Libby Still Guilty
There is indeed value to the republic in reassuring its public that even such crimes as perjury and obstruction of justice, during wartime or not, are taken very, very seriously, and that political connections cannot shelter any such criminals.
[T]here was an investigation, and nobody, especially public officials, should lie to the grand jury or to investigating police. We can’t (or at least we shouldn’t) take the position that the obligation of truth-telling applies only to the investigations we approve of — especially when we live in a country where you are privileged to decline to answer any questions. What Libby did here was not the worst wrong in the equation, but it was still wrong.
Indeed. The impetus for the investigation of Bill Clinton was quite arguably less substantial than the impetus for this investigation. But that doesn’t matter. As I said yesterday, “no matter how silly the investigation might be, you gotta tell the truth.” Scooter Libby apparently didn’t. Too bad for him.
I regret to say that Beldar’s and McCarthy’s opinions appear to be rare among Republicans. More typical is this screed by Dean Barnett at Hewitt’s site (h/t DRJ), which careens wildly from acknowledgements that Libby is guilty to pronouncements that Fitzgerald was a wild prosecutor, out of control:
PATRICK FITZGERALD IS A PROSECUTOR. He came to the Valerie Plame affair with his typical agenda – get someone thrown in jail. It was Scooter Libby’s misfortune that he was the one without chair when the music stopped. It was his greater misfortune that there wasn’t a bigger fish nibbling on prosecutor Fitzgerald’s line. If there had been, Scooter Libby would still be a mostly anonymous public servant today.
Did Scotter Libby break the law and perjure himself before a Grand Jury? As a legal fact, yes. A jury has said so, and that’s that. Of course, juries make a lot of things legal facts that shouldn’t be.
But I’m willing to play along with the jury and agree that Scooter Libby did commit the crimes that they convicted him of yesterday. This is one of those instances where the adversarial system should indeed have produced a proper result. Fitzgerald is a great lawyer; Libby could afford equally stellar counsel for himself. There’s no reason to believe that if the facts weren’t on his side, Fitzgerald could have still so handily outfought Libby’s counsel to nevertheless win a conviction.
And yet there’s something about this case that still strikes me as unsettling and unnerving. For political reasons, the purportedly aggrieved parties of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame got their own private prosecutor whose entire job was to make sure someone went to jail because of the scandal in which the Wilsons were the featured players. Even as the main charges turned out to be unfounded or at the very least un-provable, an undeterred Fitzgerald fought on, determined to get someone, anyone, thrown in jail.
So: Libby broke the law, but for some reason (because he’s a Republican?) Barnett seems to think he should have gotten a pass on his lawbreaking. It is a slur on Fitzgerald to say he was Joe Wilson’s “own private prosecutor.” He’s a prosecutor, who investigated a case, found a lawbreaker, and prosecuted him. Good for him.
The arguments you hear from partisan conservatives sound an awful like the whining of liberals during Monicagate: the prosecutor is out of control! It’s politically motivated! Yada yada yada. Look, conservatives: a jury found, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, that Libby obstructed justice, committed perjury, and lied to investigators.
Deal with it and move on. Dot org.
P.S. As regular readers know, I am a prosecutor myself — albeit one who is willing to criticize prosecutors when I think they are misbehaving. I haven’t seen evidence of that in this investigation. And I will candidly state that I resent Barnett’s statement that prosecutors generally treat justice as a game, and are willing to prosecute people they aren’t convinced are guilty. That’s not me, and it’s not the prosecutors I know.
Moreover, I am puzzled why Barnett wanted to join an office that he believed was filled with such prosecutors. I sure as hell wouldn’t. Why did he?
P.P.S. Commenters think all prosecutors always stick together. That ignores the link above . . . and I’ll toss in another: Sandy Berger getting a misdemeanor slap on the wrist for walking out with, and apparently destroying, classified documents. That is ridiculous.
Neil Boortz on his radio show today said that prosecutors are a fraternity, and defend each other in cases like this. I don’t profess to know whether that is true or not.
I do think that since Fitzgerald knew the identity of the leaker (Armitage) from the earliest days of the case, that the rest of his investigation seemed little more than a fishing expedition, similar to what Ken Starr did with the various Clinton scandals.
I’ll also ask you to contrast the way in which the Clinton and Bush administrations reacted to the prosecutors, Starr and Fitzgerald. The Clintons went on the attack, using the politics of personal destruction to smear Starr as a voyeur and a pervert for investigating the Lewinsky stuff, while the Bush administration kept a stony and dignified silence about Fitzgerald.
Robert (8542ed) — 3/7/2007 @ 9:47 pmPatrick–
We all know that you are a prosecutor. So what?
Mescalero (734d33) — 3/7/2007 @ 9:51 pmTo those of us plebes with PhD’s and then some, please explain just what Patrick Fitzgerald was trying to prove. Obviously, it wasn’t the so-called outing of a typical CIA bureaucrat named Valerie Plame. Her status, as far as I can tell, has been non-classified for years. So did Scooter lie? Well if that’s the case, why haven’t we sent out necktie parties for the likes of Richard Armitage? After that, why not go after the likes of Tim Russert and Chris Matthews? As far as David Corn and his ilk, just flush them down the toilet!
We all know that you are a prosecutor. So what?
It’s full disclosure to readers who don’t know, my friend. That’s all.
Not an implication that the rest of you are “plebes.”
Patterico (04465c) — 3/7/2007 @ 9:53 pmLibby is legally guilty of perjury and this may be a correct verdict. Frankly, I want people to understand they can’t lie – even if some people get away with it now and then. However, it saddens me that the case was tried in DC even though I know that under the law it had to be tried there.
I live in Texas. I’ve spent a total of 2 months of my life in Washington so I have an uneducated and jaundiced view of DC, but it’s obviously a government town. Partisanship aside, hearing this case in DC is like asking people in Hollywood to sit on a jury about TV shows or movie-making. Everyone’s an expert. As an attorney, I know the worst thing that can happen is to get a jury full of people who think they are experts on the subject of your lawsuit because they rethink everything.
