" Obstruction of justice does not require another crime be committed. All it requires is that he knowingly impede the functioning of a grand jury by misleading it. By lying to the grand jury about when he learned of Ms. Wilson's identity and the sum and substance of his conversations about Ms. Wilson to reporters, he obstructed justice. It is irrelevant that he was not the actual source of the leak (Mr. Armitage, who cooperated with investigators), nor is is relevant if Ms. Plame was or was not covert. What matters is only that he lied to the grand jury and investigators.
Remember - no crime need be committed for a grand jury to exist. There must only be reason to believe a crime may have been committed. Grand juries are investigatory tools, not fact-finders."
"I have absolutely no sympathy for Libby. I didn't buy the "I forgot" defense (come on - one of the sharpest Beltway lawyers "forgot"? Not bloody likely.)"
The rigidness and absolutism of youth! Smart lawyers never give guarantees, but I'll break that rule this one time. After you've been practicing as long as b-d and me, I guarantee you'll look at these things differently.
"My support for the Iraq war does not extend so far as to give immunity to lawyers for lying to grand juries."
As well it shouldn't.
Wait until you get to my age and Scooter Libby's age. When I was your age my memory was so sharp I could remember conversations weeks after they had occurred. Today, however, if I do not write down the essence of conversations, I simply cannot remember the details at all. I will go to hearings that last all day long and three days later I will forget who was there, what was discussed, what the disposition was. I rely heavily on my notes for everything. I do not rely upon my memory for anything. Memories are not reliable, especially when you get to be Scooter Libby's age.
When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. - Mark Twain's Autobiography
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The truth is, a person's memory has no more sense that his conscience, and no appreciation whatever of values and proportions. - Mark Twain in Eruption
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It isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so. - Mark Twain, a Biography