Thread: U.S. v. Libby

'scooter' libby was dick cheney's chief of staff.
valerie plame was an undercover CIA agent whose cover was blown in journalist robert novak's column. Plame is married to joseph wilson.

U.S. v. Libby boils down to two drastically different versions of the same events in the spring and summer of 2003. The government alleges that Libby was involved in a concerted White House effort to discredit Plame's husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting information he provided on Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Wilson led a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger a year earlier and found no grounds for claims that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium there.
Eight days after Wilson went public with his claims, Plame's identity as a CIA officer appeared in Novak's column.

WP: Many in the hot seat at Libby trial - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

"When Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff goes on trial Tuesday on charges of lying about the disclosure of a CIA officer's identity, members of Washington's government and media elite will be answering some embarrassing questions as well."I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby's case will put on display the secret strategizing of an administration that cherry-picked information to justify war in Iraq and reporters who traded freely in gossip and protected their own interests as they worked on one of the big Washington stories of 2003. . . .
"Randall D. Eliason, a former chief of public corruption cases in the U.S. Attorney's Office, said the evidence appears to make it difficult for Libby to claim forgetfulness. 'You have the vice president cutting out a section of the newspaper, circling it and saying, 'Let's find out about this.' You don't rise to the level of being the vice president's chief of staff by letting that kind of thing slip your mind.'"

washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines

"His defense is a novel one: that he was so preoccupied with life-or-death affairs of state that it affected his ability to accurately recall events for federal investigators."Prosecutors have a simpler explanation: He lied. . . .
"At a time when most high-profile Washington criminal defendants cop pleas to avoid the glare of the courtroom, the case should provide a rare display of political theater, a throwback to the days of Watergate and the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal, which played out in the same federal courthouse where Libby's fate will be decided.
"The politically charged case against Libby may be the closest thing that critics of the Bush administration ever get to a public trial dealing with the justifications for the Iraq war."

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yesterday, potential jurors were asked...

"'Do any of you have any feelings or opinions about Vice President Cheney, whether positive or negative, that might affect your ability to be fair in this case or that might affect your ability to fairly judge Vice President Cheney's believability?'

"The answers will be crucial for Libby, who is hoping that a sympathetic jury can be selected from a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 9-to-1."

Jury selection begins in CIA leak trial - Yahoo! News


during a time of 'war', the white house is alleged to have outed an undercover CIA operative. and for those on this board who will undoubtedly repeat the fauxnews talking points that she wasn't undercover....don't waste your time (or more importantly, mine), because you're wrong.

well it's no secret that Cheney was the one who had the idea of the leak. The actual leak was done by Libby, but wouldn't Cheney be as guilty ?

it's too bad cheney wasn't named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Big deal.
Y'all wanna throw someone in the slammer for malfeasence and just generally being a crook? How about Sandy Burgler and the purloined National Archive stuff he ripped off to protect Clinton from further embarrasment re. letting bin laden get away, eh?...

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Big deal.
Y'all wanna throw someone in the slammer for malfeasence and just generally being a crook? How about Sandy Burgler and the purloined National Archive stuff he ripped off to protect Clinton from further embarrasment re. letting bin laden get away, eh?...

Are you saying 'two wrong make a right'

or that both Libby and Sandy 'Burglar' should be thrown in the slammer?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Big deal.

1. GWB says the US is at war
2. plame was an undercover CIA officer
3. the vice president's chief of staff leaked her name because her husband was questioning what proved to be false information.

and your response...

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Big deal.

why do you hate america?

Clinton was not a coward traitor like Cheney and Libbie, so there is no point in comparing them

It was Mr. Libby who helped assemble a dossier on Saddam Hussein and unconventional weapons and ties to Al Qaeda for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, fighting to keep in the speech evidence that Mr. Powell found questionable. It was Mr. Libby, at Mr. Cheney’s direction, who repeatedly spoke to reporters to rebut Joseph C. Wilson IV after Mr. Wilson, a former ambassador, publicly accused the White House of distorting intelligence.

As Trial Begins, Cheney’s Ex-Aide Is Still a Puzzle - New York Times

If you can't defend the guy in power now then bring up something unrelated and irrelevent about someone in power before.

Originally Posted by raycarey

plame was an undercover CIA officer

She was as about 'undercover' as Monica Lewinsky...
A desk jockey was all she was - this is a trumped-up charge due to a lot of reasons. Mostly because of the extreme BDS that pervades Washington...

Libby isn't being charged with the leak. He's being charged with several felonies related to hindering the investigation. Just because someone else isn't charged in the leak doesn't get Libby off the hook.

Originally Posted by attaboy

"Scooter" Libby, is awaiting trial for allegedly obstructing justice.

^I'm not saying it does. He must face the charges. It makes me wonder if Armitage had been allowed to come forth as he wished if there would have been any charges against anyone? Ray and BF posted Libby's on trial for being the leak. As I say it's all partisan trolling with them. Perhaps their forum could be nicknamed the SubPar Forum.

