Posted on 07/08/2007 8:18:34 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
`Suspicion' about Libby's commutation
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer 25 minutes ago
The Democrat probing President Bush's decision to erase the prison sentence of a former White House aide said Sunday there is "the suspicion" the aide might have fingered others in the Bush administration if he served time.
The House Judiciary Committee chairman spoke of "the general impression" that Bush last week commuted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2 1/2 year sentence in the CIA leak case to keep Libby quiet. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has scheduled a committee hearing Wednesday on the matter.
Bush contended Libby's sentence was too harsh. Libby was convicted of lying and obstructing justice in an investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity. The former operative said the White House was trying to discredit her husband, a critic of Bush's Iraq policy.
Conyers said the hearings would include pardons made by President Clinton, the first President Bush and possibly other past presidents. In the closing hours of his presidency, Clinton pardoned 140 people, including fugitive financier Marc Rich.
"What we have here — and I think we should put it on the table right at the beginning — is that the suspicion was that if Mr. Libby went to prison, he might further implicate other people in the White House, and that there was some kind of relationship here that does not exist in any of President Clinton's pardons, nor, according to those that we've talked to ... is that it's never existed before, ever," Conyers said in a broadcast interview Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Conyers is a grandstanding fool.
Contrary to Politically Corrupt Media’s overly emotional, ignorant hand wringing, our Founders never assumed the Jury or a Court to be the end all, be all, arbitrators of Justice. That why they set up a Constitutional Republic with a carefully thought out systems of checks and balances instead of a Direct Democracy subject to the emotion based whimsy’s of patisan whores like this author.
This rigged jury is EXACTLY why the Presidential Pardon powers were put into the US Constitution. The Founders realized that Justice can be perverted by a Jury or a Judge. Thus they gave the President the power to over rule the verdict of a court. A completely appropriate use of the Presidential powers.
The Founders would of applauded this President for his wise use of the power. Unlike the former President who dished out pardons to big dollar campaign contributors, sexual partners and their hangers ons, this President, after several months of careful consideration of the facts, used it to thwart a transparently partisan political persecution.
If Libby had gone to jail, he would have been a political prisoner.
I have it from unimpeachable sources that Libby was going to finger Conyers as the leaker...
or sandy burglar
300 investigatinons in 100 days! What a deal! -- for radical Muslims.
"They've launched over 300 investigations, had over 350 requests for documents and interviews and they have had over 600 oversight hearings in just about 100 days," says White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.
"Hot damn!" says Rat leader. "Another war time administration to slam! Bring it all down, man!"
Not to sound like a Thinker instead of a dumb downed person but if Libby “fingered” someone, don’t you have to do that before you’re given a jail sentence?
I could see sending Libbey to jail for 30 months, AFTER Sandy Berger got sentenced and sent away for 3000 months!
A minor quibble because I'm seeing more and more of this misuse. Other than that, you're dead right.
Or after Clinton was hung for treason — both of them.
So?
Well, Libby didn't have to buy a commutation. Plus he's still on the hook for a $200K fine, unless his appeal is successful.
Clinton did all his dirty work pardoning in the dark on his last day in office. He could have done it earlier, and enjoyed eight years of praise for his "courage".
On the other hand, I'm sure the rates were confiscatory for his now-or-never pardons. The supply was going to dry up, so demand increased the going rates.
That’s what I was thinking. Conyers is a moron. You cut a deal before you are sentenced, not after.
LOL. Liberals need to get over it!
*I* would go to jail for 30 months to see treasonous people be brought to full account!
He already paid the $250K fine, and it's essentially nonrefundable. It would take an act of Congress to get it back, I think, and you know such a thing would never pass.
Certainly agree that being forced to pay the fine and lose his law license is more than enough to get him talk if he so desires. Plus the president's statement was not very kind toward him.
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