DRJ (0c4ef8) — 3/7/2007 @ 9:54 pmGoodness, Patterico. You just surprised the heck out of me.
As you’re a prosecutor, let me ask you:
You don’t see anything wrong with Fitzgerald’s actions? Like when, during the first week of the investigation, he KNEW who the leaker was (Armitage) and he KNEW Valerie Plame’s status (not covert); that is, he KNEW no crime had been committed. What was left to investigate? Please help me understand how that is “OK.”
You’re OK with bringing a process charge when there was no underlying crime? AND when it boils down to faulty memories on the part of everyone involved and “he said, she said”? Help me understand.
Whatever happened to “seeking justice” as opposed to “seeking convictions”? I’d’ve said that’s the very definition of prosecutorial misconduct.
And how about all the prejudicial statements he made in the press and to the jury? I dunno about crazy Cali, but here in Washington, that’s a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct.
I’m a lawyer and a law-and-order guy, but you’re scaring me.
jb (d1ee42) — 3/7/2007 @ 9:56 pmoops. firestorm brewing. in the time it took me to post, 3 more posts had been submitted.
you got some ‘splainin’ to do, Lucy!
jb (d1ee42) — 3/7/2007 @ 9:57 pmI have tried cases where opposing witnesses have told lies, easily impeachable lies, and I refrained from pushing it into the realm of perjury — one time contrary to the judge’s urging (she had her own ideas about how I should conduct my cross-examination). The federal perjury law has a materiality requirement. It’s hard to see what material fact Libby lied about regarding the Vanity Fair centerfold girl. And I have already stated my opinion that he should have been given the opportunity to rehabilitate his testimony any time before the Grand Jury adjourned.
nk (db0112) — 3/7/2007 @ 10:03 pmI resent Barnett’s statement that prosecutors . . . are willing to prosecute people they aren’t convinced are innocent
You might want to fix that.
Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c) — 3/7/2007 @ 10:07 pmHeh. I swear it wasn’t Freudian!
Thank you.
Patterico (04465c) — 3/7/2007 @ 10:08 pmAs a prosecutor, I hope you’re ok with the fact that people who saw this travesty are going to be much, much less likely to cooperate with prosecutors.
Why on earth would you actually answer questions before a grand jury when really minor differences in what you remember and what someone else remembers can get you charged? If you think I’m exaggerating here, look at count 3 of the indictment. One prong of it was thrown out because Fitzgerald presented no evidence of it at all. So the prong that was left was that Libby lied when he said he’d told Cooper that he had heard that too, from other reporters.
Here’s what was in Cooper’s contemporaneous notes:
had somethine and about the wilson thing and not sure if it’s ever
And the jury was 9-2 on convicting on that charge, before they gave up. Are you sure you’re comfortable with this?
Are you comfortable with a prosecutor who goes so far over the line in final closing that the judge has to admonish him and tell the jury “some times lawyers say stuff they don’t really mean”, when he appealed for the jury to punish Libby for Bush/Cheney? Read the accounts of Fitzgerald’s close if you don’t believe me. Even the accounts from the left side of the blogosphere that were at the trial agree he did this.
Are you comfortable with a prosecutor that knowningly allows a potential witness to file a false affidavit with the court, and who then attempts to hide that fact from the defense because this would hurt his case?
Libby’s best outcome here was going to be a hung jury with a DC jury, and a judge who was another member of the former prosecutors club. But it was never very likely. The defense obviously made mistakes here – not objecting to the retired reporter in the jury pool being the biggest one. But the Judge tilted the scales virtually every chance he got.
Skip (df95da) — 3/7/2007 @ 10:24 pmLibby lied and it is amazing and disturbing to watch the combinations of sophistry and honest mote-in-eyedness from those who want “their football team to win ball games” in politics and in court. No more George Washington fessing up to chopping down the cherry tree. No more Ensign Pulver telling the old man that he threw his damn palm trees over the side.
Instead we have the damn of “pussy-ass” man. Too much TV watching. He needs to be made to do lots of pushups. Maybe IQ can be beaten into the dumb ones too.
TCO (1c4d1b) — 3/7/2007 @ 10:28 pmI’m sick and tired of the argument that Fitzgerald was out of control because he knew Armitage was the leaker from day one, and that no crime was committed, but still kept going to eventually trap and prosecute Libby.
Some of the charges Libby was just convicted of concerned false statements that occurred in Oct. and Nov. 2003, namely the FBI interviews. Read the indictment, page 9. Elsewhere the indictment lists 9 instances of Libby discussing Plame to others before he supposedly learned of Plame from Russert (Libby’s story). All of these contacts were available to the investigators BEFORE Fitz was appointed (except maybe Judith Miller who went to jail for contempt, I’m not sure of that timeline).
Fitzgerald wasn’t appointed special counsel until the end of December 2003. This was after Libby gave some of the statements that the jury just found to be false and a crime. And it was just over two months after he was appointed before Libby committed perjury at the grand jury in March 2004.
So, point one, Libby already had committed a crime before Fitz was even appointed, according to some counts of his recent conviction, by making false statements.
Point two, even if Armitage was the first leaker (who knows if he was the first or only), Fitz was charged to investigate any potential leaks. There could have been others in a coordinated effort, or a coincidental parallel leak of the same information. Fitz didn’t know what he was dealing with at first, and was charged with finding that out by investigating it. That takes time, testimony, and investigation.
Point three, Plame’s status was not evident at first, and is still kind of murky. She may not have been covert under one statute, but she was classified under another and engaged in anti-nuclear proliferation work for the CIA, and worked publicly under a CIA front company that was certainly involved in covert activities (cover which was blown when Novak published his column, leading to damage the extent of which is classified to this day). Fitz needed quite some time to unravel the facts and law of that situation.
It’s just dumb to say Fitz was an out of control prosecutor who should have shut down the operation on day one. He was appointed well after it started, after Libby had already broken the law, and took the investigation seriously. During the course of the investigation, he learned a lot more, and eventually decided not to bring any charges related to the leak itself, for some reason or another. But he still had this issue where Libby’s statements and grand jury testimony were seriously out of whack from everything else he uncovered, suggesting false statements and perjury. So he went after that crime, which any prosecutor would do.
