I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, arrives at U.S. Federal Court in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Posted on 02/21/2007 10:16:25 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Jurors began deliberating Wednesday in the perjury and obstruction trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is charged with lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Jurors heard about an hour of legal instructions from U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Wednesday morning before beginning deliberations shortly before 11:30 a.m. They heard a full day of closing arguments Tuesday after a monthlong trial.
The jury of eight women and four men must be unanimous before returning a verdict on the five charges against Libby. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted, though he'd likely get far less under federal sentencing guidelines.
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. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says Libby learned about Plame from Cheney and other officials in June 2003 and relayed it to reporters.
Attorneys left jurors with two very different impressions of the case. Prosecutors described a methodical effort by Libby to conceal the fact that he discussed Plame with reporters in June 2003. Defense attorneys recounted a confusing, sometimes contradictory month of testimony that they believe is too shaky to base a conviction on.
Plame was outed by reporter Robert Novak, who touched off an FBI investigation with a July 2003 syndicated column. Though Libby wasn't Novak's source, prosecutors say he feared he'd be charged with discussing classified information with other reporters.
So, prosecutors say, Libby lied. He told investigators he learned about Plame from Cheney, then forgot about it until a month later, when he was surprised to hear it during a phone call with NBC's Tim Russert. Russert says the conversation about Plame didn't happen.
"It's simply not credible to believe he would forget this information about Wilson's wife," prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg said during closing arguments Tuesday. "It's ludicrous."
Libby's attorneys say it's the prosecution's story that doesn't make sense. Why, they ask, would Libby make up a story that hinges on Russert, someone Libby knew could be questioned?
And while prosecutors have shown that Plame came up in several conversations with government officials in mid-2003, defense attorneys say there's no proof Libby deliberately set out to lie when he spoke to investigators three months later.
"They haven't given you anything that says Mr. Libby didn't just have one of those moments that we all have in life where he thought something happened one way and it happened another," said defense attorney Theodore Wells.
Prosecutors used opening statements to remind jurors that one witness after another testified to discussing Plame with Libby. Zeidenberg pointed to a flow chart showing arrows tracking information from several officials to Libby and on to other sources. With each conversation, it became less likely the CIA operative would just slip Libby's mind, Zeidenberg said.
Wells presented a similar chart. Under each name and photograph, however, Wells noted their memory inconsistencies. Some changed their stories. Others seemed less certain in FBI interviews than they did on the stand.
Why is Mr. Libby being treated differently?" Wells told jurors. "He should not. Treat him fairly. Ask yourself: 'Did the government give me some evidence that he intentionally lied as opposed to, did he just forget?'"
___
Associated Press writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.
Will Scooter ride FRee?
We need a pool..
Jury returns verdict (Yea or Nay) in so many days or hours .. or minutes.
--
I say
2 days 2 hours ,, give or take a couple hours.
I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, arrives at U.S. Federal Court in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
The case had nothing to do with any leak or any known crime.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald arrives at federal court for the perjury trial of Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, in Washington February 20, 2007. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby (L) arrives with his wife, Harriet Grant at U.S. Federal Court in Washington on the first day of jury deliberation in his federal perjury trial, February 21, 2007. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES)
Fitzys next career stop is Court TV.
That does not look like the face of a confident man.
I say we know by 5pm today. There is no case, and the jurors, no doubt, would like to be done with this.
I think we should have a crack up pool for after the not guilty verdict...to see how long it takes Chris Matthews to lose control on air.
He dropped his case(s) against King Richie for this circus sideshow. Maybe he can get back to bagging REAL criminals.
It will be a hung jury. There will be atleast one DU-type that will maintain Libby is guilty.
Ive been working on this a while :
Libby Code:
If you take the first letters of the last words of the consecutive paragraphs starting with paragraph number 33 in Libby's Grand Jury testimony it clearly spells "ASPEN ROOTS"
and if you do the same thing starting with paragraph 206 it spells " ROVE IS DEAD"....
This is Freaky
Coincidence? I dont think so
Late Friday afternoon is a good bet for a verdict as they consider another weekend stuck with other.
Yeah, Fritz should be scared. If he can't produce on this one, he probably not be able to keep milking this cash cow and will have to get a real job.
Did the AP just give Wilson a promotion? I believe he was never made an ambassador. He filled in as an "acting-ambassador" at one point in his career, if my memory is correct.
Well, let's see what precedents we have for sentencing...
Bill Clinton guilty of perjury...lost license to practice law for 5 years.
Sandy Burger, guilty of treason...no jail time, 100 hrs community service picking up trash, suspension of security clearance for 3 years (iirc).
Given these facts it seems that if sentencing were consistent, Libby might be sentenced to no Cable TV or computer for a month and not be allowed to use the word CIA for 5 years.
Of course the dems are such hypocrites on such things...I think they all should have the book thrown at them if they're guilty. Clinton put in prison for 30 years, Libby for 30 years and Burger hung.
Not with that jury. Scooter should never have been indicted in the first place but I'm afraid the jury will still find him guilty.
Six hours total deliberation.
I couldn't get passed the headline. What leak?
Is that six degrees of Larry Johnson? s/
Prayers going up for Scooter!!
Bingo.
I really doubt this clown could bag anything. He wouldn't know a real criminal if one came up and bit him in the A$$. Amen.
Were I on this jury it would take about 10 minutes to acquit Libby. Everybody and their dog knew that Plame worked for the CIA and she was never an undercover agent...just a Langley desk jockey.
With the Libby code I have found a bit about Larry Johnson but its still not complete:
"Larry Johnson eats...."
I cant figure out the rest but Im working on it...
No, you're thinking of when he was the stand-in for the absent Ambassador to Iraq during the lead-up to Gulf War I. He did later close out his brilliant diplomatic career as the US Ambassador to....... Gabon, a noted center of great international events and historic significance.
So he does get to claim the title "Ambassador" even if he never quite attained his coveted role of US Ambassador to Vichy France.
bttt
The only case in that courtroom was a case of BDS.
Case Closed
By The Editors
We have long argued that perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges against Lewis Libby should never have been brought. Now, we’ve had a chance to watch Libby’s trial, to hear the witnesses, to see the evidence. And after all that, our conclusion is: This is a case that should never have been brought.
CIA-leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald alleges Libby lied when he told a grand jury that he originally learned about the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson from Vice President Dick Cheney, then forgot it amid the press of other work, and then was surprised to hear about it during a conversation with NBC’s Tim Russert. To prove his case, Fitzgerald called a series of witnesses to challenge Libby’s memory by testifying that they told him, or talked to him, about Mrs. Wilson.
But many of those witnesses had memory problems of their own. There was Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter, who testified that Libby told her about Mrs. Wilson during a meeting on June 23, 2003. Miller had a very clear memory of the meeting, telling the jury that Libby “appeared to me to be agitated and frustrated and angry.” It might have been powerful testimony, except that defense lawyers pointed out that when Miller first testified before the grand jury, she completely forgot about that supposedly critical June 23 meeting. It was only after she discovered a shopping bag full of notebooks under her desk at the Times that she saw some old notes and remembered the meeting. She went back to the grand jury and changed her story.
Then there was Robert Grenier, the former top CIA official who testified that he told Libby about Mrs. Wilson on June 11, 2003. But when Grenier originally testified before the grand jury, he couldn’t remember what he had told Libby. It was only a year later, Grenier testified, when reading newspaper accounts of the case, that he had a “growing” recollection that he in fact told Libby about Valerie Plame Wilson. He went back to the grand jury and changed his story. “Does your memory improve with time?” defense lawyer William Jeffress asked mockingly.
