Libby Gets What He Deserves — Freedom

National Review Online: A Full Pardon Is Ideal, But Bush's Commutation Is Praiseworthy

(National Review Online)  This column was written by the editors of National Review Online.

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We have urged President Bush to pardon Lewis "Scooter" Libby from the moment a jury found Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff guilty of perjury and obstruction in the CIA-leak case. Now the president has acted. He didn't go as far as we would have liked, choosing to commute Libby's prison term while leaving his conviction, fine, and probation intact. But his action ensures that Libby will not go to jail, and that's a good thing.

There were a lot of reasons why presidential clemency was appropriate. The first is that the CIA-leak investigation was a fundamentally political exercise from Day One. Even before the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in December 2003, Justice Department investigators knew that it was former State Department official Richard Armitage, not Libby, who originally leaked the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson. The Justice Department also knew enough to conclude that Libby had not violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the law at issue in the case. Lacking proof that an underlying crime took place, and knowing the source of the leak, the Justice Department should have shut down the investigation then and there.

But Democrats in Congress, many members of the press, and the president's adversaries within his own administration agitated for a larger investigation. And in a dreadfully misguided move, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top Justice Department officials chose to appoint Fitzgerald. At that point, the investigation took on the kind of life of its own that we saw in the old independent counsel days. Libby was eventually charged with perjury, the only person accused in the case.

Libby had a credible defense. The perjury charge was based on discrepancies between Libby's grand jury testimony and that of a few journalists who contradicted him. Libby argued that the discrepancies could be explained by differences in memory. Although the jury disagreed, a reasonable person listening to the faulty memories of the witnesses who testified could have concluded that Libby simply had things mixed up.

Finally, after the guilty verdict, Fitzgerald argued that the judge should sentence Libby as if Libby had been convicted leaking Mrs. Wilson's identity. The prosecutor wanted to throw the book at Libby for a crime for which Libby was never charged. The judge accepted Fitzgerald's recommendations, sentencing Libby to 30 months in jail. In our view, that was clearly excessive.

Now that George W. Bush has commuted that sentence, the president's critics are howling, throwing out the kind of overheated rhetoric that gave birth to the special prosecutor's investigation in the first place. But the president took care to point out that he respects the jury's verdict, and that Libby's conviction still stands. And no one could deny that Libby, who will still have to pay a $250,000 fine, who will likely be disbarred, and who lost his high position in government, has paid a heavy price.

We wish the president had chosen a pardon. But as it is, he has removed the most onerous burden facing Libby as a result of this strange and maddening case, and for that we applaud him.

[octotroph]

jimmyc1955, are you still waiting for our government to find the WMDs in Iraq? I'm assuming the 1955 in your name is your birth year and, if that is a fair assumption, your old enough to pay attention and stay focused. This case is not about perjury, it's not about obstruction of justice. It is about war. The Bush administration%u2019s case for war depended on false claims about weapons of mass destruction. President George H.W. Bush hailed Wilson as %u201Ca true American hero%u201D for his role as acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. But when Wilson publicly debunked the George W. Bush administration%u2019s claim about African uranium, he was attacked, his wife was outed, her career ruined. Her job: an undercover CIA operative investigating weapons of mass destruction. Now, you may know more than George Tenet but that is the way he described her job. It came out in the trial that the CIA told Cheney and Libby not to out Mrs. Plame because she worked for the CIA. We know that Armitage told Novell, so who do you think told Armitage? Try to think this out .. and see if you still come up with "no crime has been committed" and if you do, try telling that to the thousands of parents, wives, sons and daughters that have lost their loved ones in Iraqi invasion. An invasion that would not have been possible if not for the lies and distortions of this administration.

[enriquecaliente]

VP Cheney: Sorry about the outcome of the trial there, Scooter.

Scooter: Sorry.???

VP Cheney: Yes, I mean you having to go to prison and all. But you're a good man taking one for the Gipper and all.

Scooter: Time.? Gipper.? My ***. You go back that tell your hand puppet and lapdog that if I even see the inside of a cell, I'll turn on you so fast, it will make what Sammy the Bull did to Gotti, seem trivial. Got That.!!!

White House Press release: The President has pardoned Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Because it was the right thing to do. And besides the law doesn't apply to us. Just the common peoples. Who we as the good Shepperd's heard like sheep.

[mimi611]

Libby Lied under oath! There is no inditement for an underlying crime BECAUSE he lied to cover it up (probably Cheney). NRO just spins and spins. I guess one liar loves another liar.

