Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[mlsoft]

sea...

"Well, then explain why Libby felt compelled to lie 5 times to a grand jury defending himself against a non-issue. Nobody except the extreme hard right fringe of the country (thankfully an increasingly irrelevant bunch) has any compassion for his behavior."

The question that I (and many others) have is did Libby actually lie or did he rely on faulty memory. He could easily have simply said "I do not remember" or "I cannot recall" for his answers before the Grand Jury, as everyone involved with the clintons do so well, but instead he tried to furnish the information based on his memory.

I do not know (nor do you) whether he actually lied or not, but let's assume for the sake of argument that he did lie. The Federal Guidelines for perjury in such a case would call for a sentence of less than half of the actual sentence he received, and the Federal Probation office, following those guidelines, accordingly recommended a sentence of less than half of what the judge gave him. Fitzgerald argued that the underlying "crime" (outing a covert CIA operative) was so serious that it justified raising the guidelines to the next level, the same as if Libby had been actually convicted of that crime. The fact is, though, that not only was Libby never charged nor convicted of that crime, no one else was ever so charged or convicted either. Fitzgerald knew the whole time who really "outed" Plame (Richard Armitage) so his whole investigation was a sham and a fishing expedition to begin with, and it is very questionable that Plame was actually a "covert agent" under the law anyway -- note that Fitzgerald never charged the man who openly admitted to the "crime", most probably because he knew he could never get a conviction under the statute. Taking all of that under consideration, it is utterly absurd to give Libby a sentence based on the guidelines for a "crime" that was never established or even suggested as having being actually committed in court proceedings.




"Shortly after Libby was convicted in March, three national public opinion polls found that seven in 10 Americans said they would oppose a pardon of Libby."

Praise the Lord that we at least try to avoid having the legal system run by public opinion polls. It is bad enough that we from time to time have administrations and/or a congress that is run by such polls.





"And to repeat.......if the neoconservative argument you represent was valid, why did 3 conservative judges dismiss it as invalid......repeatedly?"

My argument is not "neoconservative", it is based on logic and the facts and circumstances of the case. I also note that you clearly reveal your own personal bias by calling my position "neoconservative" just because I do not agree with you. It should be evident even to you that the decisions of lower courts are often overruled and are incorrect. It should even be evident that they could be wrong regardless of the ultimate outcome. but for the moment, let us at least await the appeals process to play out before passing judgement.





"Wrong again. Every single judge or attorney I have seen interviewed on the issue have said the same thing: Sentencing was in accordance with current guidelines."

Then you need to read something from other than liberal websites. Try googling "Scooter Libby sentence" and you will find comments on all sides of the issue. Here is one that seems very unbiased in that it gives both sides of the argument:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/lazarus/20070607.html

Note in the article that Federal guidelines for perjury are 15-21 months, which is exactly what the Federal Probations recommended in this case.

"In every criminal case, the Probation Office makes a recommendation to the Court as to its view of the appropriate Guidelines range. In Libby's case, the Probation Office calculated his offense severity at the level typically used for perjury and obstruction of justice, the crimes for which Libby was convicted. When combined with Libby's first-offense status, this level of severity yielded a sentencing range of 15-21 months. So, readers may wonder, why was Libby sentenced to 30?"

So there is certainly debate on the appropriateness of the sentence Libby was given, especially given the political nature of the special prosecutor's "investigation" and the absence of any underlying "crime" in the case. Beyond the merits of the sentence itself, is the argument that charges should never have been filed when the prosecutor knew exactly who "leaked" Plame's name all during the time he was fishing for something to prosecute someone in the administration.

mlsoft