Scooter Libby found guilty on 4 of 5 counts

Who's "Scotter?"

 

He'll find his other "o" in the joint.

 

An out-of-control prosecutor gets a politically motivated jury pool and executes a perfect miscarriage of justice with a misuse of the criminal justice system. If there's such a thing as karma, I hope those of you celebrating this verdict soon have overzealous prosecutors in your life, too.

Where were the charges against Armitage? Oh, yeah, he doesn't like Bush and the left likes him. Carry on.

Some interesting quotes from former Al Gore lawyer David Boies:

“Whether or not she was covert, I think that’s an open question. But I think the prosecutors did understand early on that there was not an underlying crime here. From the outside, that’s the way it looks. And under those circumstances, I think it’s very troubling to use the criminal justice system to proceed in what is essentially a political case.”

And ...

“People can’t remember everything. Now people have to tell the truth in front of a grand jury. That’s very important. And if you’re conducting an investigation where you really need to get people’s testimony and they lie, they need to get prosecuted. Even if you ultimately conclude that there was no underlying crime. But that’s not really the situation here as I see it because from the outside it looks like the prosecutor knew before some of this testimony was taken that there was an underlying crime. And then to go forward and try to get people to maybe slip up and make a mistake so you can bring a perjury or obstruction charge, I think that is what’s troubling here.”

 

Ho, ho, ho.
A politically motivated REPUBLICAN prosecutor takes time out from putting the Daley machine in Chicago through a wringer in order to put the first dent in a criminal conspiracy to start a war of choice and all that's left is to whine aboiut the jury pool?
I will assert this once and let the trolls fling their poop -- the reason there was no underlying charge here is because all the crimes for which Scooter has been convicted involved making sure nobody would find out about the underlying crimes. Those quotes from David Boies seem to have been in the refrigerator for some time, I'm guessing. Plame was a NOC covert agent working on WMD's in Iran. Everybody knew that, as has come out in the trial.
Woo freaking hoo.
UPDATE -- I was right. Boies quotes from October of 2005. Google David Boies Valerie Plame and amaze your friends!
(Boies also says he doesn't think they'll be a trial.)

 

The Boies quotes were from tonight on Hannity and Colmes.

The investigation should have stopped when Fitzgerald found out that Armitage was the source for Novak's column and there was no crime. Problem is, he pressed forward and the mis-statements and lapses in memory Libby was convicted of came AFTER Fitzgerald already knew that Armitage was the source.

As for the trial, why did Fitzgerald, in jury selection, seek jurors who were against the administration. And in his closing arguments, why did he play on the jury's heartstrings and anti-war sentiment. The trial was about Libby and whether or not he outed Plame or obstructed the investigation. Since he didn't out Plame and didn't know that Armitage did, he never should have even been charged.

It's very much the Martha Stewart case all over again. Many, many folks, including journalists such as Tim Russert, had faulty memories in their testimony during the investigation. Libby was the only one who was part of the administration. You can call Fitzgerald a REPUBLICAN if you want, Fenian, but his actions in this case were a disgrace to prosecutors. He ranks right up there with Nifong now.

 

Armitage was A source. Not THE source.
I will wait on the H&C transcript until tomorrow but if this is the Hannity spin on this, it's fucking hilarious, if only because I can recall how a failed land-deal in Arkansas somehow got to a conspiracy to conceal blowjobs in the White House, and that was with a completely partisan prosetctor who leaked like a sieve. Libby was part of a political effort from within the White House to use Valerie Plame's job to crack down on her husband as a part of an effort to conceal the ginned-up intel behind the Iraq war. This all came out at the trial. Oh, and he did obstruct the investigation. See Count One of which he was convicted.
Playing the Nifong card aftera guy wins a five-count conviction is dumb even by your standards. by the way.

 

Or not remembering exactly ... in an investigation that was already over.

From the WSJ today:

This was a political show trial, and partisans of Joe Wilson will use the guilty verdict to declare vindication. But along the way we learned that virtually all the claims Wilson and his supporters made were false:

On his trip to Niger, Wilson found no evidence that contradicted the famous "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, contrary to his New York Times op-ed claim.

Plame, his wife, who worked for the CIA, did recommend him for the Niger junket, contrary to Wilson's denials.

Plame was not a covert agent under the definition of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, contrary to Wilson's insinuations, which many of his backers, including in the press, presented as fact.

No one from the White House "leaked" Plame's identity as a CIA functionary to Robert Novak, who received the information from Richard Armitage at the State Department.

But if using the criminal justice system to make political points suits you guys on the left, keep celebrating.

 

The WSJ Editorial Page.
Making Up Bullshit Since 1988.
Keep digging, old guy.

 

One thing o_t has declined to mention was how overmatched Libby's legal team was.