Free Republic

*snip* Memory can be unreliable, and misstatements can happen despite pure intentions. It's only fair game to point this out. So say Valerie Plame Wilson, former CIA case manager and Vanity Fair cover girl, and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, former ambassador to Gabon and extravagant self-promoter. Too bad the Wilsons, a power-mad federal prosecutor, an officious federal judge, a confused jury and a badly misled president wouldn't apply those same common-sense considerations to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, wrongly convicted of perjury in the case stemming from State Department official Richard Armitage's public identification of Mrs. Wilson as a...

In a move that has keenly disappointed some of his strongest conservative allies, President Bush has decided not to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case, two White House officials said Monday. On Bush's last full day as president, Bush did commute the sentence of two former Border Patrol agents—Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos—for shooting a Mexican drug dealer and then lying about it. But White House press spokesman Tony Fratto told NEWSWEEK "you should not expect any more" pardons and commutations from Bush before...

The national obsession with celebrity collided head-on with the more serious issue of the equal application of justice on Friday, as a judge sent the socialite Paris Hilton back to jail some 36 hours after she was released for an unspecified medical problem. Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered Ms. Hilton to serve the rest of her sentence in a county lockup after the city attorney, whose office had prosecuted her, filed a petition asking that the sheriff’s department be held in contempt or explain why it had released her with an ankle monitor on Thursday, after she had served just...

Tomorrow, June 5, after some four years of an unenviable ordeal, I. Lewis Libby, a brilliant man, a dedicated public servant and the father of two young children, will stand in the dock before U.S. District Court judge Reggie Walton to be sentenced for what a jury found constituted perjury, obstruction and false statements to government investigators and a grand jury. Leaving aside, for the purpose of this discussion, the significant flaws in the investigation and trial, the continuing questions about the veracity of the prosecution's witnesses and the thin and contradictory evidence against him, the question now is what...

NEW YORK - Talk about an "instant" book. Within two hours of I. Lewis Libby's conviction Tuesday for lying and obstruction of justice, a publisher announced plans for a paperback release about the trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. "Like the published reports from the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, the CIA leak case warrants a definitive book based upon the Libby trial record," Philip Turner, editorial director of Sterling Publishing's Union Square Press imprint, said in a statement. "The United States v. I. Lewis Libby," which will include testimony and original reporting, will...

Is Everything We Know About Joe Wilson’s Trip to Niger Wrong? New evidence from the Libby trial — evidence Senate investigators never saw — could change the storyline. By Byron York For the last two weeks, a number of Republicans in Washington — in the administration, on Capitol Hill, and in the intelligence community — have been watching closely as the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Lewis Libby unfolds in federal court. In particular, those Republicans have been poring over dozens of documents released as evidence in the case. Much of what they’ve seen is old stuff, things...

A pattern is emerging at the Lewis Libby trial, now in the middle of its third week in the federal courthouse in Washington. The pattern is this: A witness called by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald delivers testimony that seems clearly damaging to Libby, strongly suggesting that Libby lied when he testified before prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury in the CIA-leak affair. And then Libby’s lawyers take over, suggesting that the witness’s memory is so selective, or so flawed, or so sketchy as to render his or her testimony useless. Each day, most news reports from the trial focus on the damage...

Today the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, begins in federal court in Washington. The opening arguments follow a week of wrangling over seating a jury, a fight that went on significantly longer than either prosecution, defense, or judge estimated. And nearly every scuffle in the courtroom, as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and chief defense lawyer Ted Wells argued over each prospective juror’s possible bias, served to emphasize the intensely political nature of the case. Does this potential juror believe Cheney is a liar? Does that one think the Bush administration can’t...

Former vice presidential chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby is finally going on trial - after three years of investigations by a run-amok prosecutor, costing millions of taxpayer dollars - for a case in which, it is now conceded, no crime was committed. And that's the important point to remember, as a who's who of prominent witnesses - including "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert and even Vice President Dick Cheney - testifies at the trial. To repeat: The crime that was ostensibly under investigation never occurred. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had set out to uncover who leaked FBI agent...

This does get a little complicated. First, a holdover, liberal CIA employee, Valerie Plame, decided to undermine President Bush’s policies by pulling strings to get her like-minded husband, Joseph Wilson, sent to Niger to discredit the report from British intelligence that Saddam Hussein tried to purchase yellowcake for nuclear weapons development. (This British report was mentioned by Pres. Bush as one piece of intelligence we relied on in concluding that there was a significant risk of WMD in Iraq. The report turned out to be factual.)

