jazzoLOG: Pardoning Libby |
Category: Thoughts 8 comments 11 Mar 2007 @ 16:42 by quinty : The Bush administrationtook a step back with the Democratic sweep in the last election. And several Republican senators who face re-election in 2008 have stepped away from boosting the war. For awhile the more paranoid among us (myself included) wondered just how far the Bush cadre would go in grabbing power. Perhaps (in an "it can't happen here" manner) all the way? That the inner circle is vindictive and mean should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with human nature. Bush will do whatever it takes to make himself comfortable. And if that includes pardoning Libby he won't hesitate. A cultural note: watching Libby and his attornies enter the court house numerous times (the TV cameras apparently weren't allowed inside) Libby was one of these guys who always opened the door for everyone else to let them pass through first. Then he would follow, smiling. He always did this at the door to his limo too. The lawyers, assistants, everyone, would go first. Now, would someone truly concerned with democracy behave in such a patronizing manner? Would it matter to him who went in first through the door.......? Just a detail, I thought, which reflects on what kind of people they are. 12 Mar 2007 @ 02:00 by a-d : Read this first: {link:http://www.revisionisthistory.org/page1/page5/page5.html} ("This" is "how it's "always" been with small "variations" /// my comment) and then this: http://www.worldcantwait.net/ ....and this is what WE SHOULD DO right NOW! ( ....After all; better late than never, huh? ) 12 Mar 2007 @ 08:38 by jazzolog : Martha Borders Prophecy Many readers undoubtedly remember Martha Borders, a much-involved NCN member with a fabulous Log, who left the site a few months ago. I sent her this piece and she wrote back as follows: "I predicted months ago that Libby would be pardoned if convicted and it will happen after the 2008 elections right before Bubba leaves office. Hurray for democracy and truth!" You may be right Martha, but if Waxman's hearings turn up impeachable crimes involving Bush (through Rove) he may be rushed into doing something earlier. If the pressure is on Cheney he always can resign, citing health, and then Bush could get away with a pardon for Libby immediately. Ed Schultz, referred to in what I wrote yesterday, felt Congress was dragging its heels because impeaching both Bush and Cheney out of office could yield Nancy Pelosi as President. In response to Jerry's comment, I think the stakes have become higher for global capitalists now. These people believe in getting their piece of the "dream" and fortifying it against population explosion and global warming disruption, including plagues, starvation and inundation. Huddled in the castle, you always need an army out there fighting the barbarians. 12 Mar 2007 @ 14:11 by vaxen : So? I mean this yak yak has been going on for years and to what avail? You are all still slaves! ;) Is that what gets to ya? 12 Mar 2007 @ 14:38 by jerryvest : Vax, don't you mean, for example, "we" are all still slaves. And, are you suggesting that we have another Revolution? I think it is great that many of our friends will be demonstrating as noted in the link by A-D. Oops, perhaps I shouldn't get you started. :) I think that Richard's logs are right on target and do serve a purpose or why would we be reading them? I think it is too bad that several of our bright and vocal participants have left NCN. I suggest that we all try to be kind, responsive and supportive to those who remain. 12 Mar 2007 @ 15:39 by a-d : Vaxen, Vaxen!..... ...... you were "born" into "A League of Your Own"... and that's how you have lived and still do and ..... despite ALL your words of "the other way around" ! Too bad! But I'm still wishing you the best/A-d 19 May 2007 @ 08:51 by jazzolog : Cheney Says Anything He Wants! Get It? WashingtonPost.com Judge Told Leak Was Part of 'Policy Dispute' By Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 18, 2007; A03 Attorneys for Vice President Cheney and top White House officials told a federal judge yesterday that they cannot be held liable for anything they disclosed to reporters about covert CIA officer Valerie Plame or her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The officials, who include senior White House adviser Karl Rove and Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, argued that the judge should dismiss a lawsuit filed by the couple that stemmed from the disclosure of Plame's identity to the media. The suit claims that Cheney, Libby, Rove and former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage violated the couple's privacy and constitutional rights by publicly revealing Plame's identity in an effort to retaliate against Wilson. Plame's identity was disclosed in a syndicated column in July 2003, days after Wilson publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate Iraq's nuclear threat and justify an invasion. Libby was convicted in March of lying to a grand jury investigating the leak. The lawyers said any conversations Cheney and the officials had about Plame with one another or with reporters were part of their normal duties because they were discussing foreign policy and engaging in an appropriate "policy dispute." Cheney's attorney went further, arguing that Cheney is legally akin to the president because of his unique government role and has absolute immunity from any lawsuit. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates asked: "So you're arguing there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- these officials could have said to reporters that would have been beyond the scope of their employment," whether the statements were true or false? "That's true, Your Honor. Mr. Wilson was criticizing government policy," said Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division. "These officials were responding to that criticism." Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke University law professor who is representing Wilson and Plame, said the leak was no typical policy debate. President Bush himself said that revealing Plame's identity could be illegal conduct and a firing offense, he told Bates. Chemerinsky said that after Plame's cover was blown, the couple feared for their safety and their children's safety and Plame lost any opportunity for advancement at the CIA. "This isn't a case where the government said mean things about Mr. Wilson. This is about revealing the secret status of his wife to punish Mr. Wilson," Chemerinsky said. "In the end, this is egregious conduct that ruined a woman's career and put a family in danger." Bates, who expressed doubts about arguments on both sides, said he will rule in the coming weeks whether to dismiss the case. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051701400.html A TON of readers' comments for the clicking on this. 20 Jul 2007 @ 11:12 by jazzolog : Plame Suit Out: Bush Judge Loyal The FOXNews headline reads "Hopefully 'Case Closed' for Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Saga." John Gibson sums up the Big Story with, "In other words, the judge said to Wilson, hey, you took on the president and the vice president; they have a right to fight back. And one of the ways they are allowed to legally respond is to inform the public that the vice president of the United States did not send Joe Wilson to Niger to investigate Saddam Hussein's nuke bomb quest. It was Wilson's CIA agent wife who did it. Case closed." {link:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290060,00.html} And who was the judge? Plame Suit Dismissed by Controversial GOP Loyalist By Jason Leopold and Matt Renner t r u t h o u t | Report Thursday 19 July 2007 A federal judge has dismissed the civil lawsuit filed against top Bush administration officials by former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. The judge, John Bates of the US District Court in Washington, DC is a Bush appointee who previously dismissed a lawsuit filed by the federal government against Vice President Dick Cheney. That suit sought access to Cheney's energy task force documents. Since his tenure on the federal bench began six years ago, Bates's legal opinions and rulings supporting the administration's executive powers stand in stark contrast to his legal work as an assistant US attorney. He worked for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr prosecuting President Clinton's Whitewater investment deals. In 1997, Bates successfully argued for the release of thousands of pages of White House documents related to Hillary Clinton's conversations about Whitewater. In January 2003, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that the judge was a hypocrite by pursuing access to White House documents when Clinton was in office while supporting Cheney's claims of executive privilege in refusing to turn over his energy task force documents to Congress. "When that guy was working for Ken Starr, he wanted to go open the dresser drawers of the White House," Leahy said. "I guess it's a lot different when it's a Republican vice president." Since 2001, Judge Bates has been a staunch supporter of the White House's assertion of executive privilege on a wide range of controversial legal challenges by third parties. Bates, who was appointed by President Bush in 2001, first came to the public's attention in December 2002 when he dismissed a lawsuit filed against Cheney by the Government Accountability Office that sought access to the vice president's energy task force documents. In that case, Bates threw out the GAO's lawsuit, stating that the GAO lacked the authority to sue the vice president, a ruling that was criticized by the legal community. On Thursday, Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit for similar reasons. He wrote that, as a technical legal matter, the Wilsons can't sue under the Constitution. Bates added that the defendants had the right to rebut criticism aimed at the White House by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who accused the administration of twisting prewar Iraq intelligence. He said the leak of Plame's undercover CIA status to a handful of reporters was "unsavory" but simply a casualty of Wilson's criticism of the administration. "The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory," Bates wrote. "But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence by speaking with members of the press, is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials." Wilson and his wife have filed a civil suit against top administration officials - among them Vice President Dick Cheney, White House Political Adviser Karl Rove and Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for allegedly violating his and Plame Wilson's civil rights when they disclosed her covert CIA status to the media. The defendants argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed on grounds that it was a "policy dispute." Libby was convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison earlier this year of four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to a grand jury about how he discovered that Plame Wilson was a CIA employee, and whether he discussed her role at the agency with the media. Bush commuted Libby's sentence calling it "excessive," despite the fact that it had been in line with federal sentencing guidelines. A federal investigation led by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald later found that numerous White Officials had retaliated against and sought to discredit Joseph Wilson for publicly claiming that the administration had manipulated Iraq intelligence by telling a handful of elite Washington, DC reporters that Wilson's investigation into the Niger claims could not be trusted. The administration told the reporters that Valerie Plame Wilson worked at the CIA and had arranged to send her husband to Niger. The officials suggested that the trip was the result of nepotism. Plame Wilson testified before Congress this year that she had had no role in selecting her husband for the mission. Melanie Sloan, executive director of the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who leads Wilson's defense team, said she would immediately appeal Judge Bates's verdict. "We disagree with the court's holding and intend to pursue this case vigorously to protect all Americans from the vindictive government officials who abuse their power for their own political ends," Sloan said in a statement. She added that Bates "recognized that the Wilson's claims 'pose important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials.'" Wilson, the former ambassador, reacted to Bates's ruling by vowing to continue fighting. "This case is not just about what top government officials did to Valerie and me." Wilson said. "We brought this suit because we strongly believe that politicizing intelligence ultimately serves only to undermine the security of our nation. Today's decision is just the first step in what we have always known would be a long legal battle and we are committed to seeing this case through." Bates's support of the Bush administration's position on secrecy was instrumental in getting the judge appointed to the court set up by Congress in 1978 to monitor domestic spying immediately after the Bush administration said it would start using the court to obtain domestic surveillance warrants. Bates, who was appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by Chief Justice John Roberts in February, replaced a judge who resigned in protest following news reports that the White House circumvented the court and spied on American citizens who were allegedly communicating with terrorists. As a judge on the FISA court, Bates reviews the Justice Department's applications for domestic spying activities in the US and has a final say on whether to approve the requests. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jason Leopold is a former Los Angeles bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswire. He has written over 2,000 stories on the California energy crisis and received the Dow Jones Journalist of the Year Award in 2001 for his coverage on the issue as well as a Project Censored award in 2004. Leopold also reported extensively on Enron's downfall and was the first journalist to land an interview with former Enron president Jeffrey Skilling following Enron's bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Leopold has appeared on CNBC and National Public Radio as an expert on energy policy and has also been the keynote speaker at more than two dozen energy industry conferences around the country. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071907R.shtml Other entries in Thoughts 16 Jan 2009 @ 13:16: From Duke 'N Satch To Obama: A Personal Triumph 31 Aug 2008 @ 12:48: Election '08: You Make Me Feel So Young! 10 May 2008 @ 11:58: The Snowville Story 8 Feb 2008 @ 10:55: Take A Tip From Me 18 Dec 2007 @ 08:48: Catastrophe Is Coming 1 Sep 2007 @ 12:48: Exactly How Bush Spends Your Money 5 Jun 2007 @ 10:03: The US: One Big Drug Store 26 Dec 2006 @ 11:29: How's Your Computer? 29 Oct 2006 @ 12:00: Tortured Over The Election? 9 Jul 2006 @ 10:47: The Earth On Fire
|