And then there was the star prosecution witness, NBC’s Tim Russert. Russert stuck to his story — that he never told Libby about Mrs. Wilson — but the defense team challenged his account by pointing to a document written by an FBI agent after an early interview with Russert. “Russert does not recall stating to Libby, in this conversation, anything about the wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson,” the agent wrote, but Russert “could not completely rule out the possibility that he had such an exchange.” At trial, that doubt was gone — another memory that improved over time, the defense suggested.
By the end, it was clear that Fitzgerald’s case was based on he-said, she-said testimony from witnesses who suffered the same kind of faulty memories that Libby claims. And that’s before one considers that Libby wasn’t even the source of the celebrated CIA leak; the original leaker was, of course, former top State Department official Richard Armitage. That’s also before one considers that Fitzgerald was unable to charge anyone, Libby included, with any underlying crime in the case.
Is this any basis for five felony charges that could send Libby to jail for a maximum of 30 years? The answer is emphatically “No.” We’ve now seen Fitzgerald’s best evidence, and we’re more certain than ever: This is a case that should never have been brought.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWUxYThiOGMwNTQ1ZjljNWJhM2JiOTkwY2FiMGI2MGQ=
OK. Thanks for the correction and setting the record straight.
Libby's not on trial for leaking the Plame info, he's on trial for lying to the grand jury.
As to the improper reference in his closing arguments to things not in evidence--By DOJ's OPR standards, Fitz has engaged in more unethical conduct. Anyone who wishes to point this out to the Dept can write to US Dept of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Wash D.C. 20530.
"1. Improper Closing Argument. A court of appeals criticized a DOJ attorney for referring to in closing argument and displaying to the jury a photograph that had not been admitted into evidence. OPR conducted an investigation and concluded that the DOJ attorney engaged in professional misconduct. OPR found that the attorney acted in reckless disregard of the fundamental rule that argument must be confined to the facts in evidence. OPR found further that the attorney's reference to the photograph constituted impermissible vouching for the credibility of a government witness. No discipline was imposed because the attorney was no longer employed by the Department"
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:dWsWkmPR-0cJ:www.usdoj.gov/opr/annualreport2000.htm+DOJ+Regs+Closing+Arguments&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us
Maybe you should tell Fitz that.
I only know there was a sidebar (sound blocked) and that the Judge then indicated Fitz had overstepped and issued yet another admonition to the jury.
(1) He made a repesentation about Rove's testimoy which was not in evidence
(2) He mischaracterized Shmall's testimony and made improper suggestions about Plame's status and "outing"
(3) He politicized the case, making references to Cheney and Bush not in evidence and which like (2) he'd blocked the defense from contesting at trial.
(4) He made claims about Wilson which were not only untrue but as well were false.
It was an outrageous, unethical performance.
This trial is about what again?
Remember the defense was not allowed to enter evidence based on the charge yet this is okay? All it got was a second admonition to the jury re: Fitz.
Get the freaking piece of SCUM off my screen!
Agreed. It looks more like the face of a complete incompetent who got in way over his head, wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on the investigation of a "crime" that never happened, and then found himself having to justify his pathetic charade by taking the "low-lying fruit" of a prerjury indictment of a lower level player.
Fitzgerald is a disgrace.
I guess I should say "NO" verdict!
My pool entry:
Verdict reached@ 1435Hrs Eastern time 22 Feb - NOT GUILTY!
Did you hear Don Imus on radio this morning. The invective rivaled Matthews saliva.
Them come in after noon tomorrow. Guilty, I fear.
what did Imus say ??????
Woofie, have you been digging in DUs' garden again?
He is on trial for forgetting less than Russsert fogot, and both testified to.
I would hate to see what the makeup of a Washington D.C. Jury would look like.
Some say it's partly bad blood between Libby & Fitz. Libby was Marc Rich's lawyer & Fitz was trying to get Rich prosecuted.
He was calling Libby a GD liar, with many expletives interspersed. Pretty disgusting comments.
Fitzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Real job? He isn't fit for trash pick-up in our local parks.
the day before he called David Gregory a liar too. Imus said that if Russert is lieing then the whole NBC bunch are covering his rotund butt.
Now today, he defends that same ass
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