Libby Seeking Get Out Of Jail Card

[MA-Caver]

Possible presidential pardon? Trying to delay going into jail/prison. Requesting leniency and just might get it? Sounds like someone isn't quite ready to do the time for the crime here.

Libby moves to delay prison term
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070606/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_trial
By MATT APUZZO and PETE YOST, Associated Press Writers 10 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby are preparing a last-ditch effort to delay the former White House aide's 2 1/2-year prison sentence, even as President Bush declined to say Wednesday whether he was considering a pardon.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was sentenced Tuesday for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation. He became the highest-ranking White House official sentenced to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.
He requested leniency but a federal judge said he would not reward someone who hindered the investigation into the exposure of a CIA operative,
Valerie Plame. Her husband had accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war.
"Mr. Libby failed to meet the bar. For whatever reason, he got off course," said U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, adding that the evidence of Libby's guilt was overwhelming.

What's the message does this send? Become a politician, commit a crime and you just MIGHT get off? If Bush does sign a pardon then they might as well throw the whole justice system into the joke box. Libby (funny how it sounds like a guy some 35 years ago huh?) should've thought about the consequences before he did what he done. But of course he probably thought he'd get away with it or not get caught or that being the VP's Chief of Staff would grant him immunity.
Either way, if this guy has been caught, tried, found guilty he should go directly to jail, do not pass go and do not collect $200,000... (we're talking big government here okay?). But no he's walking around trying to find ways to get out of going to prison... what is the message here?
The message to the young people who (might be interested enough) to watch this going on, I wasn't when Liddy was being tried for Watergate 35 years ago but hey, all I know now is that the guy did go to prison and he did serve his time and he's now a rich man. So why can't this guy?
What exactly is American Justice and to whom does it apply? Whom does it NOT apply to?

 

[elder999]

What exactly is American Justice and to whom does it apply? Whom does it NOT apply to?

I'm really not sure what it is, but I know it probably won't apply to someone who's prepared to expose his superior's complicity in his crime.

 

[michaeledward]

But, Gee, MA-Caver, there was no real crime committed. No one was charged for leaking the identity of a spy. And she wasn't covert anyhow.

Vice President Dick Cheney will be lobbying the President quite strongly for the pardon ... something about not letting 'one staffer suffer for the mistakes of another' (ah, that would be Rove).

Mr. Libby will spend very little time in Jail.

There is little doubt that vast spy networks were exposed and disrupted by the naming of Ms. Plame. But, President Bush values loyalty to family over loyalty to the Constitution or State. He will pardon Mr. Libby.

My hope is that the Libby Pardon becomes the defining act of the President's legacy. It will forever mark him as the incredible failure as chief executive as his resume has shown him to be.

Even more so than the Hundreds of Billions spent fight for, and searching for, the Phantom Menace of Weapons of Mass Destruction; more so than the thousands of American lives the invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost; more than the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives lost; when the President rescues the "Special Assistant to the President" from thirty months in prison (less time than high school), despite being found guilty of lying under oath (Clinton Impeachment argument anyone?), despite being responsible for untold costs to the National Security structures of the United States, Mr. Bush will tangibly demonstrate that he cares less about the Country he theoretically serves than one shows when one helps a toad out of the swimming pool.


(Boy, that is one seriously awesome sentence.)

But, watch for Bill Kristol's arguements. It was Richard Armitage who first released Ms. Plame's name. Therefore, there could not have been a White House conspiracy (there is no logic in that argument, but it won't stop them from making it).


As I have said elsewhere on this board - The President is at least waist deep in the outing of Ms. Plame. There is no way he is going to allow Mr. Libby to have thirty months to contemplate a memoir.


P.S. I like Marty's thinking here ... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/pardon-me_b_50765.html

 

[Touch Of Death]

Possible presidential pardon? Trying to delay going into jail/prison. Requesting leniency and just might get it? Sounds like someone isn't quite ready to do the time for the crime here.

What's the message does this send? Become a politician, commit a crime and you just MIGHT get off? If Bush does sign a pardon then they might as well throw the whole justice system into the joke box. Libby (funny how it sounds like a guy some 35 years ago huh?) should've thought about the consequences before he did what he done. But of course he probably thought he'd get away with it or not get caught or that being the VP's Chief of Staff would grant him immunity.
Either way, if this guy has been caught, tried, found guilty he should go directly to jail, do not pass go and do not collect $200,000... (we're talking big government here okay?). But no he's walking around trying to find ways to get out of going to prison... what is the message here?
The message to the young people who (might be interested enough) to watch this going on, I wasn't when Liddy was being tried for Watergate 35 years ago but hey, all I know now is that the guy did go to prison and he did serve his time and he's now a rich man. So why can't this guy?
What exactly is American Justice and to whom does it apply? Whom does it NOT apply to?

