Scooter off to jail

[gldstwmn]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

July 2, 2007
Appeals court rejects Libby’s bid for bail

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A federal appeals court Monday rejected former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s request to remain free on bond while appealing his March conviction on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

In an order handed down Monday, a three judge panel wrote Libby “has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question” that regular appeals court will consider when its next term begins in September.

A trial judge ordered Libby to serve 30 months in prison, to start when a location is determined by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, and a date is decided for him to surrender himself at that location.

A court official told CNN Libby’s attorneys may still file for relief from the US Supreme Court, to try to keep Libby out of confinement pending his appeal.

[Livia]

Kid from the Simpsons: HAAAA-HA!

[DavidMn]

Scooter meet you new cellmate Bubba.

[Beachwood Mac]

Not so fast. Bush just commuted Libby's sentence

WASHINGTON - President Bush commuted the sentence of former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Monday, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case.

Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, according to a senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been announced.

Bush's move came hours after a federal appeals panel ruled Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case. That decision put the pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.


Libby was convicted in March of lying to authorities and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative's identity. He was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.

[strandinthewind]

And THAT ladies and gentlemen is a payoff that left Cheney's head attached to his neck and, likely, W in the Oval Office. And, it is perfectly legal unless they can prove the payoff, which isn't likely because the only one who can spill the beans in SL, and he was just awarded a get out of jail free card

This is a pathetic misuse of our justice system.

In any event:

Bush commutes Libby's prison sentence

Story Highlights

White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby faced 30 months in prison

Libby will not serve that sentence but will pay $250,000 fine

Libby convicted in relation to investigation into 2003 leak of CIA operative's identity

Bush called 30 months in prison "excessive"

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush has commuted the prison term of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, facing 30 months in prison after a federal court convicted him of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators.

Earlier Monday, a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that Libby could not delay his sentence.

The charges relate to the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

Libby was only weeks away from surrendering to a prison.

Bush was under great pressure by Libby allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

In a written statement issued hours after that ruling, Bush called the sentence "excessive." But he also rejected calls for a pardon for Libby.

"The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting," Bush said.

But he said Libby was given "a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury."

Libby was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.

The conviction remains on Libby's record and he still has to pay a $250,000 fine.

Commutations are rarely granted, says CNN's chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin. A commutation is a total right of the president and it cannot be challenged by any attorney or court, he said.

It means that Libby will still have the conviction on his record -- unless he is able to overturn it on appeal, which he will likely continue to pursue.

A pardon is a complete eradication of a conviction record, making it appear as if the person has never been convicted. It's possible that Bush could still grant Libby a full pardon.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/...nce/index.html

[Beachwood Mac]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Libby will not serve that sentence but will pay $250,000 fine.

Cheney and his cronies will be picking up this tab.

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

A pardon is a complete eradication of a conviction record, making it appear as if the person has never been convicted. It's possible that Bush could still grant Libby a full pardon.

Bush will take care of this when he leaves office.

[strandinthewind]

The book deal alone will likely be a million, if they go that route. But, yes, that fine along with his million dollars + legal fees most assurdedly have been paid. I wonder if there is a place to find that out. He no longer is a public official, so his records are not discoverable via that route. Moreover, he only made MAYBE $125,000 at his govt. job.

I don't know if W will pardon him. It is not really necessary as he got off already. But, who the hell knows as this admin. is not known for its wisdom.

[sasja]

I am just thinking events like these are clinching a Democratic Presidential Candidate's victory in advance....

[catinthedark]

Originally Posted by sasja

I am just thinking events like these are clinching a Democratic Presidential Candidate's victory in advance....

they certainly aren't hurting!

[irishgrl]

Originally Posted by sasja

I am just thinking events like these are clinching a Democratic Presidential Candidate's victory in advance....

from your mouth to Gawd's ear.

&^%#$%^&^%$$%^& I HATE BUSH!!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!one! (wavey to ryan!)

[strandinthewind]

Here is his defense fund:

http://www.scooterlibby.com/

Here is a comment on it:

http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/c...nse/index.html

Libby's secret defense fund

How much of the money given to Cheney's former aide will come from Halliburton et al.? The public now has no way to know.

By Joe Conason

Page 1

November 15, 2005 |

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby may have taken the perp walk for the Bush White House, but he will never walk alone. As the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney considers his options -- including possible cooperation with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald -- friends of the administration are rallying to his side. Unlike his old boss Cheney, the indicted Libby lacks the millions of dollars needed to mount a proper Washington scandal defense, but evidently he will have no trouble attracting the assistance of right-wing operatives, administration aides and Republican lobbyists.

Actually, someone who personifies all those categories and more has materialized to mastermind the Scooter Libby defense committee, with promises of financial assistance and supportive publicity.

Her name is Barbara Comstock, a minor figure from the Whitewater era, when she served as "chief investigator" for Rep. Dan Burton, the wigged-out Indiana congressman who once executed a watermelon to demonstrate his sinister theory concerning the fate of Vince Foster, the White House counsel who committed suicide in 1993. During those glory years, she joined David Brock and the rest of the Republican pack in the hunting of Bill and Hillary Clinton. In his memoir, "Blinded by the Right," Brock described Comstock as almost unhinged in her passion to bring down the Clintons.

