Editorial: Justice and judgment -- Clemency for Libby keeps questions alive

President Bush, a recent story in the Washington Post tells us, is obsessed with the question of how history will view him. He has done himself no favors on that count by commuting the prison term of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

In Bush's statement explaining his decision, he said he was sparing Libby from prison because the 30-month sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton was "excessive." In the president's view, the court-imposed fine of $250,000 and the damage to Libby's reputation are punishment enough for the crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice.

If this were a case involving an obscure public official, such a judgment might pass without notice. But there is nothing obscure about Libby or about this case. In fact, this case is about as high profile as cases get.

Libby is the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. The investigation he is convicted of obstructing centered on the leaking of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Plame believes Libby and other White House officials conspired to leak her identity to reporters in 2003 as retribution against her husband, Joseph Wilson, who had charged that the administration had misled the nation about pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

Those people are missing some points though... his prison term had nothing to do with anyone else, only him lying before a grand jury. The very same crime that got Bill Clinton impeached and disbarred. Like Clinton’s case, there was no underlying crime here. But lying to a federal grand jury is still a crime, underlying crime or no.

And no matter the circumstances, it’s still disingenous to rail against an immigration bill by calling it amnesty when it isn’t, than supporting amnesty for one of your own when it clearly is. It’s off topic, no doubt, but that’s cronyism.

I don’t have a problem with the clemency in itself, even though there are a lot of people in the federal prison system much more deserving, but without Libby’s money, legal team, prestige, or connections. Maybe that’s what really bothers me about all this. President Bush has run as tough on crime going back to his governor days, but with this pardon and his signing statements declaring himself above certain laws, he clearly does not hold himself or his friends feet to the same fire he holds the rest of the country’s to...

In March 1995, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno secured the appointment of an Independent Counsel, David Barrett to investigate allegations that Cisneros had lied to FBI investigators during background checks prior to being named Secretary of HUD. He had been asked about payments that he had made to former mistress Linda Medlar, also known as Linda Jones. The affair had been ‘public knowledge’ for a number of years - during the 1992 presidential campaign, U.S. Treasurer Catalina Vasquez Villalpando publicly referred to Cisneros and candidate Clinton as “two skirt-chasers” - but Cisneros lied about the amount of money he had paid to Medlar. The investigation continued for three and a half years.

In December, 1997, Cisneros was indicted on 18 counts of conspiracy, giving false statements and obstruction of Justice. Medlar used some of the Cisneros hush money to purchase a house and entered into a bank fraud scheme with her sister and brother-in-law to conceal the source of the money. In January, 1998, Medlar pleaded guilty to 28 charges of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and obstruction of justice.

In September, 1999, Cisneros negotiated a plea agreement, under which he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of lying to the FBI, and was fined $10,000. He did not receive jail-time or probation. He was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in January 2001 ( See: List of people pardoned by Bill Clinton). The independent counsel investigation continued after the pardon focusing on alleged obstruction of justice. In May 2005, Senator Dorgan (D-ND) proposed ending funding for the investigation; negotiators refused to include the provision in a bill funding military operations in Afghanistan. The funding at that point for the investigation totaled $21 million.

According to a New York Daily News report on October 3, 2005, “lawyers are fighting to suppress a potentially embarrassing final report from the probe that found Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros lied to the FBI about paying $250,000 in hush money to his ex-mistress. ... Lawyers at the Washington firm Williams and Connolly who work for Cisneros and both Clintons have argued to judges overseeing the case that allegations of illegal activity, for which no charges were filed, should be snipped before the report is made public.” [2].

I also have trouble with the trial. I don’t think that others, including Tim Russert, were held to the same standard for “lying.” Libby was a government official charged with defending the actions of his government. Instead of deferring to the government, the judge held Libby to a higher standard than the other witnesses, many of whom were as inconsistent as heck. The most bizarre thing about this was the the CIA started this thing off, charging that a crime had been committed, when probably everyone knew what the score was, which was that Wilson was really the mouthpiece for
members of the agency who opposed the Administration’s policy. Then they got this prosecutor involved who turned political infighting into a criminal matter. Pretty much like Walsh back in 1992.

>>>Bush’s commutation was pure and simple amnesty for a convicted felon and perjurer. Not that the commutation was wrong, but it is what it is, and it is amnesty.<<<

Huh? 2 years probation, $250,000 fine, and millions in legal fees for a conviction based on a statement that contradicted only one of the two versions of Tim Russert’s testimony, is amnesty? Your statement defies logic.

Face it, Libby had about as much chance in front of that DC jury as an old-South Black man would have in front of a jury full of Mississippi Democrats. One of the jurors told reporters that he voted to convict Libby because he believed Libby took part in outing Valerie Plame, of helped cover it up. Where did he get that notion? From none other than Patrick Fitzgerald’s closing statement (and, maybe from the non-stop lies and deceptions from the media).

There you have it. Even though Fitzgerald knew that Libby had nothing to do with the phony “outing” of Plame, and never charged Libby with anything related to the so-called “outing”, he still pretended that was part of the charge against Libby during his closing.

The logical thing to do would be to go after Fitzgerald for violation of Libby’s Constitutional right to a fair trial, try Joe Wilson for treason, and tar-and-feather that corrupt (or remarkedly stupid) trial judge.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.