Off topic here, I applaud Patterico for his principled and informed post despite the ill-informed howling that is going on in some conservative quarters, and also for not writing another goddamned Greenwald post.
aplomb (4c3235) — 3/7/2007 @ 10:47 pmGood post, Patterico.
Russell (4ffe33) — 3/7/2007 @ 11:30 pmPatt,
I fully understand that you are both an attorney and a prosecutor. As such you are also aware that there are probably no less than 5000 laws on the books all blessed with “precedence” from somewhere and some judge, (also a club member), that 99.5 % of the citizens and I’d bet 80% of the attorney congress persons have ZERO knowledge of!
I’m not into the Libby trial as quite frankly I figured it a total waste of a billion dollars! It still was! A billion dollars, can’t we figure out some place to spend it without proffering up the legal system?
How about we spend a billion dollars returning the LEGAL system to the American people?
Seems we have lost ours and gawd, with a billion we could probably buy it back!
But being a responsible prosecutor also means taking on cases for JUSTICE! Not always the ABSOLUTE letter of the law, but justice. Such also equates to having a basic understanding of basic principals of cost vs benefit.
If the prosecution spends $200,000.00 to successfully win a case that nets the govt/citizens, 25k. Is it worth it?
If and when, as we have just seen it happen, the govt prosecutes a crime based on NO crime, (the outing of a secretary at the cia), which was NOT a crime. but some asswipe actually might think if he remembers such and such, might lead to additional challenges for the NON-Crime that did not happen, but simple embarrassment to third parties, so is recollections change a tad.
You are Aware of the name Nifong? How about Sutton! This list over the next year will expand greatly I’m sure. Nifong, sorta woke up a few folks, Ramos and Compeaon, have awakened more. The surge is on it’s way to clean house, and if such needs to start in the white house, so be it. But one can be sure as hell the American public has had enough of the “CLUB” shit!
See unless some REAL crime has taken place, pursuing such onto trial is little but a waste of money. Some will argue and say”crime is crime and at all costs it must by prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law… Bull! And it’s excrement on you.
Ted Kennedy still walks the streets today, and is actually a member of congress! Even after MURDERING a young girl!
Reid from NV, he aint gonna give back the 70K the jailed Lobbyist gave him. Though others face criminal charges for even being able pronounce his name.
We could mention the fellow that Pelosi desires to put at the helm of the committee on homeland security, yeah the one that was filmed taking 110k$ bribe, and found 90k in his freezer as well. But then it might have come from cattle futures as well.
Oh and I stumbled upon a whole list of wonderful criminals that are today being hearleded in their public paid for offices, all democrats btw. Had I done such, I would still not be seeing daylight or so much as the glimmer from a light bulb.
Oh the real joiner here. They are all attorneys!
My background is the hotel industry. My world was one of having 20 minutes to take care of a small problem and keeping it small, else it could become big, both for me and the hotel. That is my training, getting stuff handled in 20 minutes, not 20 months or 20 years all the wile paying secretaries 40-100$ an hour and 3 cent copies being charged out at 2.5$ per page by the thousands of pages with each minor wording change. But that is another side of the litigious world within we all currently live. A real precedence would be for ANY attorney to solve some 10 minute problem in 20.
DRJ, I’m gonna pick on you, though it’s not aimed at YOU, you said it first…. “As an attorney, I know the worst thing that can happen is to get a jury full of people who think they are experts on the subject of your lawsuit because they rethink everything.”
Attorneys DO NOT DESIRE EDUCATED FOLKS to SIT on a JURY, because they THINK! They think for themselves, they analyze shit and they do not act like sponges! GAWD must hate the thinking man!
More.
Uneducated folks do not understand the Latin used so frequently in a courtroom linguist session, as such they can and are easily confused with such, (smart folks come up wit such), right? They for the most part have nothing, and never will have much, so they tend to hand it to the (perceived), man! Anybody that dares to create a business and jobs and economic growth. That is the man. It’s been said before about someone not being smart enough to avoid jury duty, yada yada yada….. That is the folks most attorneys desire to have in the box.
BTW, I’m going out of my way to get on any jury that I might be called for! WHY? So that I can phark with attorneys and judges and other jurors and basically, hopefully, destroy anything some asswipe can profit over that is just dumb luck, being stupid, or if I so much as smell Nifong’s shit trace. That is why. For sure it aint the 17$ a day.
I’ve never been a lawyer, been around too many of them as it is. But in Biz law 101 the basic lesson was taught was always go after the deep pocket. We have many examples of such in the USA today. Thanks guys you have managed to phuk up an entire nation by doing so.
The hotel industry also taught me something else, a lesson the legal industry had best learn and NOW! An industry that will not effectively police itself is primed for outside forces to become it’s policing agency!
TC (b48fdd) — 3/8/2007 @ 12:05 amTC,
I don’t take what you said personally. In fact, I’m glad you said it. It does sound arrogant when you put it that way so I hope you won’t mind if I explain my comment better the second time around.
Juries are supposed to decide cases based on the facts they hear in court and the law the judge tells them applies to those facts. If you have a jury with people who know the subject well, they may be tempted to alter the facts and the law to fit what they know about the industry. For instance, if you heard a case about a hotel where the testimony said “X” happened but your experience is that “X” doesn’t happen in hotels, you might try to convince your fellow jurors not to believe that testimony. That would be improper, even if it makes perfect sense, because you have basically offered yourself as an expert witness whose testimony wasn’t subject to cross-examination in the trial.
Of course, we want jurors to bring their common sense into the jury room so in some cases it’s a fine line. When I was trying cases, I always chose educated jurors and most of the attorneys I practiced with did, too. What I avoided were jurors that have a special and perhaps vested interest in the subject-matter of the lawsuit.
