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Labels: Bush Administration, corruption, Scooter Libby, Tpny Snow

Labels: bloggers, Bush Administration, corruption, Scooter Libby

The President’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people.

The President said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak case. By his action today, the President shows his word is not to be believed. He has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice, he has failed to uphold the rule of law, and he has failed to hold his Administration accountable.

"From my viewpoint, the president has stepped in to short circuit the rule of law and the system of justice in our country. In so doing, he has acknowledged Mr. Libby's guilt for, among other things, obstruction of justice, which by definition is covering up for somebody in a crime. By commuting his sentence, he has brought himself and his office into reasonable suspicion of participation in an obstruction of justice. The commutation of (Libby's) sentence in and of itself is participation in obstruction of justice."

Labels: Nancy Pelosi, Scooter Libby, spinelessness

Now, as a lawyer and a legislator for most of my very long life, I have a particular reverence for our legal system. It protects the innocent, it punishes the guilty, it defends the powerless, it guards freedom, it summons the noblest instincts of the human spirit.

The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door. It challenges abuse of authority. It's a shame "Darkness at Noon" is forgotten, or "The Gulag Archipelago," but there is such a thing lurking out in the world called abuse of authority, and the rule of law is what protects you from it. And so it's a matter of considerable concern to me when our legal system is assaulted by our nation's chief law enforcement officer, the only person obliged to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.

[snip]

What concerns me most deeply in sorting out the many arguments here is the significance of the oath. When the president performs the public act of asking God to witness his promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that is not trivial. Whether it's a civil suit or before the grand jury, the significance of the oath cannot and must not be cheapened if our proud boast that we're a government of laws and not of men is to mean anything. I submit it means everything. It was purchased for us by the lives of countless patriots, some of whom are resting across the Potomac River in a cemetery, but all of whom put the nation's good ahead of their own.

Labels: corruption, George W. Bush, Scooter Libby

Labels: Scooter Libby

Following the furor over President Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich (among others), Bush made it clear he wasn’t interested in granting many pardons. “We were basically told [by then White House counsel and now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales] that there weren’t going to be pardons—or if there were, there would be very few,” recalls one former White House lawyer who asked not to be identified talking about internal matters.

The president has since indicated he intended to go by the book in granting what few pardons he’d hand out—considering only requests that had first been reviewed by the Justice Department under a series of publicly available guidelines.

Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web site at www.usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a nonstarter in George W. Bush’s White House. They “require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,” according to the Justice Web site.

[snip]

Moreover, in weighing whether to recommend a pardon, U.S. attorneys are supposed to consider whether an applicant is remorseful. “The extent to which a petitioner has accepted responsibility for his or her criminal conduct and made restitution to ... victims are important considerations. A petitioner should be genuinely desirous of forgiveness rather than vindication,” the Justice Web site states.

Of course, there is nothing that requires Bush to follow these guidelines in reviewing a pardon for Libby (whose lawyer, Ted Wells, stated on the courthouse steps Tuesday that he intended to push for a retrial, adding that he has “every confidence that Mr. Libby will be vindicated.”) As Love, the former pardon attorney, points out, “the president can do whatever he wants.” Both Clinton and Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush (who pardoned Casper Weinberger among other Iran-contra figures), bear that out.

Still, Bush himself publicly reaffirmed his determination to stick to the Justice pardon guidelines as recently as last month. In a Feb. 1 interview with Fox News anchor Neal Cavuto, Bush was asked about whether he would pardon Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two former U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug dealer who was fleeing across the border into Mexico.

[snip]

“I’m saying … there is a process in any case for a president to make a pardon decisions. In other words, there is a series of steps that are followed, so that the pardon process is, you know, a rational process,” the president answered.

Doug Berman, a Ohio State University law professor who specializes in pardons, said the president may have just been pointing to the Justice Department process as a way to “avoid responsibility” for the political flap over the Border Patrol agents’ case. But Bush has always used his pardon power sparingly—dating back to his days in the Texas governor’s mansion.

Labels: Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Scooter Libby

Labels: Fox News, Scooter Libby

BLITZER: He, according to this jury, men and women of his peers, he's convicted of lying to the FBI, lying to a federal grand jury. Presumably he's going to jail, at least for some period of time.

Was justice served?

TOENSING: Well, I didn't think justice was served by bringing the case in the first place.

I had never heard...

BLITZER: But you can't justify lying to a federal grand jury...

TOENSING: Well, wait a minute...

BLITZER: ... or obstructing justice.