The prosecution of Lewis “Scooter” Libby has drama aplenty, though in its pre-trial phase, the action is visible only to those who carefully dissect the complex and dry language of seemingly-arcane filings with the court. Just before midnight last night Lewis Libby filed a Memo in Reply to the Government’s Response to the Defendant’s Third Motion to Compel Discovery. In what for non-lawyers may generally seem a dry discussion on a dispute about what documents in the government’s possession Fitzgerald must turn over to Libby to assist him in trial preparation, there are a number of blockbusters.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawyers for a former top White House aide charged in the CIA leak investigation said Thursday the prosecutor should surrender a wide range of information about news organizations and their reporters, including The Washington Post's Bob Woodward. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has failed to disclose information that would enable the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, to properly defend himself, his attorneys argued in papers filed with U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says that the ongoing CIA leak investigation will involve proceedings before a new grand jury and that he could seek new charges in the case. Fitzgerald said “the investigation is continuing” and that “the investigation will involve proceedings before a different grand jury than the grand jury which returned the indictment” against Lewis Libby. “We intend to find out who put the ‘bop’ in ‘bop-shoo-bop’ as well as who put the ‘ram’ in ram-a-lamma-ding-dong,’“ said Fitzgerald. “‘Bop’ and ‘ram’ are violent-sounding words. Our theory is that these harsh words are intended as a message to intimidate...

One thing has become crystal clear from the Martha Stewart and the Lewis Libby cases: even if you are not guilty of any crime and even if no crime was committed by anyone, do not answer any questions put to you by a government agent about anything. If you remember events differently from the way other people remember those events, you can be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. I am reasonably intelligent and have a good memory, but sometimes I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. My mind tries to remember important things and to forget trivia. I...

"I think what we see here today, when a vice president's chief of staff is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law. But what we need to also show the world is that we can also apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow the same rules." – Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, Friday, Oct. 28, 2005 Those were stirring words from...

What do these people have in common?: George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, William J. Casey, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, Raymond Donovan, William Frist, Lewis Libby, Robert McFarlane, Oliver North, John M. Poindexter, Karl Rove, Kenneth Tomlinson, Caspar Weinberger. Answer: they are all conservative Republicans who have been accused by the liberal press and/or prosecuted for criminal acts under pressures brought by liberal politicians. All of them have been persecuted by the threat of legal action or by actual indictments for political reasons. None have been found guilty although some have had to go through the expense of an appeal...

The "Ding Dong, the Bush Is Dead" fever rages on, disappointments notwithstanding. Hurricane Katrina was, politically, a wash. And say what you like about Harriet Miers, but at least the disaffected right wrapped the whole thing up in a month. Meanwhile, the left's still panting orgasmically about Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into what Scooter Libby said to Judith Miller about what Valerie Plame knew about what Joseph C. Wilson IV said . . . zzzz . . . fingers growing heavy . . . losing the will to type . . . Most Americans have never heard of any of these...

IF there are indictments of Karl Rove or Lewis Rove, or any administration officials for that matter, it will only be further proof of the defeated democrats strategy of wresting control of the Congress and White House from the Republicans. They’ve proven that since they can’t beat Republicans at the ballot box to regain the Congress, they will use the Courts to make legislation with activists Judges, and now they are using the legal system to remove by force important conservatives from both branches of government, using trumped up charges of vague and ambiguous "crimes" to get back control. If...

"Flame"-gate: With the New York Times' publication on Sunday of a staff article on the Judith Miller saga, as well as a personal account of the tale from Miller herself, the subject of Miller's memory lapse--selective or otherwise?--is on the front burner. According to the Times' staff article: -------- "MS. MILLER SPENT 85 days in jail for refusing to testify and reveal her confidential source, then relented. On Sept. 30, she told the grand jury that her source was I. Lewis Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. But she said he did not reveal Ms. Plame's name. AND WHEN...

WASHINGTON -- After nearly three months behind bars, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released from a federal prison Thursday after agreeing to testify in the investigation into the disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA officer, two people familiar with the case said. Miller left the federal detention center in Alexandria, Va., after reaching an agreement with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Legal sources said she would appear before a grand jury investigating the case Friday morning. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury proceedings. The sources said Miller agreed...