Scooter in the Clink

Alger Hiss | June 5, 2007, 1:30pm | #

Prosecuting people for perjury when you can't get a conviction on the underlying crime is totally bogus.

VM | June 5, 2007, 1:33pm | #

DAMMIT. joe. The Alger Hiss made me choke on my Grape Nehi. dammit.

Will Scooter and Paris be cellmates?

Tank Johnson was just released, so they'll have to wait a few days 'til the vending machines are full again...

Taktix® | June 5, 2007, 2:01pm | #

I know Bush has gotten away with a lot of bullshit, but his approval ratings are so far down the crapper, I don't see how a Libby pardon would not send him before an impeachment committee in a Democrat-run legislature.

Kid Handsome | June 5, 2007, 2:13pm | #

Put me in the group that thinks that, regardless of my disdain for Bush and his cronies, this is nothing more than prosecutorial masturbation.

I'm glad to see that a White House big wig can go to jail, but not for this, and not by a "special prosecutor." I'm more frightened that he got the victory than I am happy about Libby going in. When will the power of this extra-judiciary body stop expanding.

Malvolio | June 5, 2007, 2:25pm | #

> I mean come on, who names their kid Scooter?

His real name is "I. Lewis". No one seems to know what the "I" stands for, although there is some suspicion it is just "Irving".

Perhaps his parents were twisted Asimov fans.

GILMORE | June 5, 2007, 2:36pm | #

my guess is Scooter will never serve time. If his appear runs dry, Bush will pardon him regardless of consequences. Cheney will demand it since it's all his fault anyway

re: awfulness of special prosecutors... in general I agree, but they're not like, running rampant. in highly politicized cases, how do we set up a system where the prosectors 'play fair' and are free from outside influence? Id be curious what the options are

Jefferson will claim racism and demand inquiry into his 'set up', then be caught trying to fly to nigeria dressed as a woman

John | June 5, 2007, 2:38pm | #

This case and the Martha Stewart case set a really disturbing precident. In both cases, the proscutors could not prove the underlying crime; insider trading for Martha Stewart and the criminal outing of a suburban Virginia soccer mom for Libby. Instead, they prosecuted for "lying to investigators". In Libby's case it really came down to his memory of conversations with reporters versus the reporters' memory of those conversations. In a large complex case, people are always going to have different versions of the events. Further, sometimes you just remember something wrong. If someone contradicts your account, that is enough to charge you. Prosecutors can then extract a deal from you. That is what the whole Martha Stewart case was about. She would never have gone to jail if she just would have plea bargined and given the prosecutors their pound of flesh. Yeah, you can fight the charges and maybe you will win. But if you don't you are going to prison. Unless you are just a complete Democratic hack ad think anytime someone you don't like goes to prison it is a good thing, you ought to be disturbed by this.

GILMORE | June 5, 2007, 2:43pm | #

Hey, who gives a kid the first name of a city when your last name is already a hotel? "I'm Paris Hilton

shallow people often think they can name their kids fancy things and they'll naturally grow up to fill in that mold, aristocratic and noble... go to any poor neighborhood, black or white, and you'll be surprised how many people are named like 18th generation hungarian princes.

anyway, depending how you look at it, Paris is a guys name (http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Paris.html)

Also, he's not exactly a bold asskicker like Achilles or Hector. I mean, he keeps shooting people in the *feet*. Pussy

John | June 5, 2007, 3:06pm | #

Neu Mejican,

If they had tried Clinton and thrown him in jail perhaps. Of course Clinton involved more than recollections and his lie was very pertinent to the case. Clinton was being sued by Paula Jones for sexual harassment. The allegation was that he demanded sex from Jones and when she turned him down her career suffered as a result. During cases like this, the defendant's entire sex life becomes fair game. The relevant issue is, has the defendant ever demanded sex from anyone else or has he has sex with other coworkers and if so how did those co workers careers compare to those who he didn't have sex with. One way Paula Jones could have proven her case would have been to show how Clinton was having affairs with employees below him and how he their careers were better for having banged him. Clinton of course was then asked if he was having sex with subordinates and if I am mistaken specifically about Monica Lewinski. He then lied and said no. He clearly lied about a material fact under oath in a civil deposition. That is perjury. Of course Clinton was never indicted or prosecuted for such perjury. Perjurers in civil cases rarely are. Yes, he was impeached, but that is a political issue not a criminal. Congress could have impeached him for wearing a bad tie had they wanted to. So, since Clinton was never criminally prosecuted, nor should he have been, his case is not analogous to Libby.

