Posted on 03/01/2007 7:22:18 AM PST by STARWISE
http://www.firedoglake.com/
Victoria’s Secret By emptywheel @ 6:58 am
The jury is starting another day of deliberations. No word yet on a verdict — you'll know as soon as we know. And in the meantime…
Also, yesterday afternoon (3:45) the jury asked for another post-it flip chart pad.
We would like another big Post-it pad. The large one for the easel.
Someone has been in too many business brainstorming sessions, I think. Jokes in the media room about "The Libby Trial, brought to you by Post-It."
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And a prosecutor takes a shot at Victoria Toensing for her WaPo article.
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Remember a few weeks ago, when Jim Marcinkowski challenged Ted Wells to put his punk on the stand –either one of them.
here:
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/02/13/hey-come-on-put-your-punk-on-the-stand-2/
Well, it seems like Marcinkowski is a little bit irked that Wells didn't do so. Because he really lays the slapdown on Victoria Toensing in this post at No Quarter. He starts by reminding her (and who should have to remind Toensing of this, after her rants about Clinton?) that perjury is a crime.
Second, to allege that there first must be an underlying crime to bring a perjury charge is flat wrong, and every first-year law student knows it. Perjury is itself a crime, period. Under the Grand Jury system, evidence is presented to a panel.
If the panel decides that a crime was committed, then an indictment is issued. If not, the case ends. Either way, the evidence submitted must be the truth. You don’t get to lie to a Grand Jury. That’s pretty simple, unless of course you feel that one should be free to lie and suffer no consequence - hardly an argument that should be advanced by an attorney and officer of the court.
Marcinkowski then explains a few things about spying.
To assert that Valerie was not covert is to assert that the CIA operates public branch offices overseas. Victoria, here’s a news flash for you - there are a lot of people in this world that don’t like the United States in general and the CIA in particular. Anyone in the CIA traveling overseas would be as nuts as your op-ed to reveal that association. CIA officers and offices are placed all over the world. I really don’t recall the CIA crest adorning any office or being listed in any embassy directory. Victoria, the CIA is a spy agency, it is full of spies who spy on objects of interest to the United States. There are no non-covert spies.
To add a gloss of legitimacy, Ms. Toensing erroneously cites the law as requiring the covert agent to have had a “foreign assignment,” then concludes that Valerie was not “stationed” overseas.
Nice try. The law uses neither of these descriptions as a basis for defining the criminal act of disclosing the identity of a covert agent. The law only requires that the agent have served overseas within the preceding five years of his or her disclosure. CIA officers may very well serve overseas by meeting with secret sources in third countries.
The fact that they may be “stationed” or “assigned” to Washington, D.C. does not prohibit them from serving overseas by actually engaging in clandestine operations in other countries and returning thereafter to this country.
Would the purpose of the law designed to protect our agents operating overseas be served by distinguishing between the two scenarios? If so, then Ms. Toensing, who claims to have assisted the Senate Intelligence Committee in drafting the law, did a very lousy job.
And finally, he hits the right note of seriousness about a office of the court making false statements.
Rules of professional conduct for attorneys around the country make numerous references to truth telling both inside and outside the courtroom, e.g. “…an advocate must disclose the existence of perjury….” or, “…a lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person…”
That about hits all the right notes, huh?
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MARSHALL'S take the jurists HOME??? What is up with THAT??
They should just be sequestered, and get this done.
Sometimes common language has legal connotations. If there’s any wording in the instructions, you can’t look through a dictionary to find out what the definition is.
I agree that Fitz has had a lot of favorable rulings, that he's in liberal mecca, and that if this thing were close, they'd already be back with a conviction.
The time involved, the issues raised yesterday, and the fact of faulty memory says that someone(s) is holding out.
Friday verdict......?
LOL! Do Marshall's take home jurists frequently??
From firedoglake.com
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Beer Thirty
From Jane:
Pach and I just got back from the courtroom.
The jury is having a high old time together.
They were to a one grinning from ear to ear, giggling, having the time of their lives.
Pach noted that none of them looked at Libby, and they did not seem like a group of people who were in disharmony — there wasn't one who was hanging back, nobody was pissed at somebody who was intractable.
They seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the process.
As Pach and I were heading to the elevators, I told him that I suspected that the thing that was happening to the jury is what happened to people on the blogs who got into this story — they got addicted to it.
They're busy sorting through the details, peeling back layers of the onion, fascinated by the process of mutual discovery as they explore the characters and events that led up to the trial.
Pach said in his shrinky expert opinion that this made a lot of sense.
I didn't get the feeling we're getting out of here any time soon.
Having the time of their lives? Good grief.
Good GRIEF!!
We can only pray ...
How're you feeling today, O? I hope you're 200 times better .. and Dr.O?
Is that deadly weather coming your way? It's terrifying, the horror those tornadoes are causing in the south.
What's the weather like in DC? And what is the usual transportation method for juries in cases like this?
Don't ask me, I'm in Seattle!!
I've got some rice cooking --- the rain has already left here --- sunshine and blue skies and no wind at all. I'm tired of being tired...lol.
Thanks for the pings and updates.
I should add .. praying for relief and acquittal for Scooter... and soon.
Right. Me too.
Whew .. glad you're not in the track.
Do you feel like you're getting better every day? You will need more sleep, for sure. Body's trying to heal. zzzzzzzzz
Years ago, the 60's, when I was building ICBM's at Martin, I had a "classified" clearance prior to getting "secret". With a classified you were only allowed to know how to get to your desk and the bathroom - literally!
Don't know about covert - I imagine there would be several levels of that. But Val, at the time of this whole embroglio, was pounding a desk at Langley and not in the field...and hadn't been for, what....2 years?
I wonder if what she really had a "convert" clearance...meaning she could drive her convertible up the Langley driveway every day?
seems a bit delusional....I would guess the writer is on the brown acid
This will be going into day 9 on Monday.
A vast right wing conpirator must be on the Jury, driving the other 10 liberals nutz. I love the thought of it.
A Dirty City jury? I don't think so.
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