You don't say? Wow. What a shock that piece of news is. The fall guy, though, for whom?The jurors who huddled around two pushed-together conference tables for 10 days, meticulously filling 34 pages of facts from the trial on a large flip chart, believed that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff had been "pilloried" for a CIA leak that other top White House aides had committed along with him, according to one member of the panel.
"We're not saying that we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of," said the juror, Denis Collins. "But it seemed like he was . . . the fall guy."
More than three years ago, President Bush promised not to allow this type of leaking to go on in his White House.During the jury's days of methodical deliberations, "it was said a number of times, 'What are we doing with this guy here?' " Collins told reporters on the steps outside the federal courthouse. "Where's Rove, where's -- you know, where are these other guys?" Collins said, referring to Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, and Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy chief of staff who testimony showed had been the first person to leak Plame's name.
Moreover, Collins said, jurors believed that Libby had been carrying out a directive by his immediate boss, Cheney, to "go out and talk to reporters" to tarnish Wilson's reputation. But Collins said jurors stopped short of discussing whether the vice president specifically urged Libby to tell journalists about Plame's CIA job.
"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Ilinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of. "Here's your chance, Mr. President. For once, make your words mean something.
6 comments:
Like the Libby juror says: where's Karl?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDaRFf7Cd6M
...Very funny. Ask your students what video it's based on. (Hint: Eminem).
A U.S. administration choosing a fall guy for failed politics isn't new, per se. It's one of the pony tricks politicos like to us to divert attention from the real issue, which is pre-war intelligence. Libby lied. Cheney lied. Bush lied.
Ambassador Wilson told the truth.
What is most disheartening, however, is the lack of interest from Americans. This is a historical event, yet our young people care more about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
I guess elitist’s plan for the dumbing down of America in order to eliminate free thought is really working./Mary Rose
looks like you got the facts wrong. armitage was the leaker. robert novak reported this to p. fitzgerald early in the investigation. libby was convicted on a procedural crime. he wasn't convicted because he was a leaker. plame wasn't even an undercover agent for the cia for the past four years. a bi-partisan committee found that wilson lied about his findings. this whole trial was absurd and a low point for american justice. it is quite alarming on how many of the claims you make in your post are outright falsehoods. as much as i don't like bush i cannot agree with any of this post.
"looks like you got the facts wrong. armitage was the leaker."
Did anyone say anywhere that Armitage was not the initial leaker?
"libby was convicted on a procedural crime."
Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE Hardly a "procedural crime." He willfully lied to obstruct a Federal investigation. Why would he obstruct a Federal investigation? I suggest to you that it was not to protect the second-in-command at the State Department, a man to whom he owed no political or personal loyalties, and about whom he had no knowledge of having leaked Plame's name.
No, he was protecting someone much closer. You figure out whom.
"a bi-partisan committee found that wilson lied about his findings."
The way you word this gives you away as a habitual listener to Rush, and a reader of e-rags like Powerline, Captain's Quarters, Command Post, etc. "Bi-partisan committee?" Well, nominally, yes. But for the record the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1984 was chaired and dominated by Republicans. You don't think that matters? Take a look at the Senate Ethics committee at the same time.
And it is YOU who is playing fast and loose with the facts, not me. Again, it is the right-wing nutters who looked at the report of the Senate Committee on Intelligence on the Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments of Iraq (click link to read the entire 500 page report) and decided that the report says Wilson "lied."
Read it. It says no such thing. And it does not question in the least the conclusions Wilson came to about Niger's reported sales of yellowcake uranium to Iraq: it was extremely unlikely, and there was no evidence that it happened.
What questions it raises are about Wilson's impartiality. For instance, it raises the possibility (since contradicted by the CIA DO at the time) that Wilson was "sent" by his wife. It also questions Wilson's mention of the forged documents (created by Italian intelligence) that he probably should not have been able to know about. The implication is, again, that his wife gave him this information.
But there is absolutely no question in the report about Wilson's conclusions. And there is not the slightest suggestion that Wilson lied about anything. Read it for yourself. Don't trust Rush to tell you the truth.
Finally, whether you want to believe it or not, Valerie Plame was under cover. In fact, she was under deep cover. She was operating undert what is called "non-official cover." She was a spy!!! Most CIA agents working overseas work under official cover, i.e., as part of their diplomatic posting, or foreign service, etc.
Valerie Plame (and others who were jeopardized by her outing by the Bush administration) worked for a corporation -- "Brewster-Jennings" -- that did not exist. It was a covert front for the CIA. It took years to get people overseas (bad guys) to accept the validity of Brewster-Jennings and its "employees."
This irresponsible leak destryed all that work and jeopardized the lives of other NOCs who still worked for "Brewster-Jennings."
The fact that Plame was an inactive NOC at the time of her outing doesn't change the consequences of the act.
I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself for defending it.
As for your criticisms of me and IN THE DARK ("it is quite alarming on how many of the claims you make in your post are outright falsehoods."), well, I stand by my posts. I clearly label my opinion. I don't make assertions I have no evidence for.
You are the one who is guilty of that offence.
if you agree that armitage was the leaker than i don't know why we are even having this conversation. if the fitz would have stopped his investigation of who leaked the name of the cia employee when he found out about it on the first day of the investigation then libby would be fine. in stead he got caught up in a he said she said bullshit trial.
in the end the wilson's get a movie deal, vanity fair article, and 2.5 million book deal. doesn't that make you proud to be an american.
As Ronald Reagan would say, "Well, there you go again!"
If Fitzgerald had found out on the first day that Armitage was the leaker (which he didn't), would that have answered the question? Was he looking for a single leaker? How would he know?
This is not how criminal investigations are run.
A "he said she said bullshit trial?" Look. Libby committed perjury and obstructed justice. OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE. This is not "he said she said bullshit." This is a serious crime.
I'm going to guess you are very young. I'm going to guess you were not around during the Nixon administration. I'm going to guess further that you gravitate toward political points of view (right-wing) that say, "Oh, Watergate was a witchhunt by the liberal media." Perhaps, as George W. Bush is reputed to have said, you too believe the US Constitution is just "that goddamned piece of paper."
There have been a lot of crimes committed in the last five years. You may be happy with that. Most Americans are not.
I count myself among them.
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