Comstock calmed down enough to serve as director of public affairs in John Ashcroft's Justice Department, to run opposition research for the Republican National Committee and, ultimately, after leaving government, to join the powerhouse lobbying firm of Blank Rome, best known for its huge contributions to the Republican Party, its close association with former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and other Bush appointees, and its lucky clientele of DHS contractors.

Is there something wrong with this picture? The most illuminating way to answer that question, perhaps, is to imagine what Comstock and others of her ilk might have said if the same situation had obtained during the Clinton administration.

Of course, nobody with the same rank as Libby was indicted back then, and nobody who worked for Clinton ever exposed a clandestine CIA agent for partisan purposes, as Libby did in the case of Valerie Plame Wilson. But certainly there were plenty of scandals and investigations back then, and lots of expensive lawyers to pay. There were defense funds, including the massive Clinton Legal Expense Trust, which collected money to pay the former first family's multimillion-dollar legal bills.

Democrats made donations large and small to that fund, some of which became highly controversial and sparked congressional investigations. In fact, the Clinton trust hired a private investigator to look into a donor named Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie, who was suspected of seeking to influence the president.

Outraged accusations of corruption rang across Capitol Hill and the talk show airwaves, although no misconduct was ever charged, let alone proved. Every donation and expenditure of the Clinton defense trust was carefully recorded in a publicly available document whose contents were widely and regularly reported in the media. The trust's director testified under oath in the Senate about its operations. That didn't satisfy the loonies of the Rush Limbaugh persuasion, who still believe to this day that the fund was somehow used unethically (even though Clinton left office with millions in debt to his attorneys).

Then there was the matter of Webster Hubbell, the associate attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department who eventually went to prison for stealing from Hillary Rodham Clinton and his other former partners at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm. Before he was indicted but after he left Justice, Hubbell got legal work from various companies, with the help of Washington power broker and Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan, among others.

Republican politicians and pundits loudly denounced those arrangements as a form of bribery to ensure Hubbell's silence. But after years of investigation, Ken Starr could never charge anyone with seeking to pay off Hubbell, who did his time insisting that he knew no incriminating information about the Clintons. It was perfectly natural for the Republicans to suspect the use of hush money, since that had been the modus operandi of their beloved "Tricky Dick" Nixon, dating back to the Watergate scandal.

But now the scandal worm has turned again, with a vengeance. If the Libby indictment is to be believed, the vice president and Karl Rove, the president's chief political advisor, may be implicated in nefarious misconduct that included a serious breach of national security. At the very least, they should both be asked to resign. They and others could be subject to prosecution should Libby ever decide to purge himself of his alleged perjury and obstruction charges in a plea agreement with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

But Libby's resistance to any such dangerous deal could be enhanced by two factors: the promise that he and his family will not be bankrupted to pay for his defense, and the prospect of a pardon before George W. Bush leaves office. Such self-serving abuse of the pardon power would follow the pattern set by Bush's father in his last-minute reprieve of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in the Iran-Contra affair.

That is why Democrats have demanded that the president promise to not pardon Libby -- a demand that ought to be the subject of press questions to the president himself, just as reporters regularly used to ask Clinton whether he intended to pardon Whitewater figure Susan McDougal. (He did finally pardon McDougal, long after she had served 21 months in prison and Starr had acknowledged that there was no case against the Clintons in Whitewater. Clinton didn't grant a pardon to Hubbell, who didn't ask for one.)

Meanwhile, the emergence of Comstock, a corporate lobbyist and Bush loyalist bearing checks with Libby's name on them, is troubling. Unlike the Clinton defense trust, the Libby fund is under no obligation to report the names of donors or the amounts they give. And the public has no way of knowing how much money might be funneled to the Libby defense by the vice president's friends at Halliburton, ExxonMobil and the myriad other corporations and lobbying firms that have fattened themselves on Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and the other disasters of the Bush era.

No way, that is, unless Fitzgerald finds probable cause to subpoena the records of the Libby defense fund. Certainly his investigation should continue until the special prosecutor can be certain that the coverup and the obstruction of justice have ended.

_________________________________________________________

So, this is costing him nothing other than he cannot practice law - which I can assure you is no big deal as he has not done so in years and he will not want for a job

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by Beachwood Mac

Not so fast. Bush just commuted Libby's sentence

Jesus H. Christ. I make a tedious trip to the airport yesterday to shuttle off my niece. I come home and lay down on the sofa for a bit and wake up to Glenn frigging Beck talking about Scooter's sentence being commuted.
I think any way you slice this, it is political suicide for Bush. A good portion of America is going to think Bush had pardoned Libby (which will surely happen on his way out the door in 2009). What further evidence do we need that this president has absolutely no regard for the rule of law? Seriously, I think this is going to be the last straw for a lot of people across both party lines.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by Beachwood Mac

Cheney and his cronies will be picking up this tab.




Bush will take care of this when he leaves office.

Yes and yes. Also, it is interesting to note that presidential candidate Fred Thompson is a donor to Scooter's defense fund. Rudy Giuliani came out yesterday and said he agreed with the president's decision. WTF?

[strandinthewind]

The thing about this is that the decision did not come though the DOJ as most do. It came sua sponte from W. I think W realizes that he can play now only to his base and they appaud the decision and think the pardon is coming. In any event, W has sent out a message loud and clear that it is okay to lie to the prosecutor when you are friends with the Pres.

[Rickypt]

This incident will not hurt the GOP if Hillary is the Dem candidate.