Scooter Libby did it, he did it, he did it.

"Libby, Rove and other White House officials refuse to comment on grounds that the Plame case is the subject of a criminal investigation.

"Libby had another accomplishment before entering the White House, as author of a novel that won praise from literary critics: a story of romance and intrigue that takes place a century ago in a Japanese mountain village..."

WTF?

So what of Scooter's IDing Bush & Dick? The MSM's angle that "the prez can declassify" seems weird; surely that'd be via documents, not "Get on the fucking phone to Novak and Woodward"?

sometimes I wish glenn greenwald would just use some cusswords:

The Libby prosecution clearly was the dirty work of the leftist anti-war movement in this country, just as Cohen describes. After all, the reason Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate this matter was because a left-wing government agency (known as the "Central Intelligence Agency") filed a criminal referral with the Justice Department, as the MoveOn-sympathizer CIA officials were apparently unhappy about the public unmasking of one of their covert agents.

In response, Bush's left-wing anti-war Attorney General, John Ashcroft, judged the matter serious enough to recuse himself, leading Bush's left-wing anti-war Deputy Attorney General, James Comey, to conclude that a Special Prosecutor was needed. In turn, Comey appointed Fitzgerald, the left-wing anti-war Republican Prosecutor and Bush appointee, who secured a conviction of Libby, in response to which left-wing anti-war Bush appointee Judge Reggie Walton imposed Libby's sentence.

In other words, it all happened exactly the way Cohen described it this morning (Plame investigation and Libby conviction occurred because of "the liberal press," "an unpopular war," "opponents of the Iraq war," "a vestigial Stalinist-era yearning for abasement," and "Antiwar sanctimony"). Perhaps the most revealing part of Cohen's column is this gem, where he protests how unfair it is that Patrick Fitzgerald was so mean and threatening in his investigation, and made all of those poor journalists so scared ("Much heroic braying turned into cries for mercy"):

As any prosecutor knows -- and Martha Stewart can attest -- white-collar types tend to have a morbid fear of jail.

Indeed, it is so terribly unfair to investigate powerful government officials because, as "white-collar types," they have a "morbid fear of jail" -- in contrast, of course, to blue-collar types, and darker ones still, who really do not mind prison at all. Why would they? It's their natural habitat, where they belong. That is what prison is for.

That has been the real point here all along. The real injustice is that prison is simply not the place for the most powerful and entrenched members of the Beltway royal court, no matter how many crimes they commit. There is a grave indignity to watching our brave Republican elite be dragged before such lowly venues as a criminal court and be threatened with prison, as though they are common criminals or something. How disruptive and disrespectful and demeaning it all is.

frothy spittle came out of my screen!!

that is fucking disgusting.

wtffff

It is amazing that people can write that shit and not be in a padded cell.

Are you guys disagreeing with the sentiment or the way he wrote it?

I don't get it either

I think maybe some people aren't getting that it's a parody

how do i tell difference?

Either they're responding to what Greenwald's responding to... or they didn't make it to the third paragraph, I guess

I didn't read the Cohen thing but Greenwald's intent seems obvious

You guys, it's SARCASM. Remember Clarke's Law? Any sufficiently advanced sarcasm will be indistinguishable from magic.

LETZ ALL GO TO READING COMPREHENSION 101

is this that hard?

I assumed that people would see the CIA fully spelled out in scare quotes and described as a left-wing agency and realize greenwald was being just really obscenely OTT facetious in response to Cohen. The whole piece on Salon is easily the most seething, disgusted piece he's written yet, and that's saying a whole hell of a lot.

or they didn't make it to the thirdsecond paragraph, I guess

omg frothy spittle on face [/BIG HOOS]

i can't tell whether battags misunderstood or is using slang ie "that analysis was SICK"

I guess you can read it as coming from a like mindset as the batshit right-wing cartoonists and then he just comes off sounding like a big racist classist paranoid looney tunes. It does get harder reading the full column when he finally shifts gears for the conclusion and you feel like you've just been wrenched 180 in your seat.

Greenwald's been merciless the last couple of weeks. Joe fucking Klein was whining about him on "Meet the Press" not logn ago.

Sentence commuted.

Hey why wait til the last couple days of his presidency to pardon him amirite?

"Bush, who was under great pressure by Libby allies to pardon the former chief of staff, said that by commuting Libby's sentence he is still leaving "harsh" punishment in place."

O RLY

I'm a bit surprised Bush didn't! Not sure he will either:

The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today rejected Lewis Libby’s request to remain free on bail while pursuing his appeals for the serious convictions of perjury and obstruction of justice. As a result, Mr. Libby will be required to turn himself over to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his prison sentence.