Max | June 5, 2007, 3:08pm | #

He'll get a pardon because the reason why he lied to the FBI was, one assumes, to avoid embaressing Cheney. It was an act of political loyalty, and one hand washes the other...also, with his multi-million dollar legal defense fund, he has no money troubles.

Hugh Akston | June 5, 2007, 3:14pm | #

The upside for Libby in my scenario is that at least he got to see the look of abject terror in the eyes of those two, plus he got to see them beg like gypsy "orphans" in the streets of Paris.

I doubt that. You don't get where Rove & Cheney are in politics by leaving your belly exposed. Libby's sword-falling came about either through promise of reward or threat of exposure.

joe | June 5, 2007, 3:30pm | #

John,

I don't believe in Hiss's innocence. As a matter of fact, his guilt for the underlying crime is part of the joke that, apparently, zoomed over your head.

BTW, Clinton paid a five-figure fine and lost his license to practice law for his statements in the Paula Jones case.

joe | June 5, 2007, 3:35pm | #

"can anyone coherently describe what it is that he was actually convicted of? "

He lied to the prosecutor, and the grand jury, when asked if he had discussed Plame with reporters. Because of these lies, the prosecutor was unable to complete his investigation into the underlying crime.

joe | June 5, 2007, 3:54pm | #

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18924679/

Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak

Newly released unclassified document details CIA employment

By Joel Seidman
Producer
NBC News
Updated: 4:24 p.m. ET May 29, 2007

WASHINGTON - An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003.

The summary is part of an attachment to Fitzgerald's memorandum to the court supporting his recommendation that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former top aide, spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

The nature of Plame's CIA employment never came up in Libby's perjury and obstruction of justice trial.

Undercover travel
The unclassified summary of Plame's employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, "Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."

Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."

Criminal prosecution beat national security
After the Novak column was published and Plame's identity was widely reported in the media, and according to the document, "the CIA lifted Ms Wilson's cover" and then "rolled back her cover" effective to the date of the leak.

The CIA determined, "that the public interest in allowing the criminal prosecution to proceed outweighed the damage to national security that might reasonably be expected from the official disclosure of Ms. Wilson's employment and cover status."

joe | June 5, 2007, 5:50pm | #

Our legal system doesn't have a "first guy through the door" provision, Fluffy.

If eight guys take part in robbing a liquor store, every single one of them is guily of robbery.

jf | June 5, 2007, 6:03pm | #

Our legal system doesn't have a "first guy through the door" provision, Fluffy.

joe, doesn't that contradict the article you cited above?

Criminal prosecution beat national security
After the Novak column was published and Plame's identity was widely reported in the media, and according to the document, "the CIA lifted Ms Wilson's cover" and then "rolled back her cover" effective to the date of the leak.

This is one of those cases where I'm more than willing to have my error pointed out to me, but if the CIA "rolled back her cover" effective to the date of the leak (which was by Richard Armitage before Libby spoke to Judith Wilson), wouldn't Libby be in the clear?

I ask not because I care one whit for what happens to Libby, but I do care about how our legal system is turning into a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" mentality.

joe | June 5, 2007, 6:46pm | #

jf,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair_timeline

[edit] June 2003
12 June 2003: During a telephone call, Cheney told Libby that Wilson's wife worked in Counter Proliferation [178].

