Juror Explains Libby Verdict (".. what is HE doing here? Where is Rove and all these other guys..")

Editor&Publisher ^ | March 6, 2007 | Greg Mitchell

[chesley]

Denis Collins said, "We asked ourselves, what is HE doing here? Where is Rove and all these other guys....He was the fall guy."

[ironman]

"Hard to believe he would remember on Tuesday and forget on Thursday"

I don't get the point here. Libby testified months after the incident broke in the media. That's when he says he forgot.

[ohioWfan]

There are no words.

[EndWelfareToday]

Flat pisses the liberal jurors off that they weren't allowed to see the VP humiliated in front of this kangaroo court doesn't it?

[EQAndyBuzz]

Wasn't Libby also part of the Clinton White House?

[Texas Songwriter]

A simple question needs to be asked and answered before this damnable judge......"......a fall guy for what?"

If they determined him to be a fall guy for Cheney and Bush, then they were trying a different set of allegations. Was evidence put in the record that Bush lied? Or Cheney lied? Libby was charged with lying and obstruction. Then he said they concluded he was a fall guy for higherups.

......a fall guy for what wrongdoing was tried?

[ohioWfan]

I thought of a word.............MISTRIAL!!

[chesley]

Martha Stewart should never have gone to jail. Clintoon did lie, not misremember, but who wants him for perjury? Rape is the charge I would have liked to see him charged with. Anyway, he never went to trial for it. Impeachment is a political matter.

[lawdude]

"Sounds like the prosecution hand-picked the jury."

And this bozo was interviewed after the peremptory challenges were gone. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Curiouser and curiouser. NOT

[tobyhill]

Juror's aren't supposed to consider a verdict based on who doesn't show up to testify because the only evidence permissible is evidence presented in court.

[Freee-dame]

He said that politics played no role in the verdict, and claimed most jurors didn't know how others felt politically.

He also said that they discussed politics after the verdict

already covering his tracks, I see....

[Freee-dame]

The jury said they convicted him on Russert's testimony.

...and the FBI claims that they LOST the notes of their conversation with Russert. It stinks.

[Shelayne]

I didn't see Brit's show tonight. I was so disgusted I didn't want to watch any punditry, though I did watch H&C (and Alan show how absolutely clueless he is--AGAIN).

What I want to know is this: Since Fitzgerald admitted in his presser this afternoon that this was about "process crimes" and not about the outing of superspy Val, HOW could he charge Libby with "Obtruction to Justice"? What was he obstructing??

This is making me sicker.

And this jury spokesman, "Where was Rove, where was Cheney?"

FOR WHAT? For Libby's perjury counts? This tells me that they didn't even deliberate the case that was PRESENTED to them!

Getting even sicker....

[EODGUY]

Why was Russert allowed to testify outside the grand jury courtroom with his attorney present?

The only reason I can think of is so he wouldn't have to face questioning from the jurors.

Virtually every witness in this case displayed imperfect memories regarding who said what to whom and when. Apparently the only person in the courtroom who was required to have a photographic memory was Libby.

This case was a sham from the day the prosecution discovered who leaked Plame's name. She wasn't covert and the investigation should have been closed.

The special prosecutor could have turned his attention to the myriad of serious leaks of classified information that have never been addressed. But the leaks were harmful to the Bush administration so there was no need to pursue the people responsible.


EODGUY

[nutmeg]

I'd bet money he was the foreman.

I was thinking the same, watching him blab away on camera for what seemed like an eternity this afternoon...

[jamese777]

"Is this grounds for a mistrial?
Well surely the Valentine's T shirts should be."

You can't have a mistrial after the verdict is read. The trial phase is over, now comes the sentencing phase, then the move for a new trial (which will be denied) then the appeal (anything can happen).

[Purrcival]

The idiot was already on Larry King tonight.

[Valin]

Best of the Web Today - March 6, 2007
By JAMES TARANTO


The Libby Travesty
We won't gainsay the jury's verdict in the Scooter Libby trial--"guilty" on four of five counts on perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation of the Valerie Plame kerfuffle. Life is too short to immerse oneself in the tedious details of the case. (If you're interested in Libby minutiae, we recommend Tom Maguire.) But it remains a travesty that Libby was ever prosecuted to begin with.

This was a political show trial, and partisans of Joe Wilson will use the guilty verdict to declare vindication. But along the way we learned that virtually all the claims Wilson and his supporters made were false:

On his trip to Niger, Wilson found no evidence that contradicted the famous "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, contrary to his New York Times op-ed claim.


Plame, his wife, who worked for the CIA, did recommend him for the Niger junket, contrary to Wilson's denials.


Plame was not a covert agent under the definition of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, contrary to Wilson's insinuations, which many of his backers, including in the press, presented as fact.


