From A Possible Future President...

[WillyT]

Sentencing of Scooter Libby
By Fred Thompson
Thursday, June 7, 2007




<snip>

...The CIA started the ball rolling by sending the Democratic partisan husband of one of its employees to Niger on a sensitive mission. Knowing an opportunity when he saw one, he returned and blasted the Bush Administration (the fact that he blatantly falsified a few important things along the way is another story). It should not have been a shock to CIA officials when people then asked, “Who is this guy and why was he sent to Niger?” The only mystery in Washington is why the CIA employee-wife’s name, Valerie Plame, took as long as it did to leak.

Nevertheless, the CIA demanded that the Department of Justice investigate the leak of her name (not surprisingly, the fact that the CIA was making such a request was leaked). This put pressure on the DOJ. The DOJ, in turn, promptly caved to the media and Congressional pressure to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the Plame leak. However, there were two glaring problems for anyone with a sense of justice, or who may have gone to law school for one semester.

The Justice Department and the new Special Counsel knew that: 1.) The leaking of Valerie Plame’s name did not constitute a crime because she was not a “covered person” under the relative criminal statue and, 2.) They already knew the name of the leaker: State Department official Richard Armitage.

Yet small matters such as these do not matter much to Justice Department officials trying to cover their own fanny, or to a newly minted Special Prosecutor with a reputation to make and members of the media to satisfy.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald proceeded to make public statements and employ tactics that would have brought condemnation in any other setting. He moved heaven and earth for a year and a half in order to come up with some sort of “process” crime against a high-level Administration official -- so that he could try them in one of the most anti-Bush Administration places in America, Washington DC.

The best he could come up with was a man who was not well known to the public, but who was basically working two full-time jobs after 9/11 -- trying to prevent such a thing from happening again. The White House physician says that, “Mr. Libby worked himself to exhaustion day after day reviewing national intelligence estimates.” Of course, he had to make time for hours of testimony before Fitzgerald’s grand jury and Fitzgerald found inconsistencies. At trial, practically every government witness not only was inconsistent with other government witnesses, but was inconsistent with regard to their own prior testimony...

<snip>

Link: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/FredThompson/2007/06/07/sentencing_of_scooter_libby

I was dismissing this drivel out of hand for a while, until I read more...

Is something else going on here???

From John Dean:

<snip>

The Cost of Clemency: The White House's Dilemma Regarding the Libby Sentencing

If Watergate had any lesson, it was that when someone connected to the White House is heading for prison, it is dangerous for the president or those close to him to even think about - not to mention talk about - clemency.

After all, the March 1, 1974 indictment of Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Chuck Colson (who pled guilty, rather than risk a trial) charged each of them with a conspiracy to obstruct justice by offering to provide clemency to those involved in the Watergate break-in. In addition, as Nixon's tapes showed, the president discussed pardons on several occasions, and this abuse of power was included in the bill of impeachment against him that was pending when he resigned.

If Libby had been acting on his own behalf, a pardon would present no problem; Bush and Cheney could feel it was the humanitarian thing to do, given his long service to the government. However, no one I know believes Libby was acting simply for himself, nor does the evidence suggest it.

Let's suppose, instead, that Libby was doing Cheney's bidding, and that Cheney was deeply involved in both Libby's leak of Valerie Plame's CIA status and the lies Libby subsequently concocted to deflect attention away from the Vice President. If so, then there was a conspiracy to obstruct justice - and if Cheney should go to Bush and request that he pardon Libby, he would be furthering that conspiracy. No wonder then, that Special Counsel Fitzgerald remarked during the Libby trial that there was "a cloud" over the Vice President.

Come Tuesday, that cloud could get much darker for Cheney.

It's likely that only Cheney and Libby know precisely what transpired between them, assuming they are half as shrewd as they appear. In addition, Libby has probably not been foolish enough to directly request a pardon, nor Cheney imprudent enough to directly promise one. Given what happened during Watergate, surely they are smart enough not to have had that conversation.

However, these men have worked together so long and closely that a knowing look, or pat on the back, from Cheney at the right moment could and would have said all that was necessary. And my strong impression, from the outside, is that, indeed, that message has been sent.

Libby's Public Defense Fund and Pardon Efforts

Following the bungled Watergate burglary and the arrest of Gordon Liddy's troops in the Democratic National Committee, there was discussion in the White House and at a meeting of the Nixon reelection committee of setting up a public defense fund. Nixon's friend Bebe Rebozo offered to do so, with the plan of soliciting contributions from heavy hitters who merely were contributing because those arrested had all been Nixon loyalists, and were entitled to a fair trial. But it never happened.

Scooter Libby, however, did create such a defense fund. Whether Dick Cheney quietly picked up the phone to get this going, is not known. If he did, he kept himself well removed. Indeed, Lynne Cheney could well have done it. We will never know. But whoever was behind the defense fund, it has worked.

The drive to pardon Libby has come from people outside the White House who are smart enough to have figured out the dilemma facing the White House. A list of these people can be found at Libby's defense fund site, where these purported friends have gathered. It is a Who's Who of the Right-Wing Establishment -- many of whom have not only raised money to help pay Libby's legal fees, but have also written letters to Judge Walton about Libby's good character and public service, and continue to call for his pardon.

If high-powered folks like Fred Thompson lobby Bush for a pardon, Cheney need not be involved, and risk further participation in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. But the claim, made by Thompson and others, that Libby is the subject of a great injustice in being prosecuted is pure hogwash. This, in turn, suggests that this entire effort is nothing but a charade.

Link: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20070601.html

And...

From Robert Parry

<snip>

"Sacrificial Lamb"

At the start of Libby's trial in 2007, defense lawyer Theodore Wells claimed that his client had been assigned the role of White House fall guy. In opening remarks, Wells told the jury that Libby went to his boss, Dick Cheney, in early October 2003 and complained, "they're trying to set me up; they want me to be the sacrificial lamb."

But Wells never fleshed to this fall-guy argument during the trial, nor did Libby testify in his own defense. That left the impression to some that Libby may have been sending a message to Bush and Cheney that he expected to be taken care of, one way or another.

Since Fitzgerald has never disclosed what Bush and Cheney told investigators during their own interviews, it's also unclear how vulnerable they might be to criminal charges if Libby were to agree to give the full story in exchange for greater leniency.

But it is clear that Bush did not live up to his early pledge to punish any administration official who helped leak Plame's classified identity. Instead, Bush promoted Karl Rove, who served as a source on Plame's identity for at least two journalists, including Robert Novak, the first to unmask Plame in a newspaper column on July 14, 2003.

By making Rove deputy White House chief of staff, instead of firing him, Bush reduced the risk that Rove might join Libby in running to the prosecutor with evidence of a presidential-level conspiracy to obstruct justice. Though there was no choice but to cast Libby outside the tent, Rove was kept inside.

The Plamegate cover-up also has extended beyond just the direct conspirators. Bush and Cheney have counted on the Republican attack machine and the frequently complicit mainstream news media to keep up a steady barrage of talking points against Wilson, Plame and anyone else who tries to keep this scandal alive.

The administration has succeeded in sowing so much confusion that many Americans have tuned out Plamegate or have succumbed to the oft-repeated talking points, even those that have been disproved.

For instance, right-wing talk shows continue to insist that Plame was not "covert" despite the fact that the CIA has confirmed she was.

Bottom Lines

Still, there remain two bottom lines to this story:

First, senior administration officials did divulge the identity of a covert CIA officer destroying her career and endangering foreigners who cooperated with her in investigating the proliferation of dangerous weapons in the Middle East.

Reasonable people can disagree whether these actions meet the requirements of premeditation contained in the Intelligence Agents Identities Act of 1982 and whether the available evidence - especially given the President's broad control over classification authority - could establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

But there can be little question that the White House-orchestrated campaign against Wilson, which led to the disclosure of his wife's identity, resulted in serious damage to U.S. national security.

Second, the evidence is overwhelming that the administration conducted a cover-up of the Plamegate facts, relying not only on their own false statements about the leak itself but enlisting foot soldiers in the Washington press corps and among Republicans in Congress to continue smearing Wilson to this day and thus confuse the American public.

From the start, Bush and Cheney appear to have sensed that they could make the cover-up work if they transformed it into a political spat. To a great extent, they have been proven correct in that assumption.

Now, their last remaining Plamegate concern is that "Scooter" Libby might calculate that he stands a better chance of reducing his time in jail if he tells the whole story rather than trust that his loyal silence will be rewarded by a pardon from a thankful President Bush.

The next move in this four-year-old chess match between those who want to hide the truth and those who want to expose it rests with Judge Watson and whether he sends Libby off to jail now rather than later.

<snip>

Link: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060707E.shtml

I don't need to tell you guys this, but we need to tell everybody else...

These guys, at THE VERY LEAST, are not trying to protect Scooter...

We know EXACTLY what they are trying to protect!!!

:shrug:

[hobbit709]

1. The only thing he's qualified to be

"possible future president" of is the portapotty cleaners association.

[Phredicles]

2. Hey now, cleaning portapotties is honorable work.

Clearly "Law and Order" meaning nothing to that butt-ugly old putz.

[hobbit709]

3. That's why he should be demoted to cleaning portapotties.

He might learn something but I wouldn't bet on it.

[Gabi Hayes]

4. somebody with specific knowledge of the case needs to take that

lazy prick's pile of BS apart, line by line

STARTING with the obvious fact that, if there was no underlying crime in the first place, WHY THE HELL did Libby lie his ASS off about it, over and over?

and forget the silly defense of his forgetfulness

and why is the CIA refusing to let Wilson publish her book, if she wasn't covered as a NOC, or whatever

that's just the starting point.

and how are you enjoying those illegal Cuban cigars, you fat, bald, lazy, womanizing scumpod?

[WillyT]

5. That's What I'm Saying Gabi... There Is Something Else Going On Here...

for all this time, effort, money, and obvious propaganda.

:shrug:

Protect the fledgling Nazis perhaps???

:shrug:

[AX10]

6. He lies like a conservative.

I guess he is the candidate of choice for the GOP!

[muntrv]

7. Hey Fred, there also was no underlying crime when starr was investigating

the Big Dog.

[WillyT]

8. Morning Kick !!!

:kick: