Posted on 07/02/2007 9:45:05 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(AP) WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court refused on Monday to step in and delay former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence in the CIA leak case.
The unanimous decision is a dramatic setback for Libby's legal case and puts pressure on President Bush, who has been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Libby faces 21/2 years in prison on his conviction of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. The former chief of staff to Cheney, he is the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.
Libby had hoped that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would put that sentence on hold because he believed he had a good chance of overturning the conviction on appeal. The court unanimously rejected the request.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has not yet assigned Libby a prison or given him a date to surrender. But last week it designated him as federal inmate No. 28301-016.
He disagreed on a date and time with a journalist - who was never even brought to the stand to prove that his version of the date and time were correct or that Libby intentionally lied about it.
I know the media wants it to be a federal crime to disagree with a journalist, but to my knowledge, this is not the case yet.
How much longer, Jorge ?
The President can also issue a reprieve which keeps him out of prison until after his appeal is settled.
He broke the law. He should go to jail.End the discussion and move on.
It is justice that matters- if it is only about the law then none and I mean none of us are safe from prosecution. Have you any idea how many laws are on the books? If we follow you around long and hard enough we will find something to charge you with. The Libby case is a paramount example of injustice.
What planet do you live on - most people would be in prisons by your standards!
I do think a reprieve would be the proper course of action at this time.
He could go to Mexico, disavow his U.S. citizenship and sneak back in as an “illegal” living in the shadows, doing interviews on tv programs.
Scooter is getting treated pretty harshly IMHO.
He had a lapse of memory over an irrelevant point in an irrelevant investigation over a politically motivated witch hunt and a court-sponsored cout-d'etat.
Stop shooting yourself in the foot, you silly conservative. Submit to the whims of the liberal judges, the democrat party agenda and over-zealous prosecutors. Get back to the real issues, like is Duncan or Fred the coolest candidate.
Pardon Libby now. Let the libs have a fit and then hit them with clintons pardon antics and the seriousness of the crimes involved...
Unfortunately for all but the Dhimmis, President Bush won’t pardon Libby (I’m betting that he won’t even address it). I get the impression (again, because he won’t even address it) that he (like the dimwits who say “He broke the law - he should go to jail”) can’t interfere because it is a matter “Between Mr. Libby and the Justice system”.
The losers (beyond Mr. Libby of course) are the Republican party and the American people. The mounting cynicism that is driving people away from the party is allowing Dhimmis to prevail.
Thank you Mr. Bush...
Does the Libby Verdict Have Appeal?
Making sense of legal nonsense.
By Victoria Toensing
The Scooter Libby verdict makes no logical sense, but that wont bother the legal notions of an appellate court. In convicting on four counts but acquitting of one, the jury made the peculiar decision that Libby lied before the grand jury about his conversation with Times Matt Cooper, but not to the FBI when the agents questioned him about the same conversation. Libby gave the same general answer in both fora, specifically that he told Matt Cooper that he did not know if it were true that Joe Wilsons wife worked for the CIA.
I dont think Ive ever read a case where the courts have overturned a conviction because the individual verdict counts were internally inconsistent. But there are issues that could be legally significant on appeal. To name a few:
The court punished Libby for not taking the stand: During trial the Libby legal team had said it was probable, but not certain, he would take the stand. Any criminal-defense attorney knows that decision is never made until the final moments of a trial. When the decision was made that Libby would not testify, the judge was, incredibly, furious and limited his defense evidence on the memory issue.
The court prevented the defense from impeaching Tim Russert: The NBC anchorman, who has a law degree, testified he did not know a lawyer could not accompany a witness before the grand jury. The defense then exhumed three clips where Russert had said on the air that a lawyer cannot go into the grand jury with his client. The judge would not allow the jury to hear that other honorable people sometimes forget or misspeak when being grilled on the witness stand.
The court permitted Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to refer to Valerie Plame as being covert or having a classified job throughout trial and specifically during closing argument. Neither of those highly prejudicial characterizations was proven at trial. Even if Plames job were classified, as Fitzgerald reiterated in his press conference after conviction, there is no criminal violation in publishing her name. That legal gap is why Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in 1982.
your's is the best one line response on this thread !
Bush expends considerable energy defending his mistakes, if they are committed by personal friends like Miers or Gonzalez. And he defends his political enemies like the clintons and their stooges. But apparently he isn’t interested in defending loyal, patriotic people who simply work under him for the good of our country, like Libby, the jailed border guards, or the Haditha marines. They can all hang in the wind.
His pardon pen is right next to the veto pen.
"Give me a call when you get out, we'll do lunch. "
brutal, but so true!
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.