Scooted!

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Guilty on four counts. Merry Fitzmas!

Update: Media Matters has the counterspin.

Update update: Um, is this a threat?

I think it is wrong to prosecute someone when the underlying crime that supposedly occurred to set the entire investigation in motion has never been proved to have occurred. (I felt the same way about the Martha Stewart matter.) I think the people who will be cheering this verdict might want to step back and think about how this kind of precedent will be used against one of their own in the future.

And it will. Bet on it.

Precedent? This is hardly the first “obstruction of justice” verdict handed down by an American jury. Libby was also found guilty of perjury and giving a false statement.

As Patrick Fitzgerald explained when the indictments were announced, Libby’s obstructions prevented the prosecution from determining whether the alleged leak violated federal law. The rightie blogger quoted above seems to think that it’s OK if someone suspected of a crime is caught lies to law enforcement or a grand jury or otherwise obstructs the investigation. Huh?

I’m watching CNN, and apparently some of the jurors didn’t think the case went far enough. More when I find out about it.

11 thoughts on “Scooted!”

  2. At last! Hopefully this opens the window that will be thrown wide open in the Wilson civil case (which can’t be pardoned away, either). Meanwhile, I can’t help wondering: Did Libby’s PowerPoint slides help convict him? People rely on stories to enliven factual information with resonance and meaning. Packaging too much data as bullet points may confuse your audience. It may also convince them that you are trying to hide behind data, or that you are trying to manipulate them with bullet points because your story doesn’t make any sense. Which, come to think of it, was probably true in Libby’s case.

  3. Great day for America…Now we have to start screaming about the pardon. It will happen, so we have to make it as costly to Bush’s legacy as we can by illustrating Bush’s absolute contempt for justice. Nixon never rehabilitated his name in the pages of history..he went to his grave as a crook and liar.. Let’s insure that Bush carries his tarnished name to his grave also…

  5. Seems to me that they impeached Clinton for lying during an investigation, when there was no underlying crime at all. I wonder what position the quoted rightie blogger held on that at the time? I wonder if he stood back and thought about how that precedent might be used against one of his own in the future? Hmmm….

  6. As Patrick Fitzgerald explained when the indictments were announced, Libby’s obstructions prevented the prosecution from determining whether the alleged leak violated federal law.

    With patience I could train my parrot to say that, but that would not make it true.

    Fitzgerald had no evidence that anyone had told Libby that Ms. Plame was classified (and admitted that in a court filing.)

    Absent that info, he can’t make any real charge stick.

    Nor did he attempt to charge Fleischer and Armitage, both of whom saw Ms. Plame mentioned in a document labeled “Top Secret” yet blabbed about her anyway.

    Sort of makes one wonder whether it was Libby’s obstruction or some other set of facts that prevented a prosecution on the underlying crime of outing Ms. Plame.

    Seems to me that they impeached Clinton for lying during an investigation, when there was no underlying crime at all.

    Seems to me that Paula Jones had a properly certified sexual harassment suit, a perfectly plausible civil action back when libs still thought sexual harassment was actionable.

  7. With patience I could train my parrot to say that, but that would not make it true.

    You’re saying Patrick Fitzgerald is a parrot?

    Fitzgerald had no evidence that anyone had told Libby that Ms. Plame was classified (and admitted that in a court filing.)

    Actually, Fitzgerald had evidence that lots of people had told Libby that Plame was classified. Libby had learned this from Cheney, for example. And Ari Fleischer testified in court that Libby told him Plame was classified.in July 2003.

    However, as I understand it, in order to convict under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act Fitzgerald would have had to prove intent to “impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States,” and that would have been difficult.

    And the biggest reason Fitzgerald was short on evidence is that Libby obstructed justice. Read this:

    In an October 28, 2005, press release summarizing Libby’s indictment, Fitzgerald indicated that he had not been able to reach a conclusion about whether a crime had been committed in the leaking of Plame’s identity, saying that Libby impeded the grand jury’s investigation:

    Without the truth, our criminal justice system cannot serve our nation or its citizens. The requirement to tell the truth applies equally to all citizens, including persons who hold high positions in government. In an investigation concerning the compromise of a CIA officer’s identity, it is especially important that grand jurors learn what really happened. The indictment returned today alleges that the efforts of the grand jury to investigate such a leak were obstructed when Mr. Libby lied about how and when he learned and subsequently disclosed classified information about Valerie Wilson [Plame].

    And in a press conference that same day, a reporter specifically asked Fitzgerald whether the investigation was over and whether the probe would fail to “lead to a charge of leaking.” In response to the first question, the special counsel said that the investigation had not concluded. In response to the second question, Fitzgerald compared himself to an umpire who, while attempting to determine whether a pitcher intentionally hit a batter, had sand thrown in his eyes.

    Seems to me that Paula Jones had a properly certified sexual harassment suit, a perfectly plausible civil action back when libs still thought sexual harassment was actionable.

    I still think it’s actionable, and as I recall Jones got her day in court. and didn’t prove her case. This means, officially, there was no underlying crime.

  8. OK, can we get a couple things straight right now?

    First. Richard Armitage threw himself on a grenade. His belated and convenient confession that he outed Plame is, was, and always will be, bullshit. He’s the Rosie Ruiz of Traitorgate.

    Second. Anyone who uses the term “libs” in 2007 must go through a ton of Bandaids, for all those knuckles scraping on the ground.

  9. One would think your parrot would teach you better than that, tom…

    I hate to hear about pets who don’t have it so good, can you imagine being stuck in a cage at toms place?

    Tom’s parrot: If you can break free come on by…we have an extra cage and no one will make you talk ..you would be respected at my home not used as a political toy.

  11. This is amazing:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602020.html

    Has the Washington Post been smoking crack with Doug Feith?

    The fall of this skilled and long-respected public servant is particularly sobering because it arose from a Washington scandal remarkable for its lack of substance.

    Skilled at what? What does the writer “respect” about what Libby has done?

    Mr. Wilson advanced yet another sensational charge: that his wife was a covert CIA operative and that senior White House officials had orchestrated the leak of her name to destroy her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson.

    Who cares if it was sensational? It’s true.

    Yet after two years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald charged no one with a crime for leaking Ms. Plame’s name.

    Completely avoids the question of the nature of the laws Fitzgerald was trying to enforce. Were those laws easy to prosecute? If not, that might account for Fitzgerald’s discretion in not prosecuting those crimes. If the writer is ignoring this fact, he or she should not be covering a legal trial.

    …he pressed on, pursuing every tangent in the case.

    No, he did not. He was obstructed from prosecuting the crime he was charged with investigating. Since he was stopped from doing that by very specific people, he prosecuted those people. He then concluded. Good grief.

    The damage done to journalists’ ability to obtain information from confidential government sources has yet to be measured.

    What about the damage that journalists did in refusing to persue the facts surrounding this case? Are the journalists at the Washington Post capable of feeling any shame whatsoever?

    Mr. Fitzgerald was, at least, right about one thing: The Wilson-Plame case, and Mr. Libby’s conviction, tell us nothing about the war in Iraq.

    Yes. They tell us nothing. But mr. journalist, that’s your job, which you’ve been studiously neglecting.

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