DRJ (0c4ef8) — 3/8/2007 @ 12:19 amSecond guessing the outcome of jury trials seems to be an all-American pasttime. We’re only satisfied when we get the verdict we want, anything else must be a judicial travesty. It’s been going on in this country before Sacco & Vanzetti and will probably continue till we revert back to chimpanzees, which might be an improvement for some of us.
Just my two cents.
Subvet (2d8adb) — 3/8/2007 @ 2:04 amI have a great deal of respect for Patterico, the proprietor of this blog. I’ve been listening to what he has to say for quite some time.
If he says that there’s actual cause for a Libby conviction, I want to hear about it.
Most of the time, I figure that the jury system is designed to do what we cannot — take dedicated time to separate the wheat from the chaff, listen to all the evidence as purported by partisans from both sides, and render a verdict based on a rational consideration of the merits of each case. As such, I have a healthy respect for jury verdicts, and hesitate to impugn them in any way.
In this case, however, the prosecutor may have had hard feelings from a previous run-in with the defendant. An investigation was pursued past the point where its purpose was fulfilled. A man’s notes and calendars were subpoena’d and held, and the man interrogated as to their subject matter (not the subject of the investigation, which was already known) for 8 hours without them. Inflammatory press clippings were entered into evidence without foundation — or even proof they had ever been seen by the defendant. Exculpatory witnesses were barred from testifying. Perjury was alleged on points where no crime attached. Obstruction of justice was charged where no justice was forthcoming. Jury Instructions were issued without due consideration of relevance or materiality. Juror’s statements after the verdict indicate that this was a “proxy verdict”, because some unindicted person should be on the docket.
I’d really like to believe that there was some shred of fairness, due process, or decency to attach to this. Instead, it looks a lot like it’s a felony to be “driving while Republican” in a Federal courthouse in DC.
Beyond this, however, is the message sent by this and the Martha Stewart verdict — “if one is unpopular, to testify is to transgress.”
You, me, or anyone else can be summoned to a grand jury in regards to the murder of someone down the street. On our way to the courtroom, the supposed victim can wave at us from a window. Our diaries and memoranda can be seized and held from us. We can then be questioned regarding our personal lives and relationships in excruciating detail without these notes…..and if we shade that information in any particular, thinking that it wouldn’t matter to the actual crime being charged anyway, we can be charged with perjury and obstruction. For all the noise about Civil Liberties and the Patriot Act, I see nothing remotely approaching this as an attack on our freedoms. In short, you may rest assured that anyone speaking to an investigation (especially a Republican) without some sort of immunity would have to be a complete moron, even if the discussion is limited to “do you want fries with that?”
As I said before, I appreciate Patterico as a person. I respect his professionalism. As an officer of the court, I would appreciate it greatly if he could provide some frail reed to sway my belief that the Libby verdict was a complete travesty of justice, a witch-hunt based on partisan spleen and personal vendetta, fueled by MSM dissembling and abetted by one-sided judicial decisions about evidence that was evaluated by a biased jury.
Further, I would very much like to know what restrictions could be placed on the Nifongs, Fitzgeralds, and Earles of this world without hampering the prosecution of the real “bad guys” in the world.
cthulhu (ccb965) — 3/8/2007 @ 2:08 am“That would be improper, even if it makes perfect sense, because you have basically offered yourself as an expert witness whose testimony wasn’t subject to cross-examination in the trial.”
Which is why I usually stay at a Best Western instead of a Holiday Inn Express!! 🙂
Then again, such is indeed part of the draw. I am one person that most would not desire on a jury, because I’ll educate myself on the crap I do not fully understand, or force the attorneys to do so in open court! Ignorance is curable, and should be, if counsel is going to introduce folks to crap they know nothing about, then counsel is as well responsible to educate those folks as to exactly what such means.
Cramming over any one subject will not make me any sort of expert on it, but at least I’ll be able to understand the acro DNA when it’s spoken in open court and know that such might be important to the case at hand. But the total knowledge of said subject should not be constrained within the walls of the courtroom. Informed and educated folks generally make pretty good decisions. Else, they can be lead along by the rings in their noses like a bull to slaughter. Sans their decision might lead to another’s death.
Else we can all just become subjects to the goreical, or good Dimhnies, or however that is spelt.
I do indeed realize exactly what it is that you are saying though as to making oneself an expert witness withoug swearing in as such. But such is life. Most folks are indeed exposed to a great many things in life, and some of us more that we probably should, and with each experience we grow as a person as a human being and as an undeclared expert witness in the jury room and not the court room.
Please don’t take offense at my strong feeling that too many attorneys choose the ignorant/stupid over the educated experienced. Now as with cases and lawyers, that of course is changeable. I do feel that most judges would prefer to have some intelligence in the box though.
DRJ, there are indeed some very good attorneys in the land of ours. I know I’ve worked with some of them. What is too bad is that I’ve also worked with some of the most worthless pieces of shit on the planet as well under the guise and BAR standing as an attorney. Those that qualify as the ones responsible for the attorney jokes that seem to piss off a few, and generally the good ones laugh at. Well until they get the link that this scumbag is soiling their industry.
But the legal industry continues to refuse to police their own! Even today, they will NOT do it! They won’t throw out a judge until the striper giving a hummer is actualy caught under the bench in open court, they won’t so much as sanction or scold one of the club for raping a widow over and over and over again sans the sexual part of it. Raping meaning taking every piece of equity or spendable money she/he might have available. FEW exceptions exist.
For those who dare to file a complaint against a club member. Whoo be to them. First off you can hardly find a lawyer that will do such, and then the BAR generally laughs your ass out of the state! The validity does not matter, just the standing of the attorney whom you have a grip with, and who’s pocket they may have padded in the past or promise to in the future.
Medical doctors used to have some sembelance of standing in any community. They thelselves destroyed such all by themselves and it started close to 30 years ago. Today the term Dr. means little to most of us, just another designation of title is all.
