Posted on 10/29/2005 6:05:53 AM PDT by Liz
Precisely. Now, apparently Libby lied....conservatives would not countenance lying no matter who is doing the lying. First off, the Bush people oughta get all his correspondence, see who he's been talking to.
Most importantly, we need to determine how badly Libby hurt President Bush.
The story so far: Judith Miller was released from jail on 29 September 2005 after agreeing to testify. She appeared in front of the grand jury on 30 September.
American Prospect magazine revealed in August 2005 that Libby had testified that he met with NY Times reporter, Judith Miller, on July 8, 2003 and discussed Plame with her at that time. Miller was jailed on 6 July 2005 for contempt of court after refusing to testify to the grand jury about this meeting despite a signed blanket waiver from Libby allowing journalists to discuss their conversations.
Miller has argued that Libby's waiver to all journalists may well have been coerced and that she would only testify if given an individual waiver, which Miller received while serving her sentence.
The waiver was offered "voluntarily and personally" by Libby, accompanied by his letter which has raised eyebrows because of Libby's hinting as to what he expects from her testimony, and a poetic and cryptic ending which has been the subject of much speculation.
Libby: "As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call......
"You went to jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover -- Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work—-and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers. With admiration, Scooter Libby." [Emphasis added.]
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Sure doesn't sound like something a conservative would write, now does it? And don't you just love Libby's gratuitous reference to the "Iranaian nuclear program." Clearly Libby was setting Miller up to push his agenda. Talk about agitprop. Guy's a master proselytizer.
Question: Did Libby tell President Bush about "his" plans before he told Miller, and the media?
WAXMAN: Well, Mr. Libby, it appears that you agree with most of the points that the president made. Let me ask you the bottom-line question.
President Clinton apparently concluded that Mr. Rich had not committed the crimes he had been accused of. Do you agree with this? Do you think that Mr. Rich is a tax fraud and a criminal, or do you agree with President Clinton's assessments of the merits of the case?
LIBBY: I believe, sir, that based on all of the evidence available to defense counsel, the best interpretation of the evidence is that they did not any civil--any tax, even as a civil matter. That would be the interpretation given by the two tax professors.
WAXMAN: And therefore, that there should not have been a criminal liability.
LIBBY: Based on the evidence available to the defense, that would be correct, sir.
WAXMAN: Mr. Libby, according to press reports, you called Mr. Rich on January 22 of this year. Is that accurate?
LIBBY: That's correct, sir. I believe that January 22 is right.
WAXMAN: And where you when you called him?
LIBBY: At home.
WAXMAN: And why did you call him?
LIBBY: He had spoken to Mr. Green (ph), who is a good friend of mine, and he had told Mr. Green (ph), he thanked Mr. Green (ph) for all the work Mr. Green (ph) had done on his case over the years and that he also wished to thank me for the work I had done prior to the pardon on his matters over the years, but that he didn't know if it would be OK for him to call me. He did not want to get me in any trouble by calling me.
And so I thanked Mr. Green (ph) for telling me that and I said I would call Mr. Rich to say it was OK. And I called Mr. Rich and he thanked me for my work on the case. And I congratulated him on having reached a result that he had sought for a long time.
KANJORSKI: Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Libby, this is a pretty simple question. You were an attorney for Mr. Rich. You helped brief Mr. Quinn. You know all the facts from that side of the case. You're not expected to know the facts of the Southern District of New York. You feel that they should have stopped the prosecution because it was unwarranted with the facts you knew, but they didn't.
Now as a lawyer and prior to your assuming the office of chief of staff for the vice president, are you telling this committee that you don't know whether with everything that you know, and nothing more than you don't know, you have an opinion or not, whether or not the pardon should have been issued?
LIBBY: Correct, sir. I...
KANJORSKI: What's that opinion?
LIBBY: No, no, correct I am telling the committee that I don't know whether it should...
KANJORSKI: You have no opinion?
LIBBY: I have the opinion based on...
KANJORSKI: Do you have an opinion honestly? Let's start there. Do you have an opinion?
LIBBY: Do I have an opinion as to whether...
KANJORSKI: Do you have an opinion on whether this pardon was justified under the facts as you know them?
LIBBY: Sir, I do not have--I have never seen the application. I do have the facts available to...
KANJORSKI: I am not asking about the application, Mr. Libby. I am asking about the facts that you know of your own knowledge as a lawyer representing Mr. Rich over those several years. Do you have an opinion as to whether or not those facts warrant the issue of this pardon? That's a simple question.
LIBBY: No, sir.
KANJORSKI: You have no opinion.
