Libby exonerated of any wrongdoing in Plame "leak"

Little-Acorn

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Jun 20, 2006
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As you may recall, the matter was over a supposed "outing" of Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert agent in the CIA. Someone supposedly "leaked" that information to a journalist, thus blowing her cover.

Now the verdict is in: There was not even enough evidence to charge Scooter Libby with such a leak, much less convict him. Nor was there enough evidence to charge anyone else. In fact, it turns out that Plame wasn't an undercover agent at all when the information was published, so the act wasn't a crime in the first place.

Prosecutors found early in the investigation that the (unclassified) information had been provided by someone else - Richard Armitage of the State Department. And they knew by then that the release wasn't a crime at all - hence the absence of any charges against Armitage or anyone else.

During the investigation, Libby was questioned closely and repeatedly about conversations that had happened years before. On a few, Libby rememberd the details one way. When re-questioned on the same thing later, he remembered them a different way. Later still, he remembered them the first way again.

For this, he was indicted for perjury, convicted, and now faces up to twenty years in a Federal prison. He has exhausted his savings and bankrupted his family defending himself .

This is the result of an investigation that established, after three years, that no crime had been committed at all in the first place.

Got him!

-------------------------------------

http://OpinionJournal.com

from "Best of the Web Today" by James Taranto
March 6, 2007

The Libby Travesty http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/06/cia.leak/index.html

We won't gainsay the jury's verdict in the Scooter Libby trial--"guilty" on four of five counts on perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation of the Valerie Plame kerfuffle. Life is too short to immerse oneself in the tedious details of the case. (If you're interested in Libby minutiae, we recommend Tom Maguire http://justoneminute.typepad.com/ .) But it remains a travesty that Libby was ever prosecuted to begin with.

This was a political show trial, and partisans of Joe Wilson will use the guilty verdict to declare vindication. But along the way we learned that virtually all the claims Wilson and his supporters made were false:

-On his trip to Niger, Wilson found no evidence that contradicted the
famous "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address,
contrary to his New York Times op-ed claim.

-Plame, his wife, who worked for the CIA, did recommend him for the Niger
junket, contrary to Wilson's denials.

-Plame was not a covert agent under the definition of the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act, contrary to Wilson's insinuations, which many of
his backers, including in the press, presented as fact.

-No one from the White House "leaked" Plame's identity as a CIA functionary
to Robert Novak, who received the information from Richard Armitage at the
State Department.

Libby stands convicted of lying in the course of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Valerie Plame kerfuffle--but that investigation was undertaken on the basis of a tissue of lies. When Fitzgerald began the case, in 2003, no one had committed any crime in connection with the kerfuffle, and that was fairly easy to ascertain, given that Plame was not a covert agent and Armitage had already owned up to the so-called leak. Fitzgerald looks like an overzealous prosecutor, one who was more interested in getting a scalp than in getting to the truth of the matter.

Of course, Libby could have avoided indictment and conviction if he had simply said "I don't remember" a lot more during the course of the investigation.

Therein lies a lesson for witnesses in future such investigations--which may make it harder for prosecutors to do their jobs when pursuing actual crimes.
 
You are aware that he wasn't TRIED for leaking Plame's name, right? He was TRIED for lying to the prosecutors and obstruction of justice.

And despite the spin... pssssssssssssssssssssst... he was convicted.

If Bush pardons him, that's cool. Just digs the Repubs deeper into a hole for '08. So I'm all for it.

Cheers.
 
You are aware that he wasn't TRIED for leaking Plame's name, right?
Correct. He was merely investigated for it. And the investigation found that he had done nothing that even merited an indictment, much less a conviction.

But they kept hammering away at him, and he finally screwed up. And he now faces up to 20 years hard time anyway.

They got him.

Who's next?
 
L-A's opening post was spinning so furiously that the text was a blur on my monitor.

Nice try. But Larry Johnson, and a whole slew of other retired CIA officers, can testify to the FACT of Valerie Plame's NOC status. The CIA would not have referred the matter to the DoJ for investigation otherwise. Get over it.
 
L-A's opening post was spinning so furiously that the text was a blur on my monitor.

Nice try. But Larry Johnson, and a whole slew of other retired CIA officers, can testify to the FACT of Valerie Plame's NOC status. The CIA would not have referred the matter to the DoJ for investigation otherwise. Get over it.

If thats the case, bully, then why isn't Richard Armitage the prime suspect in this trial? Why wasn't his testimony even brought to the jury's knowledge? Why was Armitage, who admitted to Fitzgerald in the first month of the investigation that he was the leak, not going to jail then if Plame was indeed a covert agent?