I’m a CHA (certified hotel Administrator), (I knew you would ask), 🙂 in the hotel industry. Purchasable by spending a few hundred bucks and taking a test. Yes passing it as well But who, ok I know a guy, can’t pass a test after 8 hours of training on the test materials and coaching during such?
cthulhu has brought forth some excellent points. Basically proving that the entire Libby trial was a nothing trial designed to phuk up somebody’s life and cost him a bunch of money. It did. It also cost taxpayers a billion dollars! Some will say less, but I’ve had an eco greenie group on it from the start and according to all the CO2 credits and such compiling in the media time and our collectiv4e time watching it and listening to the false crap for three years, ultimate cost may well exceed 2 billion.
What does not come out of the public coffers will be summarized by wasted job time and excessive BS on blog sites and message boards, mostly accessed from the job site.
Make it 3 billion. Putative damages may still come into play. 🙂
As they say, when you kick somebody leave with a compliment.
Patt and DRJ!
I think both of you represent your industry with integrity and honor. I’m just amazed at how many within it do not, yet I as well know that you do not stand alone. With your help, we can all work together and clean where needed and flush as needed. Citizens/civilization does not succeed without laws, and lawyers do not succeed without civilization. But when the lawyers or the citizens or both connive to thwart our rule of law, all need to expect a sudden change.
Legal industry! Police yourselves! Today, because tomorrow I may be your judge, and I can almost guarantee you will welcome such as if the army became your police force.
Call me Bean, as Roy.
TC (b48fdd) — 3/8/2007 @ 3:57 am******
ok it’s late, ok later than that, it’s been fun with some serious notes al well. I need sleep, or at least some comatose time. ciao
Libby,
Was an experienced attorney, was in an office of trust, was LYING TO INVESTIGATORS, got caught
Look, I really like Cheney and I like Libby and Libby’s going to jail and Cheney may very well be pressured to step down.
After all his right hand man was convicted on something they both worked on together
EricPWJohnson (695c44) — 3/8/2007 @ 3:59 amIf Libby lied and in so doing obstructed justice he should have been found guilty and should receive appropriate. I am a bit surprised, Patterico, that you have said that you didn’t follow the case but are quick to defend the verdict. Concerning the Border Patrol agents in Texas, you refrained from comment until facts could be put forth to clarify, and I think that was/is great.
“The Bottom Line” is that many, including quoted statements by Fitzgerald, are taking this conviction as proof there was some conspiracy involving Cheney, at least, to “smear Wilson” to discredit his opposition to the administration’s statement that British intelligence had info that Hussein had sought to buy uranium in Niger.
Aagain, if Libby lied, convict him and sentence appropriately. But my understanding is that he was found guilty of perjury in that his recollection of conversations differed from those of four individual press figures. Written notes either did not support the prosecutor’s case or were supportive of Libby. Judy Miller was in jail for months even though it is reported that Libby had given her permission to testify. One of the outspoken jury members previously worked for the WashPo and is planning on writing a book. (Also comments noted about the running of the trial from cthulhu, above).
If Fitzgerald’s charge was to find out who “leaked” Valerie Plame’s name to Robert Novak, whose article set the whole thing off, he knew that fairly quickly, with one person being Richard Armitage, who also is credited for being the “first leak” previously. If instead his job was to investigate the claim that Wilson was under political attack from the White House by exposing his wife’s CIA identity, I can understand why he would have pursued the investigation. But still, what was the just cause for such a claim- the accusation of the press and the Novak article -which was not linked to the White House but to a State Department official known to not be in agreement with Administration policies?
I have been on a jury once. It did not build confidence in the system at all. People came in with preconceived opinions (like “I don’t trust police officers”) that should have prevented them being on a jury.
That said, when I first heard that Libby’s defense attorney argued in his opening statements that Libby was essentially a “fall guy” for the administration I thought, “What the heck?” That sounds like an admission of personnal guilt but pleading mercy because “you all really hate them”, my client “is simply another victim of theirs”. Assuming he knew all of the case evidence before the trial began, why did he do that? There is no evidence that any crime was committed except for Libby’s perjury. If any crime by the administration was done it seems inapparent, maybe even ineffective (not a reason not to prosecute if a crime occurred, but to claim a crime occurred even if you don’t know what it was or see evidence of it does sound like “being a Republican caught driving in DC”).
My understanding is that Wilson lied about who sent him to Niger and in his NYT op-ed contradicted his own findings presented in his report to the CIA. Also, there is little evidence that Plame was covert, as she was working as an analyst and had been driving in and out of Langley for 5 years.
The “Big Picture” is this: The CIA allowed a high official to write anonymously, while at the CIA, a book highly critical of the Administration. The same CIA sends someone who is not an intelligence professional at the suggestion of his wife to investigate a claim, comes back and lies about his findings, and then the CIA is miffed when their actions are revealed.
Meanwhile, as you have refered to Pat, Berger clearly did a major crime of unknown import and was given a slap on the wrist.
I would like to see two things happen:
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 3/8/2007 @ 4:12 am1. Libby get an appeal
2. Fitzgerald appointed special prosecutor to look into obstruction of Justice in the investigation and prosecution of Berger.
3. Observe Fitzgerald closely for bias, and charge him with obstruction or conspiracy if he does not show the same tenacity. Innocent until proven guilty.
Well, this will be one of those times when I part ways with you Rico.
Fitz was appointed to investigate to determine whether a crime had occurred when someone leaked Plame’s status as a CIA employee and if so prosecute the leaker. On the day of his appointment he knew Armitage had leaked her and he also knew she wasn’t ‘Covert’ as defined by IIPA.
Case closed. But instead of issuing a report and going home Fitz asked for expansion of his mandate 1 month after his appointment and set about setting perjury traps for Rove and Libby. He harassed the CRAP out of them in Rove’s case calling him before the GJ 5 times. Clearly he was looking for any way possible to charge someone – a prosecutor in search of a crime.
I don’t want to ever see another one of these special prosecutors. They are out of control and apparently unable to tell the difference between what they can do and what they should do. You can damn well bet you won’t see HillBilly appoint one. Any future president that does in this political environment is a fool.