If Bush wants to pardon someone who deserves it, how about the black boy in Georgia? That would be justice. Not this payoff to keep a gutless man from turning on his buddies.

[old300d]

The NRO and offline has done enough to help wreck the Republican party already.

For the good of the party they should shut down right away.

They are trying to sell magazines and that's all.

[old300d]

The NRO and offline has done enough to help wreck the Republican party already.

For the good of the party they should shut down right away.

They are trying to sell magazines and that's all.

[bluestardad]

AMERICAN CONSTITUTION GIVES POWER TO THE PEOPLE TO REPLACE ITS GOVERNMENT!

Its about time for the American People to Storm the Bastille. And they are getting ready to March on Washington and clean out that entire next of rats with their bare hands! That is the American Peoples constitutional right!

[brianbwb-2009]

to the editors of National Review Online.

You employ games with semantics to cover the main point, and to deny the obvious endangerment to the lives of a CIA operative and her contacts.

A CIA operative (acknowledged as such by the CIA) was exposed during wartime, not least on CNN, one of the most widely viewed "news programs" in the world. Such an act is officially an act of treason.

The trail to the perpetrators winds to the office of the VP, going through Libby and Rove.

Libby was convicted by a jury of his peers of the crime of obstructing justice relevant to the investigation of an act of treason.

Why should he be pardoned, commuted, or otherwise allowed to escape responsibility for his role in the cover up? You say they were "Lacking proof that an underlying crime took place"? Of course a crime took place, the proof is the transcripts of Novak's pronouncements on CNN, unless you don't consider treason to be a crime, in which case the constitution disagrees with you.

By your logic, you could see a bullet riddled body on the floor, then, because all the witnesses refuse to "snitch", conclude that no underlying crime took place.

Libby should be facing 25 to life, Rove, Armitage, Bush and Cheney should be facing a firing squad.

Your semantics games cannot justify treason, try as you might, you only sacrifice your own credibility to become a Bush loyalist.

[agog2]

The real reason the Dumbya Bush Commuted Libby%u2019s prison sentence is because if that little kiss *** went to the slammer, He might open his mouth and become a Whistle Blower, and Bush and Cheney could be his cell mates, where they probable belong anyways.

[shingles1]

Glenn Greenwald:

The Plame investigation was urged by the Bush CIA and commenced by the Bush DOJ, Libby's conviction pursued by a Bush-appointed federal prosecutor, his jail sentence imposed by a Bush-appointed "tough-on-crime" federal judge, all pursuant to harsh and merciless criminal laws urged on by the "tough-on-crime/no-mercy" GOP. Lewis Libby was sent to prison by the system constructed and desired by the very Republican movement protesting his plight.

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And then these bozos have the gall to 1) excuse Libby's actions and perpetuate lies about the case and 2) call the whole thing "political".

What a bunch of dirtbags. I guess friends don't let friends go to jail, after all the law really only applies to the little people...

Happy Birthday America.

[agog2]

I have a Franklin Language master, I spelled the word stupid and pressed the enter button and then hit the Dict button, and low and behold on the screen it said adjective not sensible or intelligent stupidity as related to George W Bush. You might ask, just how stupid is Bush. I%u2019ll tell you he couldn%u2019t even wipe his own a%u2014if Cheney didn%u2019t tell him how to do it and Halliburton didn%u2019t sell him the paper to do it with. How long are we going to put up with this idiot ruining our country for us? I say the Senate and Congress should impeach that little a** hole, and if they don%u2019t we should start to recall the senators and congressmen that don%u2019t%u2026%u2026

[ubrew12]

NRO:"after the guilty verdict, Fitzgerald argued that the judge should sentence Libby as if Libby had been convicted leaking Mrs. Wilson's identity. The prosecutor wanted to throw the book at Libby for a crime for which Libby was never charged."

No, Libby was convicted of a much worse crime: obstruction of justice, in this case, about TREASON (not a BJ). Outing a CIA agents classified status puts every operation he/she's been involved with in jeopardy. Doing so during WAR is doubly traitorous. It's nothing to fool around with, yet the jurists vocally agreed after the verdict that that's exactly the way Libby treated it... as if he KNEW he was 'untouchable'. Turns out he was...

temporarily.

I had thought that the VP's office had more important, actual work to do. But instead they spent valuable time ruining the career of someone because they didn't like what her husband said. They didn't even face Wilson, then messed with his wife. Even Tony Suprano liked to face people head on, but not Bush, not Cheney.

