The Libby Trial: A Farce and An Outrage

[maineman]

What would that be?

how would I know? that wasn't my warm chat...it was yours

 

[glockmail]

how would I know? that wasn't my warm chat...it was yours

Then what were you inferring?

 

[Adam's Apple]

Bush made the decision he had to make based on the intelligence he was presented, the timeframe and the enemy he faced.

Yes, and the Democrats in Congress had the same information Bush had, and they made the same decision he did. If a majority of them felt otherwise, why didn't they challenge Bush and the intelligence at that time--before the war began--instead of saying if they knew then what they knew now they wouldn't have supported the war? They did know then--the intelligence assessments were shared, and a majority of Democrats thought we should take Saddam out.

 

[Adam's Apple]

from posted article: "Remind me: Why is Libby the only one on trial for perjury?"

That's a beaut of a question--one we can be sure we will never get the answer to. If this is a serious trial (wink, wink), why is Libby on trial instead of Richard Armitage? That is the million $ question that will never be answered either.

 

[maineman]

That's a beaut of a question--one we can be sure we will never get the answer to. If this is a serious trial (wink, wink), why is Libby on trial instead of Richard Armitage? That is the million $ question that will never be answered either.

excuse me...did Armitage ever falsely deny anything while in a sworn deposition?

 

[Annie]

excuse me...did Armitage ever falsely deny anything while in a sworn deposition?

wrong answer to the question. As for perjury, some of the reporters may have some answering to do. As for crime, Armitage perhaps should have been investigated for leaking Plame's name.

 

[Adam's Apple]

excuse me...did Armitage ever falsely deny anything while in a sworn deposition?

I have no idea. If he swore in a legal deposition, I have not read the contents of that deposition. Perhaps you have?

 

[Annie]

A travesty, for the press and Libby:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021601571.html

What the CIA Leak Case Is About

By Byron York
Saturday, February 17, 2007; A31

At the end of each witness's testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, after prosecutors and defense attorneys examined and cross-examined, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton asked jurors to write down any questions they had. Walton would then look through the papers, decide which questions were appropriate and pose them to the witness.

Now, as the case heads to the jury, those queries are our best hints about what jurors are thinking.

But last week there was a moment when we got a hint not from a question that Walton asked, but from one he refused to ask. After the testimony of star prosecution witness Tim Russert, Walton scanned the jurors' queries and announced, "There is going to be one question I'm not going to ask. I've concluded that that question is not appropriate and therefore you should not speculate as to what the response would have been."

What was he talking about? A moment later, Walton told the jurors: "What Mrs. Wilson's status was at the CIA, whether it was covert or not covert, is not something that you're going to hear any evidence presented to you on in this trial."

"Whether she was, or whether she was not, covert is not relevant to the issues you have to decide in this case," he said.

It is The Thing That Cannot Be Spoken at the Libby trial.

From the first day, Walton has said that jurors will not be allowed to know, or even ask, about the status -- covert, classified or otherwise -- of Valerie Plame Wilson, the woman at the heart of the CIA leak case. "You must not consider these matters in your deliberations or speculate or guess about them," he told jurors in his opening instructions.

A few days later, on Jan. 29, Walton told everyone in the courtroom that the jurors are not the only ones in the dark about Mrs. Wilson's status. "I don't know, based on what has been presented to me in this case, what her status was," Walton said. Two days later, he added, "I to this day don't know what her actual status was."

Walton's reasoning is this: The trial is about whether Libby lied to the grand jury in the CIA leak investigation. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald never charged anyone with leaking the identity of a covert or classified agent. Libby isn't on trial for that, so jurors -- and judge -- don't need to know.

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