WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The obstruction of justice trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney -- will begin almost a year from now, on January 8, 2007, a federal judge ruled Friday.
n addition, Libby's chief attorney, Ted Wells, told the judge he had another case to try that would interfere with the trial schedule.
shame
My goal is to live forever. So far so good.
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. - Benjamin Franklin
As if there was any chance in hell this thing would hit before the mid term elections.....
This is all just mental masturbation, anyhow. He will get pardoned right before W leaves office.
War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . .
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
The defense strategy appears to be to request all sorts of classified documents, then when the co-conspirators in the whitehouse refuse to allow those classified documents in the trial, to claim that libby can't defend himself and get off that way.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty on four of five counts in his perjury and obstruction of justice trial.
Libby was convicted of:
obstruction of justice when he intentionally deceived a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame;
making a false statement by intentionally lying to FBI agents about a conversation with NBC newsman Tim Russert;
perjury when he lied in court about his conversation with Russert;
a second count of perjury when he lied in court about conversations with other reporters.
Jurors cleared him of a second count of making a false statement relating to a conversation he had with Matt Cooper of Time magazine.
Libby, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of $1 million. A hearing on a presentencing report is scheduled for June 5.
Something about being able to pardon someone whose crimes may have been committed as a direct result of orders from someone in the administration of the President who is doing the pardoning seems fishy to me.
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."- Barack Obama
Not sure why the prosecutor did what he did. NPR covered it today and was interesting to hear the jury say, "Why is this guy here. Where is Rove, where is Cheney?" They felt that Libby was a fall guy for the administration.
Fitzgerald did say that it wasn't about the leak, but instead it was about a high level government official lying under oath and perjuring himself before a grand jury. While I can understand that, I don't understand his statement that he won't be pursuing charges against anyone else.
Not sure if Bush will be stupid enough to pardon Libby. That would pretty much be seen by the public as negating the power of the people exercised through the criminal justice system.
Will be interesting to see how the civil suit pans out though.
High Chancellor for Single Malt Scotches, Accounting Stuffs and Biffin Greeting.
/tell Biffin 'sup bro!
As I understand it, at some point the office of the President let it be known that it had "declassified" the identity of Plame. Because the time-line of this in relation to the actual leak is hazy, the prosecuter didn't have enough evidence to nail anybody on the actual leak itself (Rove specifically). Everybody else, except for Libby, covered themself up enough with plausable deniability (on purpose?). Thus, the result we see today.
The thing that gets me about this is that the administration went out to punish somebody for exposing one of their lies/exagerrations. It's one thing to be angry at somebody for disagreeing with you when you both have valid arguments, but being angry enough to ruin somebody's career for pointing out your lie (which you KNOW is a lie). In a way, this is the continuation of Nixon's "hit list." Cheney learned well from his early mentors.
I find it difficult to imagine a scenario where Libby gets off from all jail time, although I do think that he'll get pardoned by Bush in November/December 2008.
Yes because pardoning people Star rode like a rented mule for 8 years to scrounge shit on Slick Willey is even remotely in the same universe as pardoning a guy who lied to cover your treasonous acts of retribution committed while in office...
Get over Clinton already. If the pres getting a blowjob is what is needed to get rid of a sitting president, then sign me up to be first in line to give W his hummer. The fucking administration got caught RED HANDED executing Nixon era dirty pool and no one gives a shit?
War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . .
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
Clinton spent his time in office goofing off while Bin Laden planned his attacks. His weak attempt to fire a few tomahawks at him doesn't count.
People "blow" off the BJs and general partying of president Clinton but that's just as bad for the country and forced Bush to be the bad guy having to mop up after Clinton's "everything's going great America! No worries!" facade.
Everyone seems to love watching a president stop by a McDonalds and chow down a quarter pounder...they'd rather see that than face reality. We can't afford to have a lame tabloid type president like the British seem to like and oogle over. Bush needs to go, but we certainly don't need a Clinton type back in office.
Dude, don't even start this conversation. There is a reason the wingnuts want to demonize Clinton. Its because he was a pretty fucking good president. Yeah, he didn't do all he could about Bin Laden, but he inherrited the situation from Bush Sr and certainly did not ignore direct warnings that attacks were on the way. He also didn't use the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to wage war on Israel's behalf and dismantle over two centuries of consitutional law.
No one is going to say Clinton was perfect, but using his minor character flaws as an excuse for Bushes woeful incompetance and willful oppurtunism is a logical falacy of the first order. Its also the weapon DeJour of neocon nimrods lately; revisionism.
War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . .
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
Jice Virago wrote:
No one is going to say Clinton was perfect, but using his minor character flaws as an excuse for Bushes woeful incompetance and willful oppurtunism is a logical falacy of the first order. Its also the weapon DeJour of neocon nimrods lately; revisionism.
I wasn't using Clinton to make Bush Jr. look better. Clinton didn't help the situation for the next president though. The buck had to stop somewhere and Clinton let it slide on to the next president. The uncontrolled .com/tech stock bubble gave the illusion of everything being honky dory.
That the situation needed to be dealt with is not an issue. How Bush handled it is. Bush (and his administration) screwed it up.
Ok ok Cart we get it, you're a resident VV troll, you have little to offer bar the occasional "LOL CUNT" and "LOL CUNT AGAIN" but seriously man, after 8 years, surely you can up the quality a little bit.
Nick wrote:Ok ok Cart we get it, you're a resident VV troll, you have little to offer bar the occasional "LOL CUNT" and "LOL CUNT AGAIN" but seriously man, after 8 years, surely you can up the quality a little bit.
It's not like it would be hard.
Why Fuck up a good thing! Isnt there a whale for you to save? Hop to it my little man