As far as this:
Moreover, I am puzzled why Barnett wanted to join an office that he believed was filled with such prosecutors. I sure as hell wouldnt. Why did he?
You need to reread the post you linked. He is referring to the Mass AG’s office in which he served for six months while a law student – and references that experience in the context of a later job application.
[To a prosecutorial office, correct? Where he thought prosecutors would be playing games, not doing justice. — P]
and this:
And I will candidly state that I resent Barnetts statement that prosecutors generally treat justice as a game, and are willing to prosecute people they arent convinced are guilty.
He gives a specific example.
[So? He overgeneralizes the point. — P]
Dwilkers (4f4ebf) — 3/8/2007 @ 4:30 amHave you read the column in NRO by Victoria Toensing “Does the Libby Verdict have Appeal? I would be interested in your view on her following two points, I don’t understand the treatment of the witness Tim Russert. Second,The court permitted Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to refer to Valerie Plame as being “covert” or having a “classified” job throughout trial and specifically during closing argument. Neither of those highly prejudicial characterizations was proven at trial. Even if Plame’s job were “classified,” as Fitzgerald reiterated in his press conference after conviction, there is no criminal violation in publishing her name. That legal gap is why Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in 1982.
Art Zimmerman (88d3ea) — 3/8/2007 @ 4:46 amOn Fitzgerald’s behalf, as I understand it now, some of the conflicting testimony involving Libby was obtained prior to him even taking the case. So, I could see a reason to pursue that; but at the same time, I have heard it claimed there is a great amount of discretion on pursuing such things if not really pertinent.
As has been said above, I am sure there are many hard working attorneys with integrity who moan about problems in the system more than I ever would. At the same time, I think it is very easy for a professional, including doctors, to lose sight of some basic things. Is it not reasonable to believe that two lawyers get so involved in “doing the best defense” and “doing the best prosecution” that truth and justice fall by the wayside? I’ve heard many times that we have a “legal system, not a justice system”. I am suspicious of this happening with the defense attorney as well in this case. I am curious if the defense thought to use as an approach, “They’re all going to want to hang him anyway, so let me try to deflect the prejudice”. The main thing that I have heard that gives creedence to the idea of some larger conspiracy was this statement by the defense attorney, which may have simply been a tactic of persuasion, rather than appeal to truth.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 3/8/2007 @ 4:50 amYou’re a fed prosecutor right? You have anything on this story of the fired US attorneys?
[L.A. County. — P]
whitd (e1558c) — 3/8/2007 @ 5:04 amPat can answer for himself, but while a prosecutor, I don’t believe he’s federal.
I did hear, maybe Pat can confirm it is true or false, that when Pres. Clinton took office he replaced all fed prosecutors, which it is his right to do.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 3/8/2007 @ 5:27 amdwilikers,
That is a whole ‘nother animal right there. That office is a cesspool I wouldn’t wish on anyone’s soul.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 3/8/2007 @ 5:48 amPat,
Not trying to score points here, but ask a serious question: As a prosecutor, what do you make of Fitzgerald finding out relatively early in the investigation that Armitage was the one who leaked to Novak, yet seemingly (and I stress that word) carrying on as if he were still trying to unravel the who-done-it?
It’s that apparent contradiction between stated mission and actual actions that makes a lot of conservatives believe this was politically motivated. Again, not trying to score points, but is this standard/acceptable practice, or does it strike you as unusual?
Thanks.
T-web (ac713a) — 3/8/2007 @ 6:08 amThe reason I take notes is because I know my memory is faulty. If questioned about the contents of the notes I expect my memory to be different than my notes. That’s why I made the notes! Claiming that such memory failures are perjury is disingenuous at best.
I’d be happier with the verdict if there were a half dozen others also charged and convicted. This looks like the accused is being persecuted for having a “truth” that the prosecution doesn’t like.
htom (412a17) — 3/8/2007 @ 6:09 amBarnett’s comments mostly concerned one office where he was only a temp worker. Scott Harshberger perpetrated one of the most egregious cases of fake child abuse prosecution and has opposed clearing the Amiraults who were completely innocent. Even California, for all its Supreme Court oddities, did the right thing with the McMartin case. Not so Harshberger.
The Libby case, to me, was a perjury trap. Fitzgerald already knew who the leaker was. Libby’s mistake may have been overconfidence that he could jive the Grand Jury and FBI instead of shutting up and telling them he didn’t remember the conversations. This is what happened to Martha Stewart but she was not a high priced lawyer.
I also blame Bush and Ashcroft for cowardice in not defending the SOTU statement about yellowcake which the British still insist was true, and caving in to Chuck Schumer in appointing yet another special counsel. I could not believe that the judge would not dismiss the case after the prosecution rested but the treatment of Russert suggests he was part of the anti-Bush DC crowd. It was a disgrace.
I still don’t undertand why the Bush people let Sandy Burglar off with a slap on the wrist. That is really a mystery.
Mike K (416363) — 3/8/2007 @ 6:09 amI am also very interested in the juror who posted his 7500 word “diary” on the Huffington Post the day after the verdict. Doesn’t that sound like he had an agenda the whole time ? Isn’t keeping such a diary by a juror grounds for a mistrial ?
Mike K (416363) — 3/8/2007 @ 6:11 amClinton had the right idea in firing all the Federal prosecutors during the first weeks of his administration. Unfortunately Bush
made very few changes in personnel in Justice, State, CIA etc. The whole country has suffered because of that faulty strategy.
To me, the Libby case was pure politics (not justice) and since a big majority of lawyers are Democrats he, Libby, started out behind the eight ball.
rab (bfe0e4) — 3/8/2007 @ 6:15 amWith all due respect to the blogger and prosecutor, he has to admit that his colleagues have made this bed for them. See Ronnie earl and Mike Nijfong. While the Special Prosecutor Act has been rolled over by administrations of both parties, it remains sadly imperfect, but necessary. Janet Reno demonstrated via her own actions that she would not investigate the Clinton White House, so it was up to Ken Starr. At least Starr had actual crimes and to investigate. Fitzgerald knew no crime had been committed whe he took the job, yet began interviewing people and with questions that could have only entrapped them. Mission accomplished. He even, well, lied himself on several occassions, In the press conference announcing the Libby indictment he said it was nothing about the war or the outing of a covert agent. Yet in his final arguement he mentioned the war and val plame, etc. By his own words and deed, Fitzgerald at the very least modeled the assertion that he wanted someone convicted. And his own closing argument unmasked a man who desired in the end to make the trial about the war and about the administration.