What Libby knew or didn't know or what Armitage did or didn't do isn't relevant to Libby attempting to thwart the investigation as charged.

Obstruction of Justice: the crime of interfering with an investigation by a person who is not a suspect of the crime...whether through destroying evidence, lying, a false alibi to support the suspect, or to hide their own activities from the investigation.

Perhaps if Libby had told the truth or been cooperative then none of the charges would be pending.

I can't imagine how Armitage's ability or inability to come forward would have given Libby the ability to suddenly cooperate or tell the truth.

Originally Posted by attaboy

I ask that this topic be moved to the troll forum. It's a clear troll. That's where it belongs.

explain to me how the the vice president's chief of staff's obstruction of justice trial is not worthy of the US issues subforum on TD?

just because it's not on fauxnews doesn't mean it isn't news...or worth discussing.

if you want to do your part, you could donate to his legal defense trust...

Libby Legal Defense Trust

I personally don't think it's a very important issue (despite my general dislike for Bush-Cheney at this point).

now it isn't.

but four years ago when the administration was cherry picking intelligence and hammering down anyone who dared express doubt, this was important.

if blix had been listened to about WMD and wilson about the enriched uranium from niger, then the invasion possibly could have been prevented.....and 100,000 iraqis wouldn't be dead, 3000 american kids wouldn't be dead, 20,000 wouldn't be wounded, and the US treasury wouldn't be short $500,000,000,000

but these boys took care of that.....blix was demonized and wilson's character assailed.

because the truth wasn't able to get out, this is where the US finds itself.

In the grand scheme of what is so wrong with the Bush administration and the past 6 years it just isn't that important, then, or now.

Bush and Cheney were going into Iraq no matter what. 9-11 handed it to them on a silver platter. It doesn't matter about Libby, Armitage, Wilson, Plame, or Blix. Those are just crumbs compared to the larger issues.

3. the vice president's chief of staff leaked her name because her husband was questioning what proved to be false information.

You're a partisan. The article states he is on trial for obstructing the investigation yet you and BF go on about him being the leak. Am I giving you both too much credit by saying it's a troll on your parts? You actually didn't know he wasn't the leaker?


surasak- It depends on whether Libby lied before or after Armitage admitted he was the leaker. Theorectically, the investigation could have wrapped up and perhaps there would not have been the specific interviews in which Libby felt the need to lie.

Whether is was Bush or a future administration I think you are right. The US, after the first Gulf War, had Saddam on a short lease and ready to be used at a time of their choosing.

simply because fitzgerald wasn't able to charge libby with leaking doesn't prevent me from thinking that he did.

Days after Novak's initial column appeared, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine published Plame's name citing unnamed government officials as sources. In his article, entitled "A War on Wilson?", Cooper raises the possibility that the White House has "declared war" on Wilson for speaking out against the Bush Administration.[53] The names of Cooper's sources, later revealed as a result of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's investigation, are Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.[54]

Plame affair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Originally Posted by attaboy

surasak- It depends on whether Libby lied before or after Armitage admitted he was the leaker. Theorectically, the investigation could have wrapped up and perhaps there would not have been the specific interviews in which Libby felt the need to lie.

Whether is was Bush or a future administration I think you are right. The US, after the first Gulf War, had Saddam on a short lease and ready to be used at a time of their choosing.

Theoretically Libby could have just cooperated. If he was afraid he could have gotten immunity, or, simply pleaded the 5th. Anyways, doesn't matter, a rather small fry in the larger food chain.

Re: Saddam on a short leash: Maybe keeping him around as an excuse to invade when the time was right and nobody was looking.

If we had a sane energy policy then none of this would be necessary. It's disgusting that we fail so miserably in this regard.

This case is going to go the way of the Duke 'rape' case where Mike Nifong hs folded his tent...

former bush press sec. ari fleischer testified at libby's trial yesterday.

Though a series of government officials have told the jury that Libby eagerly sought information about a prominent critic of the Iraq war, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, Fleischer was the first witness to say Libby then passed on what he learned: that Wilson's wife was a CIA officer who had sent him on a trip to Africa. Wilson's mission there was to explore reports, ultimately proved false, that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material in Niger.
Fleischer, testifying under an immunity agreement with the prosecution, also made it clear that Libby had told him Wilson's wife held a position in the CIA's counterproliferation division, where most employees work in a covert capacity.

Fleischer testified that, later on the day of his lunch with Libby, he and other top aides left with President Bush on a five-day trip to several African nations. He said that while he was on Air Force 1 between South Africa and Uganda, he overheard Dan Bartlett, at the time Bush's communications director and now counselor to the president, "vent" about news accounts that Cheney had requested Wilson's mission.
Fleischer said that he decided to tell two reporters, NBC's David Gregory and Time magazine's John Dickerson, as they were walking along a road in Uganda: "If you want to know who sent the ambassador to Niger, it was his wife; she works there" -- a reference to the CIA.

Former Press Secretary Says Libby Told Him of Plame - washingtonpost.com