Posted on 06/14/2007 11:34:16 AM PDT by SkyPilot
WASHINGTON - A federal judge said Thursday he will not delay a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the CIA leak case, a ruling that could send the former White House aide to prison within weeks.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton's decision will send Libby's attorneys rushing to an appeals court to block the sentence and could force President Bush to consider calls from Libby's supporters to pardon the former aide.
No date was set for Libby to report to prison but it's expected to be within six to eight weeks. That will be left up to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which will also select a facility.
"Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report," Walton said.
Libby's wife, Harriet Grant, wiped tears away from her eyes but Libby was stoic as Walton ruled.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted in March of lying to investigators and obstructing Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's inquiry into the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity.
Libby's supporters have called for President Bush to wipe away Libby's convictions. Bush publicly has sidestepped pardon questions, saying he wants to let the legal case play out. A delay would give Bush more time to consider the requests.
"Scooter Libby still has the right to appeal, and therefore the president will continue not to intervene in the judicial process," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "The president feels terribly for Scooter, his wife and their young children, and all that they're going through."
Libby thanked federal marshals but did not take questions from reporters as he left the courthouse with his wife and lawyers. Fitzgerald also left without commenting.
Walton never appeared to waver from his opinion that a delay was unwarranted. After 12 prominent law professors filed documents supporting Libby's request, the judge waved it off as "not something I would expect from a first-year in law school."
He also said he received several "angry, harassing, mean-spirited" letters and phone calls following his sentencing but said they wouldn't factor into his decision.
Libby is the highest ranking government official ordered to prison since the Iran Contra affair. His monthlong trial offered a rare glimpse into the White House in the early days of the Iraq war.
Trial testimony showed that Cheney was eager to beat back criticism of prewar intelligence. One of the administration's most outspoken critics in mid-2003 was former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Amid a flury of news coverage of that criticism, Bush administration officials leaked to reporters that fact that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked as an undercover analyst for CIA. That disclosure in a syndicated newspaper column touched off a leak investigation that brought senior White House officials, including Bush and Cheney, in for questioning.
Libby argued he had a good chance of persuading an appeals court that, when Attorney General John Ashcroft and other senior Justice Department officials recused themselves from the leak investigation, they gave Fitzgerald unconstitutional and unchecked authority.
Walton was skeptical, saying the alternative was to put someone with White House ties in charge of an investigation into the highest levels of the Bush administration.
"If that's going to be how we have to operate, our system is going to be in serious trouble with the average Joe on the street who thinks the system is unfair already," Walton said.
Libby's newly formed appellate team — Lawrence S. Robbins and Mark Stancil — will seek an emergency order delaying the sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is not sitting right now, however, and attorneys worried about how fast the request would be heard.
The appeals court has several conservative jurists, but that doesn't necessarily mean Libby will get a pass. Walton is a Republican judge whom Bush put on the bench in his first term.
They are going to jail Libby during the appeal process, so that plan sucks.
Bring on a pardon.
From the Wall Street Journal, last January:
As it happens, Messrs. Fitzgerald and Libby had crossed legal paths before. Before he joined the Bush Administration, Mr. Libby had, for a number of years in the 1980s and 1990s, been a lawyer for Marc Rich. Mr. Rich is the oil trader and financier who fled to Switzerland in 1983, just ahead of his indictment for tax-evasion by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bill Clinton pardoned Mr. Rich in 2001, and so the feds never did get their man. The pardon so infuriated Justice lawyers who had worked on the case that the Southern District promptly launched an investigation into whether the pardon had been "proper." One former prosecutor we spoke to described the Rich case as "the single most rancorous case in the history of the Southern District."SourceTwo of the prosecutors who worked on the Rich case over the years were none other than Mr. Fitzgerald and James Comey, who while Deputy Attorney General appointed Mr. Fitzgerald to investigate the Plame leak. Mr. Fitzgerald worked in the Southern District for five years starting in 1988, at the same time that Mr. Libby was developing a legal theory of Mr. Rich's innocence in a bid to get the charges dropped. The prosecutors never did accept the argument, but Leonard Garment, who brought Mr. Libby onto the case in 1985, says that he believes Mr. Libby's legal work helped set the stage for Mr. Rich's eventual pardon.
This was all long ago, it's true. But Mr. Libby and Mr. Comey tangled more recently as well. In 2004, as Mr. Fitzgerald was gearing up his investigation, Mr. Libby was the Administration's point man in trying to get Justice to sign off on the NSA wiretapping program. In early 2004, Mr. Comey was acting Attorney General while John Ashcroft recovered from gall bladder surgery, and Mr. Comey reportedly refused to give the NSA program the greenlight, prompting the White House to seek out Mr. Ashcroft in the hospital in a bid to circumvent Mr. Comey.