I have said throughout this process that it would not be appropriate to comment or intervene in this case until Mr. Libby’s appeals have been exhausted. But with the denial of bail being upheld and incarceration imminent, I believe it is now important to react to that decision.

From the very beginning of the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name, I made it clear to the White House staff and anyone serving in my administration that I expected full cooperation with the Justice Department. Dozens of White House staff and administration officials dutifully cooperated.

After the investigation was under way, the Justice Department appointed United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald as a Special Counsel in charge of the case. Mr. Fitzgerald is a highly qualified, professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged.

This case has generated significant commentary and debate. Critics of the investigation have argued that a special counsel should not have been appointed, nor should the investigation have been pursued after the Justice Department learned who leaked Ms. Plame’s name to columnist Robert Novak. Furthermore, the critics point out that neither Mr. Libby nor anyone else has been charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act, which were the original subjects of the investigation. Finally, critics say the punishment does not fit the crime: Mr. Libby was a first-time offender with years of exceptional public service and was handed a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury.

Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable. They say that had Mr. Libby only told the truth, he would have never been indicted in the first place.

Both critics and defenders of this investigation have made important points. I have made my own evaluation. In preparing for the decision I am announcing today, I have carefully weighed these arguments and the circumstances surrounding this case.

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.

The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby’s case is an appropriate exercise of this power

fuck, fuck, fuck.

honestly at this point I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the President skullfucks dead babies and plans to continue doing so with impunity

x-post

The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely.

awwww the "Won't Somebody Think of the Children" defense

FN A SO GROSS

how could you take that seriously

this was obvious. it can only send his poll numbers up, not down.

i thought he would wait, but decided just this morning that he wouldn't

If I took any of this "seriously" my brain would've leaked out of my ears by now... at the moment I'm envisioning what kind of excuse Bush might come up with for pardoning Cheney if he drunkenly ran over some schoolchildren with his Hummer

gabbneb do you ever stop placing odds and become actually y'know emotionally invested in anything

This is 100% expected and 100% his prerogative as president, and yet it's still surprisingly annoying.

I have no inclination to see Libby go to prison -- even his own jurors said he sure seemed like a fall guy -- but it's depressing to see the full circle: do something awful, set up someone sympathetic to take one tenth of a fall for it, pardon him anyway.

I don't know if I'm fearing or looking forward to the point, 30-40 years from now, where we get a glut of RIDICULOUS books about the inner workings of this administration, presumably full of the kind of insane ridiculous Cold War shit we can get now, that kind of thing where you can't believe government was ever really like that, even though half of your brain is telling you it's totally still like that today.

I dunno nabisco my WHOLE brain is telling me that

http://www.lizmichael.com/rooftops.jpg

(but you are OTM about the depressing predictability of the cycle)

OTM

To be honest, I felt more disappointed when Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, who seemed a hundred times scuzzier and less deserving.

Yeah, that's the thing, where someday we'll have to explain what living thru all this shit was like, in the way that people tell dazed stories of all the shit from 1968 or the heights of Cold War paranoia in the 50s.

I mean, seriously, we're watching our parents generation actively do whatever they can do to fly this thing straight into the ground, and we have but lolcats and lohans to entertain ourselves with while we wait out the next 18 months before we can start bulldozing.

simultaneous wow-out-loud with gf @ photo xxxpost

kingfish I'm not really convinced there's going to be any bulldozing, sorry to say

Surely this is all just W. clawing back what he can from the 'base' after the immigration deal fell apart. As such, *shrug.*

I don't much have faith in the post-Bush bulldozer, kingfish.

does Dubya's base really care about this enough for it to give him a bump?

I guess its front page on CNN but I've always had the impression the majority of the country didn't care/couldn't follow this whole silly debacle

John Harwood on NBC Nightly News: "When you're rock-bottom in the polls, you reach out to your base."

haha okay then

Oh cmon now, having somebody in office who won't immediate veto stem cell funding would be a fine start to it.

I'm wondering how many times the word "amnesty" will be used when covering Libby.

I really want this to be a crabs-in-a-barrel scenario. xxxpost dammit man

I guess there are two levels: the hypothetical secret bullshit, like cooking up bizarre plans to assassinate random people, or thinking about dropping some weird crap on an American city just to see what would happen (Cold War), or thinking about developing bombs that would turn enemy forces into a gay orgy (today); and then there's the real secret bullshit, like surveillance or secret military operations or just general behind-the-scenes assholery. The hypothetical part seems to get better, but only because it becomes dated and extra-ridiculous, which means today's ridiculous hypotheticals will be super-jawdropping in the future; the real stuff seems constant, and yet something about people's brains just loves to class that as "another time" and therefore stuff we wouldn't possibly do today.

