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.