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Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence
An anonymous reader notes that President Bush has decided to commute Scooter Libby's sentence after numerous appeals failed. Libby was convicted in March of obstruction of justice in connection with the Valerie Plame affair. The President's action spares Libby from 30 months behind bars."
It also makes a mockery of Bush's promise to punish the guilty. Letting a guy obstruct justice is not "finding the leak" as he promissed.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Nice try with the right-wing spin.
c le/2007/06/08/AR2007060802478.html
1. There could have been more than one leaker.
2. Plame was indeed covert. Read this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
I remember when the CIA Leak first happened, Bush said (A) he had no idea who was reponsible and that (B) he would prosecute and punish to the full extent of the law anyone responsible.
I guess as far as (A) goes, there's a small chance he wasn't lying if he didn't ask Cheney (or Cheney lied to Bush) but (B) is just another promise that he's failed to keep.
Libby and Cheney and probably Bush sold out a cia op... thats treason
Murder related to the smuggling of aliens. (8 U.S.C. 1342)
Destruction of aircraft, motor vehicles, or related facilities resulting in death. (18 U.S.C. 32-34)
Murder committed during a drug-related drive-by shooting. (18 U.S.C. 36)
Murder committed at an airport serving international civil aviation. (18 U.S.C. 37)
Retaliatory murder of a member of the immediate family of law enforcement officials. (18 U.S.C. 115(b)(3)[by cross-reference to 18 U.S.C. 1111] )
Civil rights offenses resulting in death. (18 U.S.C. 241, 242, 245, 247)
Murder of a member of Congress, an important executive official, or a Supreme Court Justice. (18 U.S.C. 351 [by cross-reference to 18 U.S.C. 1111] )
Death resulting from offenses involving transportation of explosives, destruction of government property, or destruction of property related to foreign or interstate commerce. (18 U.S.C. 844(d), (f), (i))
Murder committed by the use of a firearm during a crime of violence or a drug trafficking crime. (18 U.S.C 930)
Murder committed in a Federal Government facility. (18 U.S.C. 924(i))
Genocide. (18 U.S.C. 1091)
First-degree murder. (18 U.S.C. 1111)
Murder of a Federal judge or law enforcement official. (18 U.S.C. 1114)
Murder of a foreign official. (18 U.S.C. 1116)
Murder by a Federal prisoner. (18 U.S.C. 1118)
Murder of a U.S. national in a foreign country. (18 U.S.C. 1119)
Murder by an escaped Federal prisoner already sentenced to life imprisonment. (18 U.S.C. 1120)
Murder of a State or local law enforcement official or other person aiding in a Federal investigation; murder of a State correctional officer. (18 U.S.C. 1121)
Murder during a kidnaping. (18 U.S.C. 1201)
Murder during a hostage-taking. (18 U.S.C. 1203)
Murder of a court officer or juror. (18 U.S.C. 1503)
Murder with the intent of preventing testimony by a witness, victim, or informant. (18 U.S.C. 1512)
Retaliatory murder of a witness, victim or informant. (18 U.S.C. 1513)
Mailing of injurious articles with intent to kill or resulting in death. (18 U.S.C. 1716)
Assassination or kidnaping resulting in the death of the President or Vice President. (18 U.S.C. 1751 [by cross-reference to 18 U.S.C. 1111])
Murder for hire. (18 U.S.C. 1958)
Murder involved in a racketeering offense. (18 U.S.C. 1959)
Willful wrecking of a train resulting in death. (18 U.S.C. 1992)
Bank-robbery-related murder or kidnaping. (18 U.S.C. 2113)
Murder related to a carjacking. (18 U.S.C. 2119)
Murder related to rape or child molestation. (18 U.S.C. 2245)
Murder related to sexual exploitation of children. (18 U.S.C. 2251)
Murder committed during an offense against maritime navigation. (18 U.S.C. 2280)
Murder committed during an offense against a maritime fixed platform. (18 U.S.C. 2281)
Terrorist murder of a U.S. national in another country. (18 U.S.C. 2332)
Murder by the use of a weapon of mass destruction. (18 U.S.C. 2332a)
Murder involving torture. (18 U.S.C. 2340)
Murder related to a continuing criminal enterprise or related murder of a Federal, State, or local law enforcement officer. (21 U.S.C. 848(e))
Death resulting from aircraft hijacking. (49 U.S.C. 1472-1473)
Espionage (18 U.S.C. 794)
Treason. (18 U.S.C. 2381)
Trafficking in large quantities of drugs (18 U.S.C. 3591(b))
Attempting, authorizing or advising the killing of any officer, juror,or witness in cases involving a Continuing Criminal Enterprise, regardless of whether such killing actually occurs. (18 U.S.C. 3591(b)(2))
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Tomorrow night on Countdown (8pm ET), Olbermann will call on Bush & Cheney to resign.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Funny that you should mention Marc Rich, a financier involved in the Iran Contra affair and the BCCI banking scandal. Guess who his lawyer was?
Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
And yet you're still wrong. Those pesky facts again. From the article:
"The CIA report said that Plame had worked overseas in the previous five years and that the agency had been taking "affirmative measures" to conceal her CIA employment."
Seem pretty clear to me. Unless you know better than the CIA...?
Oops. Well, thanks to the runaway modding, that totally incorrect description is totally burned into the record. Suck.