[edit] July 2003
6 July 2003: Joe Wilson's Opinion Editorial "What I Didn't Find in Africa" is published in The New York Times.[32]
7 July 2003: Colin Powell receives a copy of a 10 June memo naming Valerie Wilson as Joe Wilson's wife and as a CIA officer, taking it with him on a trip on Air Force One with President Bush. The paragraph identifying Mrs. Wilson is marked "(S-NF)," signfying its information is classified "Secret, Noforn."[33] Noforn is a code word indicating that the information is not to be shared with foreign nationals.[34] Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Ari Fleischer, Walter H. Kansteiner, III, and Andrew Card are on the trip, among others.
Sometime before 8 July 2003 Robert Novak has a conversation with Richard Armitage (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State). In that conversation he is told for the first time that Wilson's wife works for the C.I.A. [Armitage didn't tell Novak her name; subsequently, after his August 2006 public disclosure that he was the "inadvertent" leak, Armitage has asserted that he did not know her name at the time.] Novak uses an edition of Joseph C. Wilson's biography in Who's Who to identify by her maiden name Valerie Plame. According to the reporters Isikoff and Corn, Armitage's leak was "inadvertent, and the Intelligence Identities Act hadn't been violated."[35]
8 July 2003: Robert Novak has a phone conversation with Karl Rove in which C.I.A. agent Plame is discussed, according to an unnamed source who had been told not to talk about the case. Novak is reported to have told Rove the name of the agent as "Valerie Plame" and her role in Wilson's mission to Africa. Rove is reported to have told Novak something to the effect of, "I heard that, too." or "Oh, so you already know about it." Rove reportedly told the grand jury that at this time he had already heard about Wilson's wife working for the CIA from another journalist, but is unable to remember who that was.[36]
8 July 2003: Lewis Libby meets with Judith Miller and tells her about Plame's work at the CIA. According to Libby's later grand jury testimony, he told Miller at this meeting that the Niger uranium claim had been a "key judgement" of the October 2002 NIE (still classified at that time), and that Cheney had instructed him to do so. This was false; the Niger claim was not in fact one of the "key judgements" headlined, bolded, and bulleted in the first pages of the intelligence estimate.[37] Later, after testifying to a Federal grand jury in October 2005, Miller will write in the New York Times that on this date (and four days later, on 12 July 2003), Libby "played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance."[179]
circa 10 July 2003–11 July 2003: Novak called Bill Harlowe, then CIA spokesman, to confirm information regarding Plame and Wilson. According to Novak, Harlow denied that Plame "suggested" that Wilson be selected for the trip, and Harlow stated instead that CIA "counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."[38] According to Harlow, he "warned Novak in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information," that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if Novak did write about it, her name should not be revealed. Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. According to Harlow, however, he did not tell Novak directly that Plame was undercover because that information was classified.[39] According to Novak, not only did Harlowe not tell Novak that Plame was undercover, he actually told Novak that "she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties.'" Novak states that if he had been told that disclosure of Plame's name would endanger her or anyone else, he would not have disclosed the name.[40]
11 July 2003: According to one source, Novak's regular syndicated column was allegedly distributed by Creators Syndicate on the newswire AP on this date.[41]
11 July 2003: Matt Cooper's internal Time e-mail message bearing the time 11:07 a.m. is sent to his bureau chief, stating: "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation. . . ." Cooper writes that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." According to Cooper, Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCI" — CIA Director George Tenet — or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues who authorized the trip." Rove also told Cooper that, "there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger".[42] Cooper would later tell the investigating grand jury that Rove concluded the conversation by saying "I've already said too much."[43]

12 July 2003: Judith Miller again meets with Scooter Libby. After testifying to a Federal grand jury in October 2005, she will write in the New York Times that on this occasion, as on the occasion of another conversation four days earlier, Libby "played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance."
12 July 2003: Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus says an administration official told him, somewhat off topic, that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA analyst working on weapons of mass destruction and that Wilson's trip was a "boondoggle."[47]

Morat20 | June 5, 2007, 7:20pm | #

Just as a pointed reminder: The US government has prosecuted, and I believe actually won, convictions (for espionage, I think) for the leak of classified information that had been in the public domain for quite some time when the leakers "leaked" it.

Classified information remains classified up and until the classifying agency declassifies it.

It sounds rather stupid -- and often times is, as demonstrated by repeated government attempts to classify things that are in the public record -- but the reasoning behind it is sensical enough.

Sometimes people -- or things -- get reported, leaked, or exposed in a way in which plausible deniability can be maintained or secondary assets shielded.

Also, it's there to prevent people from using cats-paws to "pre-leak" information (that they can then confirm, claiming they honestly thought the damage was already done, so no harm no foul), or -- like in this case -- to prevent a parade of multiple leakers from trying to confuse the time-line.

Like everything else in life, it's something that can be abused -- and undoubtably has been abused before and will undoubtably again be abused in the future.

In this case? I don't think so. The timeline and uncontested (uncontested even by Libby's lawyers) facts point to Plame's name going from classified information to public knowledge via a number of individuals, simulteanously. Of those involved -- including those who leaked and those who recieved the leaks -- everyone told the same story except two. When facing actual prosecution, one of the two switched his story and the last decided to take his chances on beating the rap.

Given how difficult it is to obtain actual convictions on perjury, the results speak for themselves.

jf | June 5, 2007, 8:14pm | #

joe,

Actually, I used the same timeline when making my post.

