The Libby Letters: Did Michael Horowitz Threaten Judge Walton?
by emptywheel
Mon Jun 11, 2007 at 06:18:48 AM PDT
I wanted to call attention to the Michael Horowitz letter in support of leniency for Libby. Horowitz issues a thinly-veiled threat to retaliate if Libby has to do jail time.
Disposition of the Libby case will have much to do with whether the country will further and gravely descend into "us v. them" feelings of bitterness and contention. As the Bork case led inexorably to the Clinton impeachment, so can the case before the Court profoundly criminalize and poison the country's political process with calls for retribution on the part of many who will never believe--never--that Scooter merits criminal punishment or, God forbid, incarceration. It is an irony that Scooter would be the last to support such an embittering development, but the esteem in which he is held is such that any but the most Solomon-like disposition of his case could easily ensure this occurrence.T
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...........Horowitz' predictions of "calls for retribution" are no mere prediction, but a threat, precisely because he has carried out such "retribution" in the past.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0003.landay.htmlhttp://www.salon.com/news/1998/08/cov_13news.htmlWhat I don't understand, though, is the target of his threat.
Is Horowitz threatening to impeach the second President Clinton (or President Obama) because a staunchly independent prosecutor, appointed by a loyal Republican, prosecuted Libby for covering up Dick Cheney's role in the outing of a CIA NOC? Is he threatening to attack Democrats because a hard-nosed Republican appointee followed court guidelines and treated Libby with the same sternness he treats African-American drug dealers?
Or is Horowitz threatening to retaliate against Judge Walton himself, who was appointed by George W Bush and recently named by Chief Justice Roberts to the FISA Court? These right wingers aren't above threatening judges, after all, though it's not usually the Republican appointees they target.
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/files/Horowitz.pdf