LIBBY: I have no opinion because I would not be able to render an opinion without the full record before me. I do not have that record before me.
KANJORSKI: So when you worked on this case with Mr. Quinn, you didn't have the facts, you didn't have the information as an attorney?
LIBBY: I did not have the facts available to the government and I did not have the other materials...
KANJORSKI: Nobody has the facts available to the government. I'm not asking you to render an opinion on what facts the government may have. I'm asking you to render an opinion on what fact you have and had at the time. That's very simply. You ought to have an opinion yes, or you have an opinion, no.
LIBBY: I...
Is that what we should conclude from your statement?
LIBBY: No, sir. I believe in all of the evidence I know that there was no tax liability.
LIBBY: There are no facts that I know of that support the criminality of the client based on the tax returns you've been discussing.
KANJORSKI: So that on all of the facts that you know, is the pardon issued by the president justified?
LIBBY: I cannot say whether the pardon is justified because I don't have those facts and that application form.
KANJORSKI: Mr. Libby, I'm not asking to take any other facts than the facts that you have. And we're pretty able up here to understand as a lawyer for a couple of years working for a very wealthy guy and you come to the conclusion with Harvard law professors and Georgetown law professors about a lot of things. And we're going to accept all of what you know, accept nothing of what anybody else knows because obviously you don't know. We're asking an opinion.
I mean I like to see a guy hedge, but that's unreasonable. You either have an opinion or you don't have an opinion. If you don't have an opinion, tell us you don't have an opinion and therefore your client may have been a crook, should have gone to trail, was a fugitive, or do you have a opinion he wasn't?
Do you have an opinion he was a fugitive?
LIBBY: In every common sense term of it, yes, he was a fugitive.
KANJORSKI: OK, do you think he was a fugitive on justifiable charges or was he a fugitive because there was a mistake of the interpretation of the law by the Southern District of New York?
LIBBY: I believe that the Southern District of New York misconstrued the facts in the law, and that looking from all of the evidence available to the defense, he had not violated the tax laws.
KANJORSKI: And was not a fugitive?
LIBBY: No, he was. In every common sense term of the word, he was a fugitive.
WAXMAN: How about in a legal sense?
LIBBY: There is a fugitivity statute which is very complicated. I haven't looked at it in years. It has to do generally with avoiding state process. It wasn't a state process. A very technical matters--I don't recall them after so many years now.
KANJORSKI: OK. But you did say something that I want to go back, and let me get this in context now. You represented Mr. Rich from what period of time until which period of time?
LIBBY: From spring of 1985 until fall probably or end of summer of 1989. Not continuously, of course, but periodically. And from 1993, after leaving the government, some period after leaving the government, you know, with the matter that was under consideration, until about 1995. It was then inactive. And I represented him again in connection with Mr. Quinn's approach to the Southern District and the Department of Justice sometime in 1999, and that effort ended sometime around spring of 2000.
KANJORSKI: '99 until the end of 2000 approximately.
Now, at what period of time and what information that came to your attention that you made the conclusion, both legally and otherwise, that he was a traitor?
LIBBY: Sir, what I said is that I can understand someone viewing the evidence that he traded with Iran as a traitor.
KANJORSKI: The question wasn't put that way, Mr. Libby.
LIBBY: I'm sorry.
KANJORSKI: The question was, do you consider Mr. Rich a traitor?
LIBBY: On that trade, I can understand that, yes, sir.
KANJORSKI: No, I didn't ask you if you can understand.
LIBBY: Yes, sir, I do not condone...
KANJORSKI: Mr. Libby, do you consider him a traitor or don't you? I mean, it's just very straightforward. If you don't consider him a traitor, say you don't. If you do, say you do.
LIBBY: I would not have made that trade. You could apply the traitor to it.
KANJORSKI: Fine. Do you consider him, for having made that trade, a traitor?
LIBBY: Sir, it's not a word I would use, but I accept it.
KANJORSKI: You can't be half-pregnant, Mr. Libby, he is or he isn't. It seems to be very simple. Is he or isn't he? You said before you consider him a traitor. Is that correct, what I heard?
LIBBY: I would say yes.
LIBBY: The information is in the indictment which was issued in 1983, something like that.
KANJORSKI: So for this period, the last 17 years, you've considered this client of yours a traitor.
LIBBY: Sir, my understanding is that the conduct in which he engaged was not illegal, but I agree with the description that you could consider him a traitor for trading with Iran during that period.
LIBBY: Yes.
KANJORSKI: How many traitors to this country do you call up in your official capacity?
LIBBY: I called none, sir.
KANJORSKI: You did on January 22 when the new administration took office and you were chief of staff to the vice president of the United States.