It's actually funny lately how there's been a slight return of certain Vietnam-era discontents, who turn out to sometimes have a pretty clear-headed sense of what a government in today's position might and might not be doing in secret behind our backs.

"I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

Uh, sorry to break it to you, Shrub, but you don't get to have it both ways. This specifically means that you DON'T respect the jury's verdict.

Not necessarily -- he respects the verdict but not the court's sentencing, no?

he's distinguishing between verdict and sentence (but that doesn't make you wrong, necessarily)

xp

standard sentencing guidelines are very much part of a jury's decision on a verdict

A friend sent this Clinton-penned Op-Ed dated 2001, soon after he pardoned Marc Rich:

The case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated not only by my former White House counsel Jack Quinn but also by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard Garment, a former Nixon White House official; William Bradford Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department; and Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff

I can't link it but david brooks' pro-libby column in today's ny times is astoudingly smug and infuriating. even coming from him.

It's pretty gross, actually, but then again, he is the Beltway's most respected wheeze.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014974.php

Come on guys, Libby is a scapegoat here. Conmpared to someone like Marc Rich, the man is practically a saint

i heard this yesterday on the radio and just burst out laughing

standard sentencing guidelines are very much part of a jury's decision on a verdict

One hundred percent wrong. Read
United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), for starters.

i was basing that on a hazy memory i had of a tennessee personal injury case where a farmer got electrocuted on a power line.. the jury decided on a lesser punishment for the people who installed the power line, feeling they "didn't want some manager to go to prison"

J i'm reading that link, such as i am able, and can find nothing there to indicate that sentencing guidelines are withheld from jurors prior to their rendering a verdict?

Well, if it was a personal injury case no one could be sent to prison anyway.

aren't those sentencing guidelines just for judges, not for jury trials

he is the Beltway's most respected wheeze.

you're thinking of David Broder, who they really do think is the "Voice of the People"

and the people are apparently all het up about the unity 08, oh yeah

Booker explained here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Booker

And no, I'm not sure what it has to do with Libby. And yes, Bush can commute a sentence without changing the verdict. Sentence =/= verdict, and sentences get appealed all the time without verdicts being challenged.

(by "what it has to do with Libby" I really meant "what it has to do with sentencing guidelines affecting jury verdicts")

It's kind of a meaningless point either way. I was just saying Bush's "I respect the verdict" isn't really that strange: he's just reducing the sentence to probation / fines.

(I was under the impression the presidential pardon included the power to basically negate the verdict entirely, but according to Wikipedia, acceptance of a pardon implies an admission of guilt!)

according to Wikipedia, acceptance of a pardon implies an admission of guilt!)

that was Ford's justification for granting Nixon a pardon.

He was ahead of his time.

I was away, but I'll explain.

Booker is based upon two earlier cases, Apprendi and Blakely, which held in part that the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury applies to the sentencing phase of a criminal prosecution, not just the trial. That's the starting point.

Prior to Booker, the federal sentencing guidelines required judges to calculate what range a particular convicted offender fell into based upon aggravating and mitigating factors. These aggravating and mitigating factors were not and are not elements of the underlying crime, but they are particular facts about that crime and/or the convicted offender. Therefore, under the guidelines, the sentencing judge was engaging in factfinding beyond the jury's verdict to justify the sentence impose.

Booker had two major holdings. First, it concluded that requiring the judge to engage in this type of factfinding and making the ultimate sentence calculated therefrom was unconstitutional under Apprendi and Blakely-- i.e., it was a violation of the Sixth Amendment right to have a jury find all of the facts that were essential to the punishment imposed. Second, the Court held that by making the guidelines advisory rather than mandatory, and by holding that a within-guidelines was presumptively reasonable, the judge could still engage in this ostensibly unconstitutional factfinding process and its resultant sentence.

The crucial point, after all of that, is this: while the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial is implicated at sentencing, the jury is not told what the sentence will or could be. Rather, the jury is merely directed to conclude whether specific facts that create an offense have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, a jury is never told that a prior conviction leads to an increase in punishment (although the jurors may well assume that to be true), but they are asked in some cases to determine whether the existence of that prior conviction has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In short, the Sixth Amendment requires that juries find all of the facts crucial to the punishment that may be imposed by the judge, but it doesn't require that juries be told what that punishment *is*.

Did that make sense?

