what do you make about the behavior of the jurors with these valentines day shirts? is this a trial, or a circus?
This stinks. I think maybe Bush made a mistake appointing this guy to the court.
He had an interesting youth, being involved in gangs and violence before he straightened out, but when he straightened out he seems to have drunk the liberal koolaid.
http://www.justicepolicy.org/article.php?id=319
Juries in the hands of such Judges can not be considered to be fully informed, nor impartial. For the partiality of the Judge, biased against the defendant, shines through to the Jury.
There is a moral in this: do not screw with the judge.
Libby's defense led the judge to believe, apparently several times, that Libby would be testifying in the case. That almost assuredly was weighed by the judge in some of the decisions he made earlier in the case. Now Libby's not testifying after all, and the judge is angry that he has been deceived. So he is not giving the defense any benefits of the doubt now.
The defense here seems to have not put up a full battle. Not calling Cheney to testify is telling.
Not putting Libby up after you told the court he was testifying: these things really weaken the case and damage credibility.
So, why are they doing that? I assume these are well-connected and savvy lawyers. Why are they not pulling those above them into court to save their man?
My speculation is that it is because the Libby team knows the fix is in. If Libby doesn't haul them in and embarrass them, and doesn't take the stand and expose himself to damaging his bosses, he will probably be convicted. But then the President will be well-disposed to pardon him, and probably will.
Of course I have no idea this is so, but it seems the logical conclusion given the defense's surprising behavior. They're essentially laying down and letting themselves be killed. Which tells me that they know that he's got a Get Out Of Jail Free card.
Nice try, but that was Russert's signature on the false affidavit, wasn't it? He can't squirm out of that one so easily... The judge in this case has embarassed himself time after time after time during this trial...
JOM has been ripping apart his reports day by day. He is an idiot.
Was she donning a veil?
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjRhMWM5MzA0ZTU5M2Y3MTA3NWIwMTE2MjBlOGRkMWE=
The Astonishing 'Stipulation' [John Podhoretz]
The Libby defense ended its case today in Washington, which means that there will be all kinds of instructions from the judge tomorrow and then closing statements next Tuesday. One fascinating detail from the last few minutes. Libby's team argued for weeks for the right to put the people who presented Libby with the Morning Intelligence Brief every day on the stand — to show how many big and frightening issues he had to deal with during the course of every day that might fog the details of his memory of or focus on Joe Wilson and his wife.
In the end, the briefers were not called. Instead, Libby's lawyers read a "stipulation" into the record to indicate what they were talking about. The leftist site firedoglake.com is liveblogging the trial, and has done a dirty transcription of the stipulation.
It's an astounding document. It's hard to imagine how anyone could keep anything straight given the sheer blizzard of information contained in Libby's briefing. The stipulation focuses on one single day, June 14, 2003, and during the briefing, according to firedoglake, "Libby was presented with info concerning:
"Bomb diffused...explosions...E African extremist network...Info on possible AQ attack in US...conncern about specific vulnerability to terrorist attack...Proposed ME plan, Israeli military action...Country's security affecting AQ...International org's position concerning country's nuke program...Iraq's porous borders present security threat...Demonstrations in Iran turn violent...Israeli offer of cease fire to Palestineans...Memorandum assessing Iranian' pres' view on terrorism...Problems in leadership in PLO...Foreign media analysis concerning Egyptian treatment on Paletinian conflict...Media, opposition of Israeli public to attacks...Info on Egypt process ME peace process ...Palestinian groups and Israel...Constraints on Israeli military...Saddam Hussein published on website...Memo in Iraqi WMD...Housing shortage in Iraq...Info on 1920 Mesopotamia and insurgency on moden-day Iraq...Potential effect of improved governance in Iraq..."
Wait, that's not all. There was also a terror threat list for that one day:
1) Concern over possible suicide info to hujack airplane by AQ linked group
2) Concern about terrorists providing support for business transaction by AQ
3) Potential suicide attacks against US forces in IRaq
4) Potential terrorist attacks against Americans in Karbala by unspecified means
5) Potential attack in Ethiopia
6) Potential attack in Nairobi
7) Potential attack in Kabul Afghanistan and Pakistan [sorry, lost the countiing here]
8) Concern over surveillance in Beirut and attack against embassy vehicles
9) Unspecified terror attack against unspecified
10) Potential attack in Budapest
11) Potential attacks in Kabul by unspecified group
12) Video taping in US university
13) Turkish and Pakistani extremists.
Welcome to the life of a senior White House staffer working on the most crucial issues of our time. Good morning, Scooter.
What's more, it is totally irrelevant. Any info the lawyer has is imputed to his client. That is fundamental. There are lots of cases that say where a person testifies and is given special accomodations (like-you won't be prosecuted on this crime if you testify "truthfully") -those accomodations are relevant to the credibility of the witness. The witness CANNOT just say "Hey, they made that deal with my lawyer and I didn't even know about it." Those accomodations go before the jury on the issue of bias and credibility. Period.
Here, Fitzfong mad a deal with Russert's lawyer that the govt would not raise the issue (or publicize) the fact that Russert had already freely spoken with the FBI at the same time he was publicly championing the First Amendment Priviledge of the Free Press in resisting a GJ subpoena. If the govt had raised this issue of prior waiver, then Russert would have been exposed as a hypocrite. You can bet Russert did not want anyone to know he had secretely cooperated with the govt. It was a big deal to him, and I'm sure his lawyer let him know that he was better off to make a deal with Fitzfong regarding the GJ testimony. Libby got screwed by this ruling, but it's been par for the course. Walton is in the prosecutor's hip pocket.