ve fought the valiant fight and provided good information. Thanks. It’s funny on other threads, I’ve found that delusional would controvert an assertion I made with a “there’s not a shred of truth to support that” and then when I provided the evidence, not a peep. At least guns were stuck to on this one all the way around.</p>
I’d like to see copy of that testimony. It would have had to have been in the grand jury since Libby did not testify in the trial. But seeing as you put in in full caps you must be certain so perhaps a link would be appropriate.</p>
<p>However, this is what the link that you already provided says:</p>
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<p>Hardly sounds like a directive to me. Are you SURE that this is what Libby testified or are you letting your wishes turn into facts? That seesm to happen a lot these days.</p>
<p>No, your excerpt is from something else - a quote of someone telling what they think Libby said, I believe. </p>
<p>What I’m referring to was in Libby’s testimony that was taped during the grand jury investigation. The tape was played for the jurors in the trial.</p>
<p>I’d like to hear some of the testimony first hand as well. I hope we will at least be able to read transcripts at some point. Congress will have to request it, for that to happen. Let’s hope they do.</p>
sometimes “not a peep” translates into having a life other than dealing with those who will never change their distorted views. As I recall, that issue pertained to O’Neil’s comments that the Iraq war was planned before 9/11. I’m not sure that I’d take the word of someone who has been fired from an administration as gospel truth with no supporting evidence. (If I start to believe such allegations, then man does Dick Morris have a whale of inside dirt on the Clintons.) You’ll have to do better than that to prove your assertion. Why not find a quote in Tommy Frank’s book. Certainly, those in charge of Centcom he must have been in on the planning.</p>
<p>According to trial transcripts obtained by Truthout, former White House staffer I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby testified before a grand jury in 2004 that Vice President Dick Cheney instructed him to divulge portions of a then-classified report to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Libby testified that Cheney said authorization to leak a section of the report had come directly from President George W. Bush, the court transcripts state."</p>