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Fitzgerald's Memo Puts Libby Crimes in Cheney Context
The Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin spells out how a memo Patrick Fitzgerald sent to the judge preparing to sentence Scooter Libby connects Libby’s obstruction crimes to Dick Cheney.
In the sentencing memo, Fitzgerald urges U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton to send Libby to prison for 2 and a half to 3 years. You can read the memo here.
In Friday's eminently readable court filing, Fitzgerald quotes the Libby defense calling his prosecution "unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics." In responding to that charge, the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney.
At trial, it became clear that Libby learned about former CIA agent Valerie Plame from Cheney. But the details that would clarify who orchestrated the press leak were covered up, Fitzgerald says, by Libby’s acts of obstruction.
Froomkin grabs key points from Fitzgerald’s memo saying:
The investigation, Fitzgerald writes, "was necessary to determine whether there was concerted action by any combination of the officials known to have disclosed the information about Ms. Plame to the media as anonymous sources, and also whether any of those who were involved acted at the direction of others. This was particularly important in light of Mr. Libby's statement to the FBI that he may have discussed Ms. Wilson's employment with reporters at the specific direction of the Vice President." (My italics.)
We’ll find out Libby’s fate next week, when he is expected to be sentenced.
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Josh
Zachary
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut now and then. Gee, how can the MSM NOT connect the dots directly to cheney? These bushies need to be behind bars for the rest of their natural life. I would like to see them treated EXACTLY as they deserve. Unfortunately, if we want to redeem our country and constitution they will be given due process. I am glad the dems are taking the HIGH ROAD and not treating them to a taste of their own medicine.
May 30, 2007 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
good on camera interview with Iglesias at truthout
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/053007J.shtml
Jason Leopold | An Interview With David Iglesias
Jason Leopold interviews former US attorney for New Mexico, David Iglesias, one of eight US attorneys fired in December for reasons that appear to have been motivated by partisan politics. Iglesias says he believes a "smoking gun" exists that will lead directly to Karl Rove and blow the scandal wide open.
May 30, 2007 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, Scooter...
Why's your defense fund website (www.scooterlibby.com) hosted on the same computers that Karl Rove's secret gwb43.com network is?
Maybe because the RNC is secretly paying all your expenses? Just maybe?
May 30, 2007 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
IMPEACH for god's sakea
May 30, 2007 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
IMPEACH for god's sakes
May 30, 2007 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
At trial, it became clear that Libby learned about former CIA agent Valerie Plame from Cheney. But the details that would clarify who orchestrated the press leak were covered up, Fitzgerald says, by Libby’s acts of obstruction.
Well yeah! WTF else would the con elite give Scooter a standing ovation at their dinner the other night.
code word: made-man
May 30, 2007 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Give him the book!
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
May 30, 2007 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
how much does it matter? he's going to be pardoned any way. Let's hope that his sentence is NOT stayed . . . so that Bush/Cheney are put on the spot now, not a couple years down the road when the appeals court gets to it.
May 30, 2007 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I keep thinking about Dick Cheney scribbling in the margins on Joe Wilson's New York Times article and how these scribblings laid the framework for all that followed
Cheney's scribblings led directly to top White House officials trying to rebut Joe Wilson by dragging his wife, Valerie Plame-Wilson, a covert CIA officer, into the discussion...or as I like to call it, the "swift boat campaign" launched against former ambassador Joe Wilson, with his wife being used by top White House officiels in an attempt to smear him.
These scribblings also led to Robert Novak's infamous newspaper column which outed Wilson's wife as a CIA operative.
And finally, Cheney's scribblings led to the concerted, White House-wide effort to hide which top White House officials were ultimately responsible (Dick Cheney and George W. Bush) for committing the treasonous act of disclosing or pushing for disclosure of the highly-classified identity of a covert CIA offical, who had worked diligently for almost twenty years trying to keep any rogue nations or individuals from getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney sits at the center of this White House web of treason.
May 30, 2007 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
In any sense of proportionate punishment for Libby's Convicted crimes, I can never accept that 'Duke' Cunningham's transgressions (admitted to without a trial) warranted EIGHT years behind bars, but I. 'Scooter' Libby's outing of an under-cover agent engaged in the business of trying to help protect this nation from some ultimate nuke attackis only serious enough to draw a THREE-year incarceration.
Will some lawyerly type explain this noticeable difference to us?
I'm still not as sold on Fitzgerald's 'diligence' in this whole affair as some...but, at least he got a conviction. Maybe almost any prosecutor could have.
May 30, 2007 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a few questions about Judge Walton:
-Is the general feeling that Walton is a Republican in the Fitzgerald sense? I have to assume since he was appointed by the politically sensitive Bush Administration, that they wouldn't appoint anyone other than an R.
- Should we be concerned that he was just appointed to the FISA Court (again, I would think the bush administration would be sensitive of just who they place on that court.)
-What about the Sibel Edmond's comment? Does anyone have further information on her request to have Judge Walton recuse himself?
links:
CIA leak judge appointed to FISA court
Reggie Walton, the federal judge who heard the CIA leak case, has been appointed to the Foreign Inteligence Surveillance Court, according to a report in Secrecy News, a newsletter from the project on government secrecy at the Federation of Atomic Scientists.