This is a political witch hunt trying to throw anything against the wall in the hopes that it sticks. There is plenty in this case to have an appeals court overturn this. So we shall see if the politics follows Libby there as well.
 
If thats the case, bully, then why isn't Richard Armitage the prime suspect in this trial?
Suspect for what? There is no evidence that he did anything wrong... or that anyone else did, in the revealing of Plame's employment. She wasn't an undercover agent at the time, so it was not illegal. The prosecutor plainly agreed, and didn't push the Grand Jury for any kind of indictment. He just kept questioning Libby until Libby screwed up, and then slapped him with a perjury charge.
 
Suspect for what? There is no evidence that he did anything wrong... or that anyone else did, in the revealing of Plame's employment. She wasn't an undercover agent at the time, so it was not illegal. The prosecutor plainly agreed, and didn't push the Grand Jury for any kind of indictment. He just kept questioning Libby until Libby screwed up, and then slapped him with a perjury charge.

Don't wreck all the fun !! Some people we expecting big things to come out of this !!!! :cuckoo:
 
Suspect for what? There is no evidence that he did anything wrong... or that anyone else did, in the revealing of Plame's employment. She wasn't an undercover agent at the time, so it was not illegal. The prosecutor plainly agreed, and didn't push the Grand Jury for any kind of indictment. He just kept questioning Libby until Libby screwed up, and then slapped him with a perjury charge.

exactly my point. If she was covert, as bully insists, then Armitage would be the prime suspect in the "leak." Since she wasn't covert and no crime had occurred, Armitage is not needed. The only thing needed was complete media coercion to create public ignorance for the facts in order to waste hundreds of thousands in taxpayer money to have what basically boils down to imprisoning a political opponent. Sounds like the best use of our legal system in the truest forms of the constitution if you ask me. :rolleyes:
 
If thats the case, bully, then why isn't Richard Armitage the prime suspect in this trial? Why wasn't his testimony even brought to the jury's knowledge? Why was Armitage, who admitted to Fitzgerald in the first month of the investigation that he was the leak, not going to jail then if Plame was indeed a covert agent?

This is a political witch hunt trying to throw anything against the wall in the hopes that it sticks. There is plenty in this case to have an appeals court overturn this. So we shall see if the politics follows Libby there as well.

Because the trial wasn't about who leaked the name, although that has been made clear. It was about 'Scooter' lying to the FBI and to a Grand Jury. Fitzgerald wanted go for conspiracy charges, but as with any other conspiracy, it's insanely difficult to prove. So he got the charges of perjury and lying to FBI investigators, and those stuck. Perhaps 'Scooter' will flip on his masters in the White House.
 
Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. He deserves the same contempt that I hold for WJC's impeachment for perjury.

Fact is, both men lied under oath during a legal investigation. And that should earn them our contempt as well as the appropriate criminal penalties.

Any moron who wants to claim that this conviction of Libby has ANY bearing on the Plame kerfluffle is a partisan hack, pure and simple. It doesn't matter if you want to claim that the conviction means that Plame WAS outed; or, if you think that Libby shouldn't have been charged OR convicted because his actions were not provably connected to any conspiracy (which has never been proven either). Either way, assumptions are made which are not born our by the conviction.
 
Because the trial wasn't about who leaked the name, although that has been made clear. It was about 'Scooter' lying to the FBI and to a Grand Jury. Fitzgerald wanted go for conspiracy chrges, but as with any other conspiracy, it's insan;ey difficult to prove. So he got the charges of perjury and lying to FBI investigators, and those stuck. Perhaps 'Scooter' will flip on his masters in the White House.

says bully with wishful glee.

Libby was convicted for not remembering a memo given to him over a decade ago that mentioned plame's name in passing. Thats not obstruction of justice. Thats not even lieing. Thats throwing shit at the white house wall and hoping something sticks. All the pummeling for 6 straight years by the media, the democrats and liberals in general about this being the most corrupt administration in the history of the nation and the only conviction was from a aide who couldnt remember a memo that mentioned in passing a CIA desk jockey's name given to him over a decade before.

Glad to see you care about justice and not politics, bully. :rolleyes:
 
What did he lie about? And again, what justice did he obstruct?

18 USC 1501-1520 contain the possible actions justifying a charge of "obstruction of justice." I want to see the official court transcripts in order to match up the numbers and determine exactly how Libby obstructed justice. Unfortunately the court documents aren't available yet. Should make for some interesting reading though when they do come out.
 

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