Welcome to America.
Sean

 

[elder999]

And there you go....

Libby's sentence commuted.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Welcome to America.
Sean

Like I said, welcome to America. Please leave your civil rights, and your common sense, at the door.
Sean

 

[jdinca]

Like I said, welcome to America. Please leave your civil rights, and your common sense, at the door.
Sean

Yep. Just ask Sandy Berger. Oh, that's right. He got off with a slap on the wrist and minimal hue and cry from the masses after admitting to stealing and destroying classified documents from the National Archives.

Isn't it interesting that when Dick Armitage admitted to being the one who leaked Plame's name the general response was "yeah, that's nice" and then it disappeared from the news? Wasn't that what the whole investigation was about in the first place?

 

[Touch Of Death]

Yep. Just ask Sandy Berger. Oh, that's right. He got off with a slap on the wrist and minimal hue and cry from the masses after admitting to stealing and destroying classified documents from the National Archives.

Isn't it interesting that when Dick Armitage admitted to being the one who leaked Plame's name the general response was "yeah, that's nice" and then it disappeared from the news? Wasn't that what the whole investigation was about in the first place?

No it was all about going to war under false premises, and the "other" crime being the cover up. They get you on the cover up, not the original law bending.
Sean

 

[michaeledward]

Isn't it interesting that when Dick Armitage admitted to being the one who leaked Plame's name the general response was "yeah, that's nice" and then it disappeared from the news? Wasn't that what the whole investigation was about in the first place?

The Dick Armitage part of this tale, does not negate the Dick Cheney / Scooter Libby part of the tale. Repeated incidences of a single event, can come about from different people, under different motivations.

Dick Armitage revealed that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA as part of 'party gossip'.

Scooter Libby leaked Valerie Plame's name and identity to discredit her husband's Op-Ed at the direction of the Vice President.

While this may feed into the 'consipiracy theory' meme the right likes to place on the left, the facts revealed in the trial transcripts prove these points.

 

[Rich Parsons]

A few links to lists of thsoe pardoned for the last three Presidents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush's_pardons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Bill_Clinton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_George_W._Bush


Pardon's happen.


This is not supporting the recent actions, just posting data and making a statement.

 

[michaeledward]

I wonder how many prior pardon showed direct benefit the White House that issued the pardon?

Of course, if the man with the key to the closet, in which you keep the skeleton, has a lot of time on his hands, to contemplate six figure book advances for a tell all, it could be a bad thing.

 

[Phoenix44]

This whole thing is disgraceful and embarrassing. The guy is prosecuted, tried, convicted, and a sentence applied. Since the prosecutor and the judge were appointed by Republicans, it can't be said that it's partisan, and before he can serve a day of jail, his sentence is commuted. The $250,000 fine will be paid what's left in his multi-million dollar defense fund. And the probation? What probation--his sentence was commuted.

So that pretty much ends it. He lies under oath to protect the guilty. His sentence is commuted by someone who was probably also guilty, and so the likelihood of him ever revealing the truth is reduced to zero. Full circle. Clearly, justice applies only to those who don't have rich, powerful friends.

But keep your eye on the bigger issue: the lies that led us to war.

 

[Rich Parsons]

Well I would link in the article from Yahoo, but I seem to be unable to copy and paste anything into this text window.

The point I was going to try to make is that a Representative from Michigan is going to investigate current and past Presidential actions to investigate if there is anything that should be done to the law.

 

[Phoenix44]

By the way, yes "pardons happen." But this case is very unusual for a number of reasons.

According to the Justice Department, there are guidelines for pardons and commutations. Commutations of sentences generally apply in the following circumstances:

1. Excessive sentence.
2. After jail time has begun.
3. After consultation with the federal prosecuting attorney/justice department, whose opinion weighs heavily in the decision to commute.
4. When the convicted person cooperates with an investigation.
5. When the convicted person shows some remorse.
6. When there is no appeal in progress.

None of these circumstances applied here. So this commutation of sentence is so unusual as to be completely unique. And for a president to commute a sentence to protect his own administration for this type of offense during a time of war--that could be considered treasonous.