Sometime before 8 July 2003 Robert Novak has a conversation with Richard Armitage (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State). In that conversation he is told for the first time that Wilson's wife works for the C.I.A. [Armitage didn't tell Novak her name; subsequently, after his August 2006 public disclosure that he was the "inadvertent" leak, Armitage has asserted that he did not know her name at the time.] Novak uses an edition of Joseph C. Wilson's biography in Who's Who to identify by her maiden name Valerie Plame. According to the reporters Isikoff and Corn, Armitage's leak was "inadvertent, and the Intelligence Identities Act hadn't been violated."[35]
8 July 2003: Robert Novak has a phone conversation with Karl Rove in which C.I.A. agent Plame is discussed, according to an unnamed source who had been told not to talk about the case. Novak is reported to have told Rove the name of the agent as "Valerie Plame" and her role in Wilson's mission to Africa. Rove is reported to have told Novak something to the effect of, "I heard that, too." or "Oh, so you already know about it." Rove reportedly told the grand jury that at this time he had already heard about Wilson's wife working for the CIA from another journalist, but is unable to remember who that was.[36]
8 July 2003: Lewis Libby meets with Judith Miller and tells her about Plame's work at the CIA. According to Libby's later grand jury testimony, he told Miller at this meeting that the Niger uranium claim had been a "key judgement" of the October 2002 NIE (still classified at that time), and that Cheney had instructed him to do so.

The fact remains that the original leak, to which you referred when you stated that "the CIA lifted Ms Wilson's cover" and then "rolled back her cover" effective to the date of the leak was before the Libby reveal, according to that very timeline. Again, if I'm wrong, cool, but it looks like Libby "leaked" the information after the date to which the CIA "rolled back her cover", which would make him innocent of the underlying crime.

John | June 5, 2007, 9:47pm | #

It is amazing how little people actually know about history even of a recent variety. Clinton was never accused of lying to the special prosecutor. He was acccused of lying in a civil deposition in the Paula Jones case. Should the President be allowed to be sued in office for torts committed before taking office? I would say no but the Supreme Court ruled otherwise and the Paul Jones case went forward. It was sexual harrassment case and in those cases, your whole fucking sex life is at issue. That sucks and it is unfair, but considering that it was Clinton's die hard supporters who made the rules that way in the 1980s, there is a little bit of karmic payback there.

I don't expect Joe to know anything. He is so fucking stupid he thinks Scooter Libby was convicted of outing Valerie Plame. There is no hope for Joe. But the rest of you, Gilmore and Neu Mexican, don't have the excuse of being Joe. Wise the fuck up and at least know what happened in the Clinton.

That said, the Clinton case is not analogous to this. Only a real fanatic like Joe, should nto be disturbed by this. The Libby case is just like the Martha Stewart case. It was high profile target that was prosecuted for after the fact lying to investigators over a crime that could never be proven. That sucks and is an abuse of prosecutorial descretion.

Morat20 | June 5, 2007, 11:49pm | #

Although somehow we all now know that it was Richard Armitage who actually leaked her name anyway.

This confuses me. Do you mean to say that it's only perjury and obstruction if it works 100%? I'm not sure how perjury can even BE a crime, if you can only prosecute it when your lies are believed....

I'm not sure how this works, really. As best I can tell, Fitzgerald walked into this case and was confronted with evidence that two people were lying, several people were talking, and several reporters were stalling. He got the reporters to talk, saw their stories agreed with the reporters who WERE talking and the White House officials who were talking, and then went to the two liars and started offering them chance after chance to fess up.

I can't see how Fitzgerald was unfair or overzealous here -- Rove cut a deal at literally the last minute, and all he had to do was testify truthtfully and his previous perjury and obstruction was forgiven. Sure, we all pretended he came up before the Grand Jury for the fourth or fifth time to "clarify" his previous testimony, but we all know what that means.....

Oh wait! Maybe you're a firm believer of the notion that if six or seven people start leaking classified information to multiple reporters over a week or so, only the first guy to leak to the first reporter to publish actually broke the law. Which is, frankly, a kind of weird notion.

Neu Mejican | June 6, 2007, 11:23am | #

John,

A key phrase from your post...

"prosecuted for after the fact lying to investigators"

Also known as perjury. It is a crime in and of itself.

Perjury: the act or crime of knowingly making a false statement (as about a material matter) while under oath or bound by an affirmation or other officially prescribed declaration that what one says, writes, or claims is true.

Libby, Stewart were convicted of this act. Seems like "karmic payback" to me.

CLINTONCLINTONCLINTONCLINTONCLINTONCLINTONCLINTONCLINTONCLINTONCLINTONCLINTON