Verdict in Libby Trial in....reading at noon. (Guilty On 4 of 5 Charges)

MSNBC

[Dog]

Breaking on MSNBC

[cookcounty]

"This has absolutely nothing to do with the 2008 Presidential election...this is a biased railroading DC/DNC jury, nothing more"

Actually this hurts HillBill Clinton because it shows that the only reason Bill Clinton, guilty of perjury, is not doing prison time right now, is that he was sitting in the Oval office at the time.

[maggief]

Denis ...

Reasonable doubt.

"How reasonable is reasonable?"

[top 2 toe red]

Absolutely.

[Rummyfan]

I think Fitz knew when the indictments came down that he couldn't get anyone but Scooter -- and then only for procedural crimes.

Facing a possible thirty years for procedural crimes? Murders serve less on average than that!

[machogirl]

bingo

[beansox]

Its only just begun. I am sure he already has an agent fielding calls from the MSM for a permanent "consulting" job.

I must now go vomit.

[FreedomNeocon]

Democrat holdovers in Justice no doubt...

Just like Mary Macarthy at the CIA that was leaking the secret prisons stuff to the NYT.... there are at least TWO very high level democrat moles in Justice.

Its the only way to explain the way Burgler was let off and Libby so hotly pursuit.

Think about it... Burger was pilfering top secret documents from the national archives, hiding them in his pants and socks, stuffing them down a dark ally under a construction trailer, then coming back at night, retrieving them and taking them home. Then admitting to shredding them and throwing them away. For several days! Eventually getting caught red handed.

Libby AT WORST was defending Bush against what turned out to be LIES by Joe Wilson all over the place and said "that clown is irrelevant, he only got the job because of his wife" WHICH WAS TRUE.

Yet Libby is facing YEARS in jail, and Burgler all set to be part of Clinton admin next year with full access to everything again.

[You Dirty Rats]

Fitz already said he's not going anywhere else. It's over. But that does Libby no good.

Libby will eventually be pardoned and make good money from a book. Sucks to be him right now, but he'll come out of it OK.

Still stinks that this man was convicted when Sandy Burglar is still roaming the streets. And didn't Sandy's boss commit perjury in a trial?

[Daus]

The only hit in the FEC database for a Denis Patrick Collins who gave $350 to the "PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY VOTERS ALLIANCE". The treasurer of that organization is a Mary Jean Collins....

It would be interesting to get the middle name on this juror and if there is any relation to Mary Jean.

[Dave S]

What we have here is a faux investigation until someone possibly fell foul of bad laws or laws used not for their intended purpose.

Then Bush shoudn't have asked him to investigate and find the source of the leak or leaks.

[mwl1]

Hopefully, the judge will way the trivialness of the charges when passing sentence. And if the sentences are too harsh, hopefully Bush will pardon him at the end of his term.

Regretably, I disagree. Like this asinine jury, this judge is going to throw the book at Libby at sentencing. All the incentives -- personal and professional -- are with a brutal sentence.

Bush must pardon Libby after the '08 election and tell Reid and Pelosi to shove it where the sun don't shine. No one in DC wants to be on the wrong side of the MSM, even the judge.

[LS]

I doubt the judge will throw anything out---it would undercut the whole premise that he let this thing go on as long as he did.

[cookcounty]

"But he allowed Fitz to spew out the conspiracy theory - that Plame was "outed" to "get" Wilson - in his closing remarks. In my opinion, that in itself is grounds for appeal."

And, according to the Gushing Juror, that conspiracy theory was central to his thinking.

[Proudcongal]

Geee ... now he's having problems with his memory of the past week

I noticed that too. Ironic, huh?

[STARWISE]

I hope the defense team is recording Denis Wilson, former WaPo reporter and author of spy novels .. still spilling his guts

Denis Wilson .. still spilling his guts HERE

[baubau]

Only the little I've read on the topic.

Being the fall guy and taking the blame for someone else's wrongdoing is the normal course of business in politics.

I think here the strategy is to let Libby be the fall guy and then the President to pardon him. I hope the scheme works as I don't want to see an innocent man go to prison for a long time.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.

[Steve_Seattle]

"THIS was the heart of the case all along, so it was incumbent on Libby's lawyers to GET THIS BEFORE THE JURY somehow, and there are many ways to do so. Instead, Wells painted Cheney and Rove as the bad guys. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID."

I think Wells figured he had a prejudiced jury and wanted to drive a wedge between Libby and the administration. It didn't work. I agree if I had been Libby's lawyer, I would have insisted on bringing Wilson to the stand. It related directly to motive - countering Wilson's lies, not Wilson's truth - and Fitz was spinning motive negatively. Wells never countered that.

[Enchante]

It's not a question of Libby even recalling whether he had those conversations, it's whether he recalled what was then (June 03) a trivial sidebar to the real story about Joe Wilson's anonymous jihad in NY Times and WaPo...... it's that he claimed not to have heard about Valerie Pflame before July 03 and his conversation with Russert (interesting that Russert himself can't seem to "remember" anything at all except his certainty that he didn't tell Libby about Pflame). Remember that "Harriet the Spy" was a very small sidebar to the real issues until Novak and then the execrable David Corn published stuff about her. With Libby having dozens of conversations per day, it is in fact quite plausible that he "misunderestimated" when/how he first heard about Valerie the Spy.

[maggief]

Denis ...

politics:

"It's not like I would vote for Libby if he ran for office."

Registered as an Independent.

[P-Marlowe]

Can you get a JNOV in a criminal trial? I know you can in a civil trial but the standard of proof is lower.

I believe that if the judge feels that the prosecution did not legally meet the burden of proof (a legal determination) then the judge can issue a JNOV in a criminal case.

The Judge cannot reverse an aquittal, but I do believe he can overturn a guilty verdict. The prosecution could then appeal the decision of the judge, but I do believe the judge has the discretion to overturn the guilty verdicts on a legal basis.

I don't do criminal law. My knowledge of criminal law comes mostly from my law school days. I did get the highest grade in my class, but that was many years ago.