Bob (da4994) — 3/8/2007 @ 6:37 amIf he had truly been a custodian of justice we nver would have gotten to even a grand jury.
Sadly the partisan nature that exists inside the beltway will undoubtably spawn more Peter Fitzgeralds.
Quite frankly I’ve found this Libby business very complicated, and a bit boring. Thankfully, Stephen Colbert explains it to me in this video:
Minor Ripper (980332) — 3/8/2007 @ 6:47 amhttp://minor-ripper.blogspot.com/2007/03/stephen-colbert-explains-libby-verdict.html
Yes, people need to tell the truth. But there is such a thing as entrapment, and a skilled prosecutor with unlimited resources can maneuver any person with a complicated life into perjury, obstruction or conspiracy (cf. Martha Stewart). If it is clear that there is no underlying crime, there should be no prosecution. Full stop. Materiality has to come into play, and lying about nothing should not be a crime. Plamegate was clearly a big nothingburger the minute Armitage admitted to Fitz that he was the leaker.
Mahon (15e701) — 3/8/2007 @ 7:54 amHmmmm.
Utter nonsense!
Fitz knew, KNEW, that Richard Armitage was the leaker a WEEK before Libby was even interviewed for the first time.
And you’re telling me that this prosecutor wasn’t out of control?
You’re full of crap.
ed (0b5c51) — 3/8/2007 @ 8:47 am“Fitz knew, KNEW, that Richard Armitage was the leaker a WEEK before Libby was even interviewed for the first time.”
Do you have a cite for that?
The indictment says Libby gave false statements in October and November 2003. (See page 9)
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf
He was appointed special counsel on Dec. 30 2003.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/ag_letter_december_30_2003.pdf
It looks to me like false statements were in the can months before he ever took the job.
Also, what is your cite for the fact that Fitz KNEW Armitage was the leaker?
Also, why wouldn’t Fitz undertake an investigation to see if there were any other leakers, even if he KNEW Armitage was the leaker on day one?
aplomb (4c3235) — 3/8/2007 @ 9:55 amLet me see now…. the CIA made a referral to the DOJ about a CIA agent being disclosed, but the prosecutor(1) knew who disclosed the name of that person and (2) the prosecutor knew that said agent wasn’t covered un the 1981 law. So what was the prosecutor investigating and why? And if the revealing of said agent wasn’t a crime why did the prosecutor claim (illegally it seems)in rebuttal closing that revealing the agents’ name could result in people being killed? If that were true why wasn’t Armitrage indicted? And why did the prosecutor refuse to make public the CIA referral?
kent (d382e5) — 3/8/2007 @ 10:28 amFitz should be taken out behind the woodshed. He is an evil, evil man. Nothing is more dangerous to a free society than an out of control, politically motivated prosecutor (Nifong anyone?) Fitzgerald is an utter, miserable, worthless, steaming pile of feces. A monumental disgrace.
Lucius (28d602) — 3/8/2007 @ 10:47 amClarice Feldman quotes the NY Times that Fitzgerald knew Armitage was the leaker from day one here.
Stu707 (5b299c) — 3/8/2007 @ 10:59 amPatterico, I appreciate what you’re trying to say here, and I agree with it for the most part. But, er. In terms of establishing your willing-to-criticize-out-of-control-prosecutors bona fides, slapping Mike Nifong is not exactly a profile in courage.
BC (baffa3) — 3/8/2007 @ 11:21 amAnother thing to consider, Patterico. Fitzgerald made this statement at the press conference when he announced the indictment.
“But Mr. Novak was not the first reporter to be told that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Wilson, Ambassador Wilson’s wife Valerie, worked at the CIA. Several other reporters were told. In fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.”
He’s very careful not to say that Libby leaked to novak, because he knows that’s not true. But the second statement here is only true because he didn’t bother investigating the actual leaker, Armitage. If he had, he certainly would have found out that it wasn’t a true statement.
And shortly thereafter Woodward contacts him to let him know that his statement was incorrect.
As a prosecutor, don’t you have an obligation as an officer of the court to ascertain the truth of the matter, even if it uncovers facts that are inconvenient to your case? And also, after you’ve made statements such as these to the press, that you later find out you were mistaken, don’t you have an obligation to correct the record?
Fitzgerald did neither. Instead he tried his best to keep that information from coming to light.
One of the main reasons that the American judicial system works is that by and large, we trust prosecutors. The vast majority of the time people who get indicted really are guilty, so if the prosecutor bends the rules a little bit, who’s harmed?
But cases like this one, and the Duke Lacrosse case, and the blatantly political case that Earle filed against Tom Delay, cause us to lose faith in the system. And that faith, once lost, won’t be easily reclaimed. Without that faith, people won’t work with the system, but instead will oppose it.
By the way, I think I’m one of the commenters that you were referring to as maintaining that prosecutors stick together. That was not my intent. My intent was that on virtually every decision that the Judge made, he sided with the prosecution, and I believe that his experience as a prosecutor cannot help but have shaded that.
Skip (5b0418) — 3/8/2007 @ 11:51 amMr Patt
Do you have any issue with Fitz’s representations up the judicial food chain related to Russerts affidavit to quash his appearance?
SlimGuy (658d0b) — 3/8/2007 @ 12:09 pmPatterico —
Ray Nifong is likely the rule rather than the exception among Prosecutors. Every Prosecutor must hanker after what Tom Wolfe called “the Great White Defendant.” Such as Libby. Someone white and conservative. Easy to demonize with the media and jury and become a star for punishing.
