Scooter Libby and Justice
Written by Mike on March 7th, 2007I have some simple questions, why did the Libby trial even happen? Where was the crime? What is the matter with a jury that convicts a man who they think was probably innocent?
Clarice Feldman has more at American Thinker.
Scooter Libby, whatever else he was, is man who has been hung out to dry by Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and President Bush. Each of these men knew he was innocent and who had actually “leaked” Plame’s name, but they kept quite to boost their respective political fortunes. Libby took the fall for men who didn’t deserve his years of good service and he deserves a pardon from them. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t get one.
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Libby definitely took one for the team. His lawyers will string this out for the next year and a half and then the President will pardon him. Why wait? It gives the Democrats less cannon fodder leading up to ‘08.
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Too bad all of this BS is costing the taxpayers tons of money in Federal Court time, not to mention what this pointless investigation (which could have ended in October when Armitage fessed up) has cost the taxpayer. I hate those DC bastards so much.
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It was a proxy trial for all the people (read: Cheney) that the Democrats really wish they could take out.
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It was a proxy trial with no crime and an unlawful jury. Too bad the administration, the Independent Counsel, Congress, the Democrats, the judge, the jury and the press all decided to close their eyes and pretend every was okay.
If it can happen to Libby, it can happen to anyone. We live in a tyranny my friends and I for one am sick to death of it.
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Scooter was convicted of double counts of both perjury and obstruction of justice and not for leaking some blond’s covert identity. Perjury is a very serious crime. It undermines our entire justice system. Is that really hard to understand?
I’m shock and awed!
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The Libbey trial “even happened” because Scoot put his hand on the bible and took a morally and legally binding oath to tell the truth.
And then he lied. Repeatedly. While under oath and on the record.
There are more than a few Americans in jail for obstructing justice in cases that did not result in a conviction of the “original offender.”
It doesn’t matter if your brother killed that girl or not - if you lie under oath to protect him (even if he is innocent) you have committed a very serious crime.
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Well that is a glossed over view of what happened. The “perjury” in question involved a guy forgetting when he was told something relatively unimportant months and months ago, he was off by a few days, end of story. Furthermore, the perjury charge would have been thrown out by most judges because the prosecutor sought to create it after he knew the man he was questioning wasn’t in fact the leaker of the information. It was an illegal tactic on the part of the prosecutor and therefore the “perjury” (if you really insist on calling a simple lapse of memory perjury) wasn’t a legitimate charge.
This isn’t a cut and dry case. Libby should never have even testified before the grand jury, which makes any “perjury” he might have commited moot.
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You speak like a person who was present at the trial and has full access to not only transcripts, but the intents present in the minds of the judge, jury, witnesses and prosecutor.
A jury of Mr. Libby’s peers had a slightly different opinion about the legality of Mr. Libby’s sworn testimony than you.
A federal judge (appointed by you know who) had a slightly different opinion than yours about Mr. Libby’s sworn testimony and the criminal actions and intent said testimony represented.
Will you now support overturning every decision of a federal court based on personal notions of what “should” or “should not” have happened?
Will you now throw out two keystones of our judicial system? Will you now abolish punisment for lying under oath while simultaneously throwing out the validity of a jury’s decision?
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“Gof” you’re mistaken on both accounts. The jury was noticeably sympathetic towards Libby. And the judge ruled based on federal law; he had no other choice — and Fitzgerald of all people noted so.
However, Fitzgerald’s actions ought to be suspect. Why did he keep investigating when there was no crime committed? What was his job? It is the President who has carried out justice, not the court and especially not the prosecutor.
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If the jury was so sympathetic, why did they find him guilty?
If the judge was so sympathetic, why did he sentence based on a “mid level” punishment, instead of assigning the bare minimum federal sentence called for in the guidelines?
Why did Fitzgerald investigate? It was his appointed job.
Why did Libbey get convicted? Because a jury found him guilty.
If the President believed the whole thing to be a witch hunt without basis in fact, why communtation and not full pardon?
Why did Bush call the felony conviction and fine proper while calling only the jail time improper?
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Gof, look. You clearly don’t know much about this case. I don’t have the time to go into it right now, but will later. Stick around if you want the education.
The bottom line, the trial, investigation and perjury charge were all illegal. I don’t give a shit what any jury, prosecutor or judge said. What they say doesn’t change the facts.
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Stick around and get educated, sometime in the future when you have the time to do so? Thanks, maybe not.
The bottom line? You want to ignore a jury and a judge - you want to ignore the rule of law.
Good luck with that.
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Sorry if I sounded like a prick Gof, didn’t mean to be. When I read back what I wrote it sounded that way, I was just in a hurry and didn’t feel like getting into the meat of the case. I am ignoring a jury and a judge, but that does not mean I am ignoring the rule of law.
Please believe me when I say I am no friend of the administration and would love to see the bulk of them in jail for the various crimes they have commited while in office. I just hate to see Libby going to jail when I know him to be innocent of the charges.
Please excuse my rudness earlier and do stick around, I welcome your thoughts and input.
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Hey, man, apology totally accepted. I came off a little harder than I had intended, as well. My apologies to you and props for a good site.
With Bush shredding party unity and the Liberals picking up new ammunition by the truckload, I am very glad to know there are still some real conservatives in the world asking intelligent questions and refusing to automatically swallow ANY party line. Blind partisanship doesn’t help anybody.
Just because I despise this administration’s policies and would quite desperatly like to punch Cheney in the face doesn’t mean I welcome another Liberal in the White House.
I just hate that this is yet another crisis where we have to tread incredibly carefully, rather than just stating our feelings honestly, because of the hamfisted actions of our man on the hill.
The Liberals love to see this kind of infighting amongst our ranks. They know their only real chance to take power again is the growing anti-Republican backlash that Bush seems to be either ignorant of, or just not care about.
I am really starting to wonder if Bush isn’t some kind of deep cover Liberal operative. He has made the damage Nixon did to the Party look quite paltry by comparison.
Just as Nixon/Ford begat the “Carter Revolution” I am terrified that Bush is going to usher in the “Obama/Clinton Revolution.”
When I think about the damage, the real lasting damage, that Carter did to this nation (both internally and in the eyes of the world)…it really does make my blood run cold with fear for the future.
We don’t have another Dutch waiting in the wings to pull the country back together and fix things this time.
Regardless of the legality of the trial, regardless of the obvious scape goating of Libby (on both sides of the aisle), regardless of the obviously overzealous prosecution…regardless of all these things, a jury delivered a verdict and a judge delivered a sentence.
Bad verdicts get handed down every day. Innocent men go to prison every day.
We don’t have to like it, we don’t have to agree with it - we can actively protest it, in fact - but we do have to respect the decisions of a judge and jury. We have to respect the system, even when it has made an obvious mistake.