TOENSING: That's not (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- but, Wolf, there's a difference between lying and two witnesses' memories differing. I mean look at how the inconsis...

BLITZER: These aren't just two witnesses. These were like 10 wit -- nine witnesses...

TOENSING: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BLITZER: ... said they discussed her identity with him...

TOENSING: Right.

BLITZER: ... before he claims he learned about it from...

TOENSING: And he...

BLITZER: ... Tim Russert.

TOENSING: The charges were only, because -- trust me, Fitzgerald would have brought more if he had had that kind of -- any kind of inconsistency with someone else -- were Matt Cooper and Tim Russert. And so those are two people.

And guess what?

They had all kinds of problems with what they remembered.

BLITZER: Yes, but there was a lot of...

TOENSING: Witnesses at the trial...

BLITZER: ... other witnesses -- there were a lot of other witnesses...

TOENSING: But witnesses at the trial just...

BLITZER: ... who said that -- prosecution witnesses -- who said they discussed her identity with him...

TOENSING: Right.

Guess what?

Let's just take Ari Fleischer, who is a fine man, an honest man. And he said that he remembered talking about it with "Scooter" Libby. But he said he never talked about it with Walter Pincus, the "Washington Post" reporter.

And what did Walter testify to?

I'm sure you know. He said oh my goodness, in the middle of the conversation, Ari Fleischer interrupted me and said, hey, you know, his wife works for the CIA.

This is why prosecutors -- and, Wolf, I don't know of another case where it's just a memories differ kind of case...

BLITZER: But...

TOENSING: You usually have to have something else, like Martha Stewart, there was witnesses there that she asked me to lie. You have none of that in this case and...

BLITZER: But are you questioning Patrick Fitzgerald, his integrity?

TOENSING: Oh, absolutely.

I'm not questioning...

BLITZER: He wasn't... TOENSING: I questioned his judgment because...

BLITZER: But, you know, he was named the special counsel by John Ashcroft, the attorney general.

TOENSING: Well, I wrote an article that questioned this...

BLITZER: He's an attorney...

TOENSING: ... his capability.

BLITZER: And he's a U.S. attorney in Chicago.

TOENSING: That's right.

BLITZER: So he comes with a really credible reputation.

TOENSING: Yes, well, I'm not alone in questioning his judgment in pursuing a case where you don't have evidence more than just some other witnesses...

Labels: Scooter Libby

Judge Walton read the query sheet I'd marked earlier.

You know someone on the prospective witness list?

I do. Bob Woodward was my boss at the Washington Post for three or four years.

Would you tend to give his statements more credibility than the statements of other witnesses?

I immediately picture a party Woodward hosted at his Georgetown home for the Metro staff about 25 years ago. When I went looking for my girl friend, I found her with some copy aides and reporters in an attic piled high with boxes of files for one of his books.

"Unbelievable," said one of the reporters. "Look at the file labels. This entire box is backup for one interview."

But not infallible. Didn't he write two different books about going to war in Iraq?

Know anyone else on the list?

Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus. I don't think I ever spoke to him during my 10 years at the Post, but twice in the last 14 months we talked at parties thrown by a mutual friend.

Anyone else?

Until a year or so ago, Tim Russert was a neighbor. His back yard and mine shared an alley and a basketball hoop where our sons played. I attended a few neighborhood barbecues in his back yard.

Attorneys at both tables are suppressing "aint this a small town" grins.

Do you know Judith Miller?

No. And yet. I remember a scathing column about Miller in the New York Times and volunteer that I went to grade school with its author, Maureen Dowd. (Maureen had a crush on my brother Kevin. Her older brother Kevin was something of a hero to my youngest brother Brendan after he showed up to coach his grade school football team one Saturday morning in a convertible, with a gorgeous woman in a black cocktail dress in the front seat, and what appeared to be an empty bottle of champagne on the floor. They'd obviously been up all night. He obviously had game.)

I'm not eager to be on any jury for a six week trial, especially with a recently published novel to pimp. But the suggestion that I might lay down for a fellow journalist is starting to irritate. I had to work too hard to become a reporter. Started in the basement of the Washington Post pushing 400 pound rolls of paper to the presses, blah, blah, blah.

"From where you sit I'd be skeptical too," I tell them. "But I've also heard good things about Mr. Libby." Pregnant pause. "A friend who played in a 40 and older touch football league with him says he has a good arm."

Actual snickering.

One of the lawyers asks me the subject of my 2005 non-fiction book.

"Spying."

"You wrote about the CIA?"

"I did." The perfect storm.

Yet here I am.

Labels: Scooter Libby

Labels: Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby