Juror: Libby Was "The Fall Guy"

Jurors Say They Sympathized With Former White House Aide But Simply Didn't Believe His Story

(CBS/AP)  Jurors in the Libby trial turned their deliberation room into one big visual aid, plastering the walls with dozens of poster-size summaries of witness testimony.

They pushed two long tables together, pored over testimony, reviewed their notes and spent a week just laying out the evidence.

But in the end, it came down to credibility — and they simply did not believe the former White House aide's story. One juror also said Libby was being made a scapegoat.

"There was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury. It was said a number of times, 'What are we doing with this guy here? Where's Rove? Where are these other guys?'" juror Denis Collins said. "I'm not saying we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was, as Mr. Wells put it, he was the fall guy."

"There were good managerial type people on this jury who took everything apart and put it in the right place," Collins said after he and his colleagues convicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. "After that, it wasn't a matter of opinion. It was just there."

Prosecutors said Libby lied about how he learned the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame and whom he told. Libby said he told investigators his best recollection of his conversations, but, in the heat of his demanding work schedule, forgot some details or made errors.

Libby's lawyers urged jurors not to convict a man for being forgetful, and jurors took that to heart. They did not immediately vote in the jury room, opting instead to assess the evidence before taking a poll

"It was a very tough question to get through, to try to figure out whether he could have forgotten," juror Jeff Comer said. "Everyone has their moments of forgetfulness."

Libby testified that he learned Plame's identity from Cheney, forgot it, then learned it again a month later from NBC reporter Tim Russert. Prosecutors say that was a convenient story crafted to conceal the fact that Libby discussed official government information.

"There was no smoking gun," Comer said.

Instead, jurors relied on the testimony of several government officials and journalists who said they discussed Plame with Libby. Jurors made a list of nine people who talked to Libby about Plame, and Collins remembered one juror making an observation.

"If I'm told something once, I'm likely to forget it," Collins recalled the juror saying. "If I'm told it many times, I'm less likely to forget it. If I myself tell it to someone else, I'm even less likely to forget it."

Collins, a former Washington Post reporter, said jurors wanted to hear from others involved in the case, including Bush political adviser Karl Rove, who was one of two sources for the original leak. Defense attorneys originally said both Libby and Cheney would be witnesses and Rove was on the potential witness list.

But if the defense had called Cheney to the stand, there was the chance that the vice president might have been ripped apart by the prosecution, according to CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger. And that could have made Libby look even worse.

Collins said he was intrigued when defense lawyer Theodore Wells raised the idea the Libby was being made a scapegoat for Rove. Comer said he can only recall that idea coming up once.

"For me, I really needed to focus on the charge in front of us," Comer said. "There was this background noise, but it played almost no role for me."

During opening statements, Wells told jurors the only way he would lose the case was if they allowed their feelings about the Iraq war and the Bush administration to influence their decision. But Collins said neither topic came up.

"The people who led us were strict taskmasters. Let's stick to the facts," Collins said. "This was not a case about, 'Who can we punish for going into Iraq?' We didn't go there. This wasn't about the war."

[lars008-2009]

wrong.......... it was Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey
On December 30, 2003, Fitzgerald was appointed to continue the investigation into the Plame affair. Fitzgerald was named by Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case due to conflicts of interest.
he's not registered with either party he claims, but he is irish catholic from illinois.... demonic-rat in other words.....

[randalds]

partisan politics as usual..... libby is now a political prisoner.....
Posted by lars008 at 01:42 PM : Mar 07, 2007

Really funny considering the prosecutor (Fitzgerald) is a republican appointed by a republican AG (Ashcroft) at the behest of a republican president (Bushy boy). So which party is he a political prisoner of?

[scott4261]

Boo Hoo. Hope his former boss is next. Good riddance.

[lars008-2009]

partisan politics as usual..... libby is now a political prisoner.....

[abbe7]

"The underlying subject matter is irrelevant. Lying under oath is a crime."

Of course, it doesn't help if the underlying subject is the killing of 100000+ people.

[huskerarmy]

"What human has not sinned when trapped in certain situations?"
And that is exactly what we've been trying to get you Bush appologists to explain... What was it exactly that made him feel "trapped" so that he was compelled to lie?

[abbe7]

fizza,

"Now what? Does Brewster Jennings want to sue every body because The companies they worked for had somebody on the job who was not an energy consultant and they want their money back."

You totally miss the point. There was hardly a single real energy consultant working for Brewster and Jennings. This ***was*** a ***front*** company. After the outing, it has no purpose anymore. The company you are talking about has a shorter name: CIA.

And this mess was for political gain ...

[huskerarmy]

"The radical right impeached a president for lying under oath."
And to use their same logic, we should now conclude that although Clinton lied about not having "*** with that woman," there is no proof that he did. Just like Scooter, he was just lying for the heck of it.

[tuckerndfw]

What human has not sinned when trapped in certain situations?

Posted by Reflections4 at 09:55 AM : Mar 07, 2007

Lying to your neighbor is a sin.

Lying under oath is a crime.

The radical right impeached a president for lying under oath.

And, now you are dismissing that serious crime as an error in judgment? The underlying subject matter is irrelevant. Lying under oath is a crime.

How pathetic Bush bootlickers have become in their whimpering, whiny defense of the worst president and administration in US history.

[fizzal-2009]

Now what? Does Brewster Jennings want to sue every body because The companies they worked for had somebody on the job who was not an energy consultant and they want their money back.

[abbe7]

"In fact, it was never proven she was covert".

Again and again the same BS. So why did the CIA ask for an investigation ? It's not because the damage is classified that it doesn't exist. And, btw, it's not just about Plame, but about Brewster-Jennings ... also not covert ????

We got large pieces of Libby's GJ testimony. What about the other ones, now that the trial is over ???

[huskerarmy]

"In fact, it was never proven she was covert."
Reflections, The CIA says she was covert and rquested an investigation. You would have them prove their innocence in all of this too? Was Brewster Jennings a fabrication? How willing are you to twist the facts?

[huskerarmy]

"it sounds like they ALL had "predetermined" opinions regarding this case"
No preceptions, statements made after a trial are by definition post mortem and do not evidence anything "predetermined." What is predetermined however is your GOPeresque characterizations of these statements or any other that doesn't fit the neo-con paradigm.

[observantx]

Scooter is Darth & Turdblossom's fall guy. And the rest of us are the fall guy for this lying, power hungry, devious and criminal White House.

It is astounding how willing so many are to continue being the fall guy for this ruinous administration.

It's truly amazing that after seeing solid evidence, over and over, of how these gangsters mouth the most rotten garbage as if it was ambrosia, stab anyone in the back who impedes them, cooks intelligence to make money, spends the blood of our troops like water to build their own little oil fiefdoms, and spits on our Constitution because "It's only a g*dd*amn piece of paper"; there are those who continue to hold their hands over their ears and say "La-LA-LA-LA, I can't hear you.

Truly amazing and tragic.

[reflections4]

%u2022 Libby is convicted on 4 counts. The jury believed that Libby lied when he said that he learned of Wilson%u2019s wife from a reporter and not from government officials as he had testified before the FBI and the grand jury. The jury likely got it right. However, he was not convicted of twisted the intelligence to justify going to war and he was not convicted of outing a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, as some are claiming. In fact, it was never proven she was covert. In the highly charged atmosphere of false charges being made against the administration by a highly visible critic, Libby either knowingly or unknowingly went too far and mentioned to the press that Wilson%u2019s wife worked for the CIA in his effort to get the press to investigate and write on why Wilson was really sent to Africa. Wilson had slandered the Bush administration, lied about who sent him to Africa, and lied about what he found in Africa and he was in danger of causing Americans to doubt the integrity of the Bush administration if his story remained. Wilson%u2019s story needed to be refuted. Libby obviously was afraid of losing his job after Bush threatened to fire anyone who leaked classified information to the press and therefore he lied to the FBI and grand jury on how he learned of Wilson%u2019s wife identity. In fact there was no crime until after Fitzgerald was appointed as special prosecutor. What human has not sinned when trapped in certain situations? I think everything got out of hand.

[lochlan-2009]

Now if we could only get the rest of this organized crime ring called the Bush Administration.

[tuckerndfw]

This morning, Pat Robertson claimed that Bush should pardon Libby because there was no underlying crime.

I don't recall what he claimed about the impeachment of Bill Clinton for perjury (the same crime Libby committed) but I do know the GOP controlled Congress impeached a president for the same crime.

Obviously, the radical right uses different standards for their own crooks and sexual deviants than they use for everyone else.

[nyckate]

gunnerv1 - sweetie - LOL - Bush preferred dressing up in a cheerleading outfit to serving in Nam and Cheney's just a plain old coward -- somehow you got yourself so turned around in your head that you chose weak-willed scardy cats as your 'heros'!!!

[rharrin1]

"These colors never run" (unless your a liberal)).
Posted by gunnerv1 at 07:33 AM : Mar 07, 2007

Or unless your name is gunnerv1

[clemenhagen1]

Attention MisPerception5:

What is truly "sad justice" would be the fact that conservatives on the blinded right continue to spin a case that clearly affected national security during a time of war. They deliberately and knowing exposed an entire CIA front-operation, Brewster-Jennings. Why would they expose the name and identity of anyone who had ever worked for and/or associated with Brewster-Jennings? This front company provided cover for investigations into nuclear weapons proliferation! How is exposing and endangering the lives of that company not a serious breach of national security? It's treason to reveal Brewster-Jennings and the "sad justice" is that you on the right continue to apologize and make excuses for such a clear act of treason and disloyalty.