(and totally offtopic, but can somebody explain to me why I can't post to ILX from Firefox any more? I have to use internet explorer, and it SUCKS).

sounds like someone's a law clerk

Oh, and another thing -- in case anybody was wondering why Bush commuted Libby's sentence instead of giving him a full pardon, it unsurprisingly has fuck-all to do with that crap about "respecting the jury's verdict." So long as Libby remains on probation, he can invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying about the circumstances of this stuff before Congress. If Bush had pardoned him, he would no longer be able to rely on the privilege.

(xpost -- haha I used to be one!)

^^^^
8080

What do I do with the 8080? When I type it in to the address bar, it just disappears, and why I try to post, I get this: "7648596109056869822: Failed to insert message."

yeah i didn't understand any of that

no wait i get it now i had to read it three times though

(xpost obv.)

Then just take my word for it! This:

standard sentencing guidelines are very much part of a jury's decision on a verdict

is wrong. That's the only point I was trying to make.

gee btw this and the ScalitoThomberts Fest last week, happy fucking Independence Day.

Greenwald lets 'er rip

I think the shortest version of what J's getting at (correct me if I'm wrong, J) is that juries have to make all the findings in a case, but they don't get told what those findings actually mean in terms of sentencing. Like if there's an aggravating factor that would add 10 years to a sentence, the jury's just asked to return a yes/no finding on whether the aggravating factor was proven or not. They're not meant to be considering what that does to the sentence or how they feel about that, just yes/no for whether the factor exists. So they're just fact-finders, and sentencing is still the judge's / legislature's job.

(Although wasn't there a Supreme Court death penalty case last year that ran into this? Where a jury split or something about mitigating/aggravating factors, and then found that the state defaulted to the death penalty unless they affirmatively decided some factor the other way?)

YOU ARE CORRECT SIR, on both counts. I assume you've heard the phrase "death is different"? This very issue is one of the ways that death is different. Since juries are required to *directly* sentence a convicted person to death, the argument is that due process required that they be told of the alternatives -- the specific question was whether the jury had to be told whether "life" meant "life without possibility of parole."

System: Normal

Man, there's nothing like the bald, unflinching face of our corrupt system to send star spangled mules braying to the sky. Of course, for most of them, said corruption is exclusive GOP property, something that rarely if ever happens when a Dem is in the White House, most especially Bill Clinton... And if Hillary is elected, expect more of the obedient same.

What a gift Bush gave to libloggers, who'll faithfully gnaw on this bone for days if not weeks. ... another distraction from what's really going on, the roots of which liberals have no real interest in investigating, much less actively protesting. They are in on the same con, establishing the boundary of acceptable outrage, beyond which only Naderites and kindred lunatics roam.

Of course, for most of them, said corruption is exclusive GOP property, something that rarely if ever happens when a Dem is in the White House, most especially Bill Clinton

I get pissed off at both the GOP and the Dems for this kinda shit, thank you very much. I am no Clinton apologist.

so the booker sentencing guidelines=for judges, not juries?

hey, who else here runs Kubuntu? I'm trying to get lib_blogger.2.16.1-A to install properly, and it doesn't want to.

Correct. There are for the most part no sentencing guidelines for juries, the only oddball exception being death penalty cases, and one or two states that have jury sentencing (Kansas is one I think?).

Actually, after looking into it, I guess there are six states that authorize jury sentencing in one form or another: Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia.

i think i'd rather take my chances with a judge versus a jury as far as sentencing goes

From what I understand from a *very* basic understanding of the scant literature on the topic, you'd be a wise man to do so.

urp, sorry for the redundancy

yeah i mean leave it to the profesionals! it's sorta would be like asking the average man on the street to umpire an inning of the World Series.

spelling errors galore

thanks for the facts, J!

Actually, I just reread Nabisco's post, and he's even righter than I originally thought. His recollection of that particular death penalty issue is spot on - the case is Kansas v. Marsh. Marsh lost, though.

So Libby can't vote now in most states, right?

yeah, he's still a felon and he still has to pay like 250 K or something

Felons can have their voting rights reinstated (after the end of his probation?).

He can't own a gun anymore, until Dubya pardons him.

though i think felons can appeal the non voting part of their conviction in some states???

damn straight - the thing about felons not being able to vote is some booooooooshit

So is the part about Libby paying a $250K fine since he has a well-funded defense chest.

but think of his wife and daughter OH THE HUMANITY

more classically revolting Clinton dissembling

pretty much everybody agrees that this is payback for libby falling on his sword, right?

Great posts J., thanks.

everytime i see this thread i think of hall & oates

Oh you did it
You did it, you did it, you did it
You did it in a minute
I know you did it
You did it, you did it, you did it
You did it in a minute

It's taken me til today to realise it's a Dora quote.