LIBBY: Not in my official capacity, sir.
KANJORSKI: Oh, but you do call traitors in your unofficial capacity.
LIBBY: No, sir. I called Mr. Rich to respond to his request.
KANJORSKI: Why would you call a traitor, somebody you consider a traitor, after he got a pardon that was a hullabaloo in this country? You can't tell me you didn't know about the reaction to the pardon. So you knew that there was a hullabaloo in the country about the pardon. You, in your own mind, consider him a traitor. Why did you call him?
LIBBY: Mr. Rich is a former client. I believed he was not guilty of those things of which he was charged, based on the evidence available to me. He had called Mr. Green to say that he wished to call me and thank me for my services. I had always taken his calls when he was a client of mine. He had been pardoned by the president for those very trades. And so I called him.
KANJORSKI: Would you call another traitor in the country again? Would you ever do that?
LIBBY: Don't believe I know any other traitors.
KANJORSKI: Stick around this committee long enough you may learn something.
Thanks. Good contribution to the thread. Nice surfing.
ping
Libby is a typical political whore ( and yeah I have been crticized on other threads for saying so)
Dick Morris is another one working for Clinton and Trent Lott and now a regular on Hannity's show ( Why I don't know)
Don't know who is worse these creeps or the politicians that hire them
As Ann Coulter points out ther are many lawyers judges etc etc that have been toiling for conservatism for a long time ( or as she says back when Bush was boozing it up in college)
Why the hell can't Bush Cheney etc etc staff with these types
Marc Rich is mentioned in Volcker's report as somebody who benefitted from Saddam's Oil for Food scams. That said, I'm doing to decline to jump on Libby. I think he got screwed in an investigation that could have been ended a long time ago.
I have another weird poetry tagline :)
What we really need is an all-out investigation of the Oil for Food scandal. It's evident that France and Russia attempted to influence our foreign policy for economic reasons - and to a certain extent, corruption. Anybody in our government receive any Oil for Food money?
Definition of inscrupuous lawyer: LIAR FOR HIRE
It is also instructive to look at Libby's testimony because it provides some insight into his thought processes and judgment. It reminds me of Clinton's "It all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is." Libby should never have made the phone call given his position as the VP's COS and he should have just told Waxman and Kanjorski that he was representing Rich as a client to provide him with the best legal defense possible. Instead, he interjects his own personal views into the disucussion about Rich's guilt and innocence. His giant ego wouldn't let him do otherwise. Libby is one of those ambitious Beltway lawyers who owes no allegience to anyone except to promote their own self-interest. Cheney should have removed him after this testimony.
Here's more of Libby's writing:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312284535/qid=1130595870/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-7368326-4492043?v=glance&s=books
The Apprentice : A Novel (Paperback)
by Lewis Libby
"On the edge of a ridge removed from the sea lay a small wooden inn half-buried in snow..." (more)
This is why I said yesterday that I won't lose a moment's sleep over Libby's indictment.
Besides -- anyone over the age of 12 who uses the nickname "Scooter" probably needs his head examined.
The strategy to call Libby before the Committee was a gamble for Democrats.
Up to that time, the only document released relating to Libby's representation of Rich was an October 6, 1999 memo from Libby to the "M Rich Team" about Rich's efforts to persuade the US Attorney's office in New York to drop its requirement that Rich come home before any plea-bargain negotiations could take place. The memo listed a number of cases in which the Justice Department reportedly negotiated with domestic or international fugitives. "These cases may prove helpful if we wish to argue that the United States government should forego the policy of not negotiating with fugitives," Libby wrote.
But arguing that Rich should have the chance to negotiate a plea is far different than arguing he should be pardoned without any adjudication of the case.
And that is the problem Democrats faced when they questioned Libby. Democrats did not know what Libby's position on the pardon was.
Libby would be loyal to comservatives if he testified that he never supported seeking a pardon for Rich and did not agree with Clinton's decision to grant one, which would leave Democrats right back where they started — without a defense.
That's not what happened.
Libby's $2M legal defense of Rich, and his ringing defense of the pardon, solidified Clinton's and the Democrats' arguments that the pardon was legitimate.
Libby screwed conservative Republicans, as well as many, many others, outraged at the Rich pardon and the damage Clinton had wrought to the US democracy's bedrock rule of law.
How far back does the relationship between Cheney & Scooter go?
Amen and amen. Beautiful take.
Yep it is a sad fact of life
Back in 1970 disgusted with the way the country was headed I joined the Young Republicans
What an EYE OPENER
Vast majority were power suckups just trying to get with the in power
Really sad
I lasted two years
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