Posted by Mike Carney at 12:21 PM/ET, May 24, 2007 in Washington
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/05/cia_leak_judge_.html
Walton has been on the U.S. District Court in Washington since he was appointed by President Bush in 2001.
-snip
Secrecy News noted that in July 2006 he had ruled in favor of the Federation of American Scientists in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the National Reconnaissance Office.
Earlier last year FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds unsuccessfully tried to get Walton to recuse himself from her case, arguing his decision to keep federally required financial disclosure information private created the appearance of a conflict of interest.
-snip
http://www.upi.com/Security_Terrorism/Briefing/2007/05/24/libby_trial_judge_joins_secret_fisa_court/9180/
May 30, 2007 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Will some lawyerly type explain this noticeable difference to us?"
Well you see, SeeDee, Cunningham was corrupt Republican stupid enough to get caught.
Scooter are the other hand was political hitman for one of the most powerful men in the world. He was most likely doing was he told to do when he helped to out Plame. He was being the good soldier when he lied to cover for Cheney. In the politics, probably more so in the Republican Party, loyalty trumps immoral behavior.
code word: Mafia
May 30, 2007 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yo SCOOTER!
You are a good lookin' guy in the graying at the temples sorta way . . . I hope they find you the right sorta cellmate for your three year stay.
May 31, 2007 12:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney can be prosecuted outside impeachment. CREW's been asked to comment:
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/28590#comment-5969
Congress has no vote on prosecutions by State Officials against the VP and President.
May 31, 2007 2:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Will some lawyerly type explain this noticeable difference to us?
Admittedly, IANAL. But maybe sentencing guidelines? (Anyone?)
Considering both the gravity of the charges and some of the stunts the Libby team pulled, or tried to pull, at trial, it wouldn't be a surprise if Judge Walton wanted to add strokes with a bamboo cane to the jail time (and if Fitzgerald wouldn't be happy to take the swings), but under the law and also the guidelines he really can't.
Now, if you want to get into differential treatment of white/blue collar crimes, or property crime vs. institutional malfeasance ...
May 31, 2007 6:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please sentence Libby to serve time in the general population of a real prison. He won't last three days and will crack like a walnut at which time we will know the truth about the Plame outing.
May 31, 2007 7:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can anyone answer a question of mine I've been trying to figure out? WHAT will happen to McNulty after Goodling's allegations of perjury? Is there anybody looking into it? What is the procedure, even, for proceeding in that direction? Is there any possibility of inquiry and possible justice?
I have first hand experience with McNulty, and I know exactly the ethically-challenged hack he is. I pray there will be some sort of justice.
May 31, 2007 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clemons over at The Washington Note has a bit posted there about Fred Thompson's role in Libby's defense fund. He poses an interesting question for this Presidential hopeful, the asshole Fred Thompson....
".....ask him whether Libby-like obstruction of justice would be tolerated in his potential administration."
A valid question, eh?
May 31, 2007 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Forgot to add the link....
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/
May 31, 2007 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
The real issue is that Libby is being found guilty in a criminal court which opens the doors for a subsequent civil suit that will unofld after the current administration leaves office and can exercise a pardon.
The real crime?
Brewster Jennings and the individuals associated with Valerie Plame are now unable to perform national security service such as monitoring and obstructing the acts of individuals like A.Q. Khan.
While there was incredible fanfair of reporting upon the imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and now a seemingly serendipity by the same small group to get the facts wrong: DOE aluminum tubes, DOS niger forgeries, and a whole host of inaccuracies illustrated in George Tenet's book, and the pre-war planning that ignored the warnings of career professionals at the Pentagon, the real traffickers of WMD were being monitered and obstructed by dedicated apolitical employees despite (their political contributions) which seems to be the litmus for job performance in the HUMINTEL trades today.
Said another way: while fighting windmills by focusing on Iraq, the real war on terror... NUCLEAR TERROR was undermined and resources and assets destroyed and diverted.
While there is now an unwillingness to politically acknowledge this fact, and the sentence is light, the real fact of the matter was that what the administration did was illegal, detrimental to national security, and finally immoral and stupid.
The greatest crime beyond undermining legitimate and ongoing covert operations was the 'sin of stupidity' that the small group of decision and policy makers orchestrated and the unitended consequences that thety have visited upon themselves and this nation as they departed from established rules of conduct, law, and protocol in their exercising of their responsibilities of office.
The criminal prosecution allows the Plames to seek civil damages despite the fact that history has already exonerated them.
May 31, 2007 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Page 14 of the memo seems to be missing.
May 31, 2007 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Expect Libby's fate to be a presidential pardon.
June 1, 2007 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
if there was a crime how come Richard armitage is not on trial? he told every one who did not already know that plame was cia and that she sent her nit wit husband to niger.fritzy new from the start that plamie was not covert and that no crime had been commited.so how can libby lie about a non crime?
June 14, 2007 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
wah wah
I seen someone say mafia must have been reffering to the Kennedy's.
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