I would venture that no prosecutor wants to prosecute someone like OJ, or Sandy Burglar (wrong Party) because they won’t become a star. White Frat boys or Republicans? Pure gold there.
Look at the other Duke Rape Case. A white Duke college student alleges she was raped by a black man at a black fraternity. Where’s the pub or prosecution there?
Everyone knows Prosecutors are just another set of politicians. Justice is merely another word for politics.
After all, look at the OJ trial. Prosecutors threw the case to avoid another riot.
Jim Rockford (e09923) — 3/8/2007 @ 1:26 pmThe real world doesn’t really resemble your victimization fantasy all that much.
Yeah. I mean, who’s ever heard of Marcia Clark or Christopher Darden?
Moops (8fcb37) — 3/8/2007 @ 2:18 pmI have to admit the most belivable interpretation of the evidence is that Libby lied to the GJ and the FBI when he claimed:
But that does not let Fitzgerald off the hook in my court of public opinion. Fitzgerald (and the FBI) knew before Libby was ever interviewed that the leak they were investigating was from Armitage, not Libby. So the question is why grill Libby for 8 hours in front of the GJ when you already know the answers (even if the GJ doesn’t), you have prevented Libby from knowing the answers (you took his notes, and told Armitage to keep quiet) unless you are trying to manufacture a crime and get a scalp.
Those are the facts, and by saying that you haven’t seen any evidence that Fitz was unethical, you are merely admitting that you don’t want to look at the evidence. And if you look at the specific facts then I’d like to see a defense of Fitzgeralds conduct in light of them.
Kazinski (03d26d) — 3/8/2007 @ 5:52 pmNot sure I agree Moops. My experience suggests to me that the out of control, don’t give a damn about justice prosecutor is the rule not the exception. Some will say Nifong and Fitz are exceptions and most prosecutors are honest people who really only care about justice blah blah blah. I haven’t seen any evidence of that. It seems like it is, in fact, the honest prosecutor who seeks justice and not self-aggrandizement who is the exception, sadly enough….
Lucius (28d602) — 3/8/2007 @ 6:19 pmprosecutors : special prosecutors :: Olympics : Special Olympics
Xrlq (8312b6) — 3/8/2007 @ 7:31 pmThe prosecutor knew that Richard Armitage was the source of the leak. What was the point of investigating anyone else?
Joseph (a90377) — 3/8/2007 @ 7:52 pmDear Patterico, until you have read the entire record, how dare you smugly say he lied? He was told the investigation was into who leaked to Novak and Newsday. He had had no time to review his notes or discuss them w/ others when he had his first FBI interview. He told them at the time that he’d do his best but his memory of all this wasn’t that good and asked them to put that in the record as did his lawyer. They didn’t. When he told the FBI that he couldn’t recall, as Agent Bond admitted, the FBI agent instead wrote he”adamantly denied” it.
He told them from the very first moment that he had this note from Cheney dated June 12 which said, inter alia, that the CIA sent Wilson and that Wilson’s wife “worked in counter proliferation”. Since he was tasked only to say the truth that Cheney hadn’t sent Wilson nor received any report of his Mission , that’s all he remembered until reporters started calling saying Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and sent him, when his memory of that fact was triggered.
He told them about his June meeting with Miller which she had forgotten and they otherwise would not have known.
clarice (c49871) — 3/8/2007 @ 10:02 pmHe said he told the Wa Po Glenn Kessler which Kessler said he did not. He said he told Cooper, but Cooper said HE told Libby.
He had no motive to lie. He cooperated in every way. There is no question that at the time of the Cooper call reporters were calling him and Rove and the CIA’s Harlow asking about Plame. He recalled that before he spoke to Cooper, he’d heard about Plame from Russert. He may have. Russert’s intitial FBI interview indicates he conceded he may have done that. It is also possible he confused Russert w. Mitchell or another reporter who’d called in that period.
Every single one of the prosecution’s witnesses had memory inconsistencies at least as bad as his,
PHEH
Until you know what you’re talking about cut the sanctimonious nonsense.
In case you think I’m being hot headed, here’s cool headed Krauthammer, who paid more attention to the facts of the trial than you admittedly did.
clarice (c49871) — 3/8/2007 @ 10:17 pmI don’t pretend to have followed it closely. But the jury convicted.
Patterico (04465c) — 3/8/2007 @ 10:22 pmAnd yes, I know, juries can convict innocent people. But I tend to presume jury verdicts are correct, in the absence of a strong indication otherwise. You have started making the case above, clarice, and I’m willing to listen, but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the positions of some others, who excuse lies because they don’t like the investigation.
Patterico (04465c) — 3/8/2007 @ 10:26 pmthanks clarice at #49, for capturing part of what’s bothering me. It isn’t your position, Patterico. OK, it’s not ALL your position. It’s the smug attitude. Or the sheep attitude. “I have no doubt Libby lied, even though everybody else who told different stories just had a bad memory and a busy job.” I can’t remember where, but someone posted a daily briefing of Libby’s. It was incredible. Easy to see how he could have forgotten anything.
Reasonable doubt. And if there was reasonable doubt, Fitzfong shouldn’t have brought the case at all. Hell, even if there was no reasonable doubt, how is anything he said material IF NO CRIME WAS COMMITTED?
Om.
[And yet the jury didn’t find a reasonable doubt. — P]
jb (d1ee42) — 3/9/2007 @ 12:50 amI think this is the link intended.
htom (412a17) — 3/9/2007 @ 8:22 am“He told them at the time that he’d do his best but his memory of all this wasn’t that good and asked them to put that in the record as did his lawyer. They didn’t. When he told the FBI that he couldn’t recall, as Agent Bond admitted, the FBI agent instead wrote he”adamantly denied” it.”
I see government investigators doing the last thing mentioned in the above quote quite a bit with regard to my clients in the non-criminal context.
Does anybody know whether Libby’s lawyer could have brought a court reporter into the interrogation? If he wanted it on the record, couldn’t he insist that a court reporter transcribe the interview–or there would be no interview?
Jerri Lynn Ward (9f83e6) — 3/10/2007 @ 4:11 pm