Oh well. To further clarify, the pardon basically gives back any rights that were lost as a result of the conviction. It looks like courts have ruled that it carries with it an assumption of guilt and the record continues to exist, but no confession needs to be made. What's interesting about the whole situation is how many decisions on the topic were rendered relatively recently after the initial precedents were set a long time ago. It looks like Iran-Contra served to clarify a few things. Older decisions said basically that the crime magically went away, but that has gone by the wayside and now you're guilty in the eyes of the law, but just not punishable.
The next interesting question is, if you're technically guilty but not really because you were pardoned, what implications does it have in issues where your status as a criminal might not have legal implications but definitely has practical ones (e.g. getting a security clearance)? Not surprisingly, it looks like there are a lot of interesting legal opinions on this one. It looks like the prevailing wisdom is, "You got caught being bad and everybody knows it. Suck it up."
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
You could also say this is a move by the Democrats to bring more bad press from Libby in any way they can.
What do "the Democrats" have to do with it (outside of commenting to the media)?
The last paragraph in the article mentions the judge in Libby's case:
A White House official notified the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, of the decision. Walton, a Bush appointee who served in the White House under the president's father, had cited the ''overwhelming'' evidence against Libby when he handed down his sentence. A courthouse spokesman said Walton would not comment.
The reason why the Judge wanted Libby to go to jail NOW is to force the President to pardon him now. [...] You could also say this is a move by the Democrats to bring more bad press from Libby in any way they can.
You could say that, but you'd be wrong. Walton, the judge who ordered immediate prison, was appointed to the bench by Bush himself during his first term. If memory serves, two of the three appeals court judges were also Republican appointees, one considered the most conservative judge sitting on that circuit.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Libby was fairly sentenced in accordance with the sentencing guidelines that everyone else has to live by -- everyone, that is, who doesn't get special treatment from the White House. But also note the obvious conflict of interest here -- the obstruction of justice in question is quite likely protecting that self-same White House!
As for the fine, that's nothing Scooter Libby's defense fund won't easily take care of. And he'll likely have no trouble getting work because of those self-same contributors to his defense fund. As for the felony conviction, we'll see--he could still get pardoned eventually!
So I don't see anything fair about this, especially coming from a President who has used these same powers so little up until now, and still finds the time to rail against "activist judges". Well now you know what an "activist President" looks like.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
The portion of the act grabbed onto by many right-wing radio talk show hosts in the past few years has been the extra-US service portion. It states that in order to qualify as covert, an agent has to have served outside the US in the 5 years previous to the outing.
Well, news flash, Plame did serve overseas in the 5 years prior to her outing. She traveled overseas at the specific behest of the CIA many, many times during the 5 years prior to her outing. Sometimes she even traveled under an assumed name.
Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
"The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18924679/
Plame was not only covert at the time of her outing, by working overseas for the CIA whilst under cover, she was most definitely covert under the terms of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
it's not the rape thats funny. it's samir's unfounded fear of it, and his delivery that's so funny.
In point of fact, Bill Clinton was not convicted of the same crime. The reason being that he technically did not perjure himself. Yes, there was a "lie of omission", but that is not perjury. So really there's no decriminalization due to Clinton since there wasn't an actual crime.
(The bar association has ethics rules that DO ban "lies of omission". Hence Clinton's disbarrment)
Many out outraged over this because the people campaigning for and cheering Libby's pardon were the same people who were claiming perjury and obstruction of justice were serious enough to impeach Clinton, when he hadn't been charged with either crime. Now that a "loyal Bushie" has been convicted of these crimes, it's no big deal.
(IANA Constitutional scholar)
There's nothing in the Constitution that says a president can not pardon himself. The only thing he can not do is use a pardon to avoid impeachment. (See Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution)
AFAIK, a pardon can be worded as "I pardon [name] for any crime he has committed between [date] and [date]"
As for your pardons-with-no-names example, that's not kosher. The President has to specify who he is giving the pardon to. In addition, those "blank" pardons would be useless after the end of Ryan's term, since he's no longer President. While President, he can issue pardons on a case-by-case basis so the "blank" ones are unnecessary. In clandestine situations, there's no reason that a pardon could not be classified.
No. The President's pardon powers are absolute. Abuses like the Libby case and the Mark Rich case may fuel efforts for a Constitutional amendment limiting pardons, or allowing them to be overturned. I'd imagine an amendment that lets a massive super-majority of Congress (like 75%) override a pardon might not be a bad idea.
Note the part that says she has to serve outside the US within the last 5 years? ...or have a classified identity? Which the CIA confirmed.
Plame was covert under the terms of the IIPA, which is no surprise, considering the terms are actually broader than the CIA's own terms for covert status.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
What we were looking for specifically being nuclear WMDs weren't there, but there were still chemical (sarin) WMDs that he should not have had.
Keep in mind that we helped him get the chemical weapons in the first place and then provided intelligence to him when he tested his chemical weapons on the Kurds. Also keep in mind that these weapons have a short shelf life. The stuff we finally found had already degraded into useless bombs.
Every president before him tried diplomacy, and every president before him was summarily ignored. While it's not our job to be the world police I think it would be far more regrettable in the long run to stand by and do nothing. I think the war could have been better executed, but to some extent we have been hindered by the lack of support from the international community.
This isn't entirely true. We helped keep Saddam in power. The Reagan administration helped Saddam with WMD and intelligence. Not only that but we lied about our intelligence in the lead up to war. It's interesting that the very reasons Bush Sr. gave for not marching into Baghdad have come to pass.
This war was never about getting rid of a Tyrant. He was our guy until he over reached and the Saudis, our allies who supply oil and terrorists, freaked out over the invasion of Kuwait and insisted we do something about him.
Hell, we even gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait. So why should the international community help us clean up a mess of our own making?