Motive is a difficult thing to gauge. We don't know whether this long personal history played any role either in Mr. Fitzgerald's single-minded pursuit of Mr. Libby, or in Mr. Comey's decision to grant the prosecutor plenary power even though the central mystery of the case had already been resolved. But connecting the dots linking the three men at the heart of this case seems worth doing given the puzzling nature of this prosecution.
Libby had represented Rich in the tax case from 1985 until the spring of 2000.
not during the trial IIRC
The fact that this decision came down during the North Carolina Bar trial of Nifong is very interesting. Nifong certainly looks like he knowingly did a lot of horribly wrong and unjust things in prosecuting the three Duke lacrosse players. I no longer believe that members of our judicial system are usually honest, even if they have different beliefs from mine.
Having an agenda when supposedly reporting the news is bad enough, but to have an agenda from the bench is worse.
I only skimmed the article, but I did NOT see the name ARMITAGE ANYWHERE in the article. To this day, the liberal lieing propagandists called “media” continue to cover for the good pal Colin Powell and his deputy Richard. Disgusting/disgraceful.
Let the appeals process move forward, if the case is not heard prior to Libby having to go to jail, I expect the President will issue a respite or commutation or something. For the time being however, let Team Libby handle it through the courts.
Walton’s decision making skills need a serious review. His statements today can only lead one to believe that he just does not have a clue. He is in Fitzy’s pocket big time.
Didn’t Marc Rich get a pardon from BJC while he was on the lamb?
“Perjury in the investigation of no crime?”
What a great description of this whole Libby fiasco!
Anyway, that is what Bush ought to do, immediately.
This needs to be repeated again and again.
This is appalling behavior from the judge on many levels.
I hope his whole case and sentence is thrown out.
The Constitution gives presidents the power to grant “reprieves and pardons.” The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted that language to include pardons, conditional pardons, commutations of sentence, conditional commutations of sentence, remissions of fines, as well as forfeitures, reprieves, respites, and amnesties. A respite delays the execution of a sentence. It does not address issues of due process or guilt or innocence. It merely suspends sentence for a designated period of time. George Washington granted the first respites in June, 1795, when he delayed the execution of two men who fought in the Whiskey Rebellion — both of whom were eventually pardoned.
The typical respite lasts between 30 and 90 days. But many times, initial grants have been followed by a second and third respite, or as many additional respites as were necessary. Woodrow Wilson delayed the six-and-a-half-year prison sentences of two men with nine respites because an “investigation of the facts” had taken “considerable time” — 13 months to be exact. Wilson also delayed the five-year sentences of W.G. and S.G. Simpson with three respites before pardoning them. The men were described as “guilty,” but it was noted they had made a “strong showing” that they had not intended to commit a crime. Howard Showalter lost his appeals, but his five-year sentence was delayed by Wilson for eight months before a pardon was granted over the strenuous objections of the judge and U.S. attorney. Robert Sidebotham’s 13-month sentence was delayed for over a year (with eight respites) because Wilson concluded it was “doubtful” Sidebotham “realized he was violating the law.” A pardon followed. There is, in short, a long history to the use of the respite.
“Blitzer got all pi$$ed off and tried to cut Rudy off for stating the facts and the truth about the case. It was the first time I saw Rudy in a positive ligh”
Dittos on that... Wolfie the fool forgot he was asking a former DoJ prosecutor about his field of expertise.
No - you are absolutely right. Here is how the wacko MSM interprets "highest."
Even though Hubbell was Deputy AG - they figure that Libby worked for Vice President Cheney.....so......the VP is "higher" than the AG .......right?
Remember, you are dealing with Journalism majors. They couldn't pass basic math or science in high school - so they wrote for the school newspaper.
So says - you.
Until and unless an appellate court orders otherwise, Libby has received due process in the prosecution of this case.
Ah yes - we must listen to the "legal gods." I hope I bow down low enough to give them proper homage as their thunder and lightning emits from the mountain as well.
That being the case, the decision of the jury and the court’s sentence should be respected
Just like we all "respect" the OJ verdict.....
Thanks - your link and research fills in many holes as to why Fitzfong had such an agenda.
You mean the holy jury that had the former Washington Post journalist (who was personal friends with both Tim Russert and Bob Woodward) and the other Democrats on it.
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