Wimps and cowards, they had to pick on the guys wife

[clemenhagen1]

A refresher course for you Libby "amnesty" defenders:

BushCo needs to scare us into war - "smoking gun a mushroom cloud" - knowingly lie about "yellowcake uranium" during State of the Union though document clearly a forgery.

Joseph Wilson - former ambassador to Niger and attache to Iraq sent to investigate - exposes the fiction for what it was...a manipulation (i.e. Downing Street Memo) to fan flames of war.

Cheney furious! Demands revenge to not only punish Wilson but to also send shot across-the-bow of the intelligence community: don't mess with our fictions about the war or we will bury you.

Libby, Armitage, Rove, and others knowingly expose Wilson's wife, a covert CIA operative. Novak prints Plame's name & CIA front-operation, Brewster-Jennings, in his column.

CIA demands investigation into treasonous leak - Fitzgerald appointed when Ashcroft recuses himself.

Rove and Libby lie to the grand jury to cover the trail and obstruct justice. Right-wing echo chamber in full blown spin mode, smears Wilson and Plame - Talking Points created to obstruct the facts of the case and blind the ignorant.

Fitzgerald, understanding full-well the source of the original leak (Cheney), opts to charge and convict Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice. Please try to remember the real story here, and not get lost in all the conservative mythology.

[rahe2]

a corrupt decision from a corrupt regime. If the GOP's only defence is "Well Bill Clinton did the same thing " then what is the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats ? What happened to the party that was going to change the way they do business in Washington ?
Power does corrupt.

[aaabee-2009]

%u201CThe irony in this case is that the president said he would 'deal with anyone who leaked,' and now his way of dealing with Scooter Libby is to pardon him.%u201D

%u201CFor him to say that the penalty is 'excessive' may well be true, but it was the same crime that President Bill Clinton was impeached for by a Republican House of Representatives and in which 50 U.S. senators, Republicans, voted to remove him from office. So Republicans as a party thought perjury and obstruction of justice were sufficient to remove a twice-elected president from office. And now the president is saying that 30 months in prison is an excessive penalty for the same exact crime. It%u2019s inconsistent.%u201D

[imnho]

%u201COur government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.%u201D-Louis Brandeis.

By commuting the sentance of Scotter Libby, GW has invited everyone to take the law lightly. The next time they decided to punish someone by outing them they may either compromise a major source of intellgence or get someone killed. This bunch of people is arrogant if they think that it could not happen to them

[macusweil]

Disgusting.

This man represents all that is wrong with the federal government. The GOP culture of corruption has done enormous damage to this country.

Libby is a convicted felon who has jeopardized national security.

[walt1944-2009]

It is obvious from the article written by "the editors" of the National Review that they all must have crisp new membership cards from the Republican Party and, undoubtedly have received "Thank You" letters from the White House signed personally by the Great Emperor Bush!

I would ask if these very same editors examine every case going through the judicial system to look for "missteps" in the judicial system, or perhaps they look only at those cases affecting the court of the Great Emperor and the remaining majority be damned! I have memories of serving jury duty and being told by judges that there must be ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT in a jury's mind that the defendant is guilty, that if any doubt exists, you cannot find that person guilty.

Yet, here we have the editors of the National Review strongly suggesting the jury was "unreasonable" and a chief executive who says he "respects" the decision of the jury, but leaves the door wide open for a full pardon for "the Scoot" down the road!

We have become a nation of avarice, lies, deceit, greed, and misinformation, where power and greed are the benchmarks for "success", where the laws are subverted for the purposes of the rich and powerful, and where the rights gaurenteed for everyone by the Constitution have been interpreted to apply only to the rich and powerful.

On this 4th of July, I feel sorry for my granddaughter and the country she will have to call "home".

[aaabee-2009]

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact between yourself and the majority of this nation%u2019s citizens%u2014the ones who did not cast votes for you. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party. And this is too important a time, Sir, to have a commander-in-chief who puts party over nation.

This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics.

The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of %u201Ca permanent Republican majority,%u201D as if such a thing%u2014or a permanent Democratic majority%u2014is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.

keith olbermann
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19588942

[aaabee-2009]

"We enveloped our President in 2001.And those who did not believe he should have been elected%u2014indeed those who did not believe he had been elected%u2014willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it."
Keith Olbermann

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id
/19588942/