No one from the White House "leaked" Plame's identity as a CIA functionary to Robert Novak, who received the information from Richard Armitage at the State Department.
Libby stands convicted of lying in the course of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Valerie Plame kerfuffle--but that investigation was undertaken on the basis of a tissue of lies. When Fitzgerald began the case, in 2003, no one had committed any crime in connection with the kerfuffle, and that was fairly easy to ascertain, given that Plame was not a covert agent and Armitage had already owned up to the so-called leak. Fitzgerald looks like an overzealous prosecutor, one who was more interested in getting a scalp than in getting to the truth of the matter.

Of course, Libby could have avoided indictment and conviction if he had simply said "I don't remember" a lot more during the course of the investigation. Therein lies a lesson for witnesses in future such investigations--which may make it harder for prosecutors to do their jobs when pursuing actual crimes.

---

we recommend Tom Maguire

March 06, 2007
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2007/03/from_the_jurors.html

From The Juror's Mouth...
Denis Collins, former journalist and an author of a book on the history of spying: "The primary thing which convinced us on most of the accounts was the conversation... the alleged conversation... with Tim Russert...," he said.

TIME tells it a bit more usefully:

During the investigation into the leak of Plame's identity, Libby told the grand jury he heard about Plame being a CIA officer from NBC's Tim Russert. Libby testified that he recalled being "surprised" at the news during his conversation with Russert. The jury, looking at their compilation of facts posted on the wall, were convinced Libby already knew about Plame at that point. Denis Collins, 57, a novelist and former journalist who served on the jury, said this discrepancy persuaded them that Libby had perjured himself.

Well. As to the Russert conversation, possible doubt-inducing explanations include the following:

1. Libby was sincere but mistaken, and had the breakthrough phone call with another reporter, possibly Bob Novak on the 9th.

2. Russert was sincere but mistaken - the gist of his story was that he could not remember the Libby call on the 10th or 11th, but since he remembers learning about Plame in the Novak column (published on the 14th) he could not have mentioned her to Libby.

Fine, but... the Novak column hit the news wires on the morning of the 11th. Since Russert's story is undated, maybe an NBC producer slipped him an embargoed copy of the column for his perusal on the 11th. Impossible? Worth checking? How come no one has?

3. Russert is, hmm, misremembering in order to conceal sources. David Gregory received a leak on the morning of the 11th, according to the memory-challenged Ari Fleischer. Or perhaps Andrea Mitchell had received a Plame leak from a source whom she and Russert would prefer to protect.

All that said, if the jury focused on Libby's surprise rather than the fact of the conversation, believing Russert is not an issue. Since that was essentially my prediction, I can't get as exercised as I would like. My earlier guess:

As to the rest, the jury could (and IMHO, ought to) have reasonable doubt as to whether Libby sincerely believes (or actually) did hear about Ms. Plame from Tim Russert. However, they might not also believe that the Plame news surprised him - in other words, they might reject the "I Forgot" part of Libby's story. That would result in convictions on counts 1, 2, and 4, depending on how the jury interprets any "materiality" qualifications in the jury instructions.

I still want to hear from David Gregory, just for starters. Eventually, someone ought to grill some NBC producers and see whether they might have had access to the Novak column on the 11th, either directly or from a contact in the news biz. Had Fitzgerald been running a serious leak investigation (or even a serious perjury investigation) he would have done this himself just to pin down a loose end and maybe avoid a serious mistake. Oh, but then he couldn't have indicted Libby as a way-station on the road to Dick Cheney - my bad.

Or, if NBC News had investigative journalists and an interest in the truth, they would examine this themselves. Never happen. Clearly, protecting Tim "The Franchise" Russert trumps other considerations.

Posted by Tom Maguire on March 06, 2007 | Permalink

[Enchante]

"what is HE doing here? Where is Rove and all these other guys...."

The simple truth, Mr. Juror, is that your Fitzfong had absolutely nothing on "Rove and all these other guys" because the case is a fraud from start to finish. Fitzfong knew in his first hours on the job that there was no crime, and he knew who the real "leaker" was over in the Dept. of State, Colin Powell's blabbermouth deputy Armitage. So, "Rove and all those other guys" are not in court because there was absolutely nothing for them to be in court for. Unfortunately, the Fitzfong had to come up with one scalp to placate the leftist hordes, so you see Scooter Libby before you......

[Laverne]

Can you have jury nullification at this point? Can't the judge say, based on the statements made by the journo juror, that the jury based their verdict on something other than the evidence given to them?

[Purrcival]

I believe that the reason Libby didn't testify was because the Defense felt like Fitzfong proved his case, so there was no point in putting Libby on the stand. Correct me if I'm wrong.