Libby Guilty of 4 Out of 5 Charges
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is the only person charged in the case, which grew out of an investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Plame is married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who emerged in mid-2003 as an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's case for the Iraq war.
Fitzgerald says Libby learned about Plame from Cheney and other officials in June 2003 and relayed it to reporters. Libby's defense team argued that Libby recalled his conversations to the best of his ability. Any inaccuracies he made to the FBI or a federal grand jury were the result of a faulty memory, attorneys said.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is the only person charged in the case, which grew out of an investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Plame is married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who emerged in mid-2003 as an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's case for the Iraq war.
Fitzgerald says Libby learned about Plame from Cheney and other officials in June 2003 and relayed it to reporters. Libby's defense team argued that Libby recalled his conversations to the best of his ability. Any inaccuracies he made to the FBI or a federal grand jury were the result of a faulty memory, attorneys said.
posted by BP News Bureau | 12:28 PM
1 Comments:
This morning the jury didn't understand two of the counts. Yesterday it didn't understand what was meant by reasonable doubt. Let me suggest that in the end it still didn't understand the two counts or reasonable doubt.
Please, spare me the lectures about the jury system and a fair trial. This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom. The witnesses were universally pathetic. The judge was overly restrictive in the testimony he allowed on behalf of the defense. But most of all, I object to this case because it was political from beginning to end. Patrick Fitzgerald's closing argument was as much about Dick Cheney and George Bush as Libby. He wanted the jurors to consider the war. He wanted them to look at more than the evidence. So, it's perfectly legitimate for some of us to conclude that they did. We might call this jury nullifcation in reverse.
There has been considerable damage done to traditional Justice Department procedures, the free press, and the political system by this nothing-burger of a case.
Yes, lying before a grand jury is a crime. So, too, is lying on the witness stand. When can we expect some of the government's witnesses to face the music?
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