RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Bushgate

Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff does not qualify to even be considered for a presidential pardon under Justice Department guidelines.

From the day he took office, Bush seems to have followed those guidelines religiously. He's taken an exceedingly stingy approach to pardons, granting only 113 in six years, mostly for relatively minor fraud, embezzlement and drug cases dating back more than two decades. Bush’s pardons are “fewer than any president in 100 years,” according to Margaret Love, former pardon attorney at the Justice Department.

Following the furor over President Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich (among others), Bush made it clear he wasn’t interested in granting many pardons. “We were basically told [by then White House counsel and now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales] that there weren’t going to be pardons—or if there were, there would be very few,” recalls one former White House lawyer who asked not to be identified talking about internal matters.

The president has since indicated he intended to go by the book in granting what few pardons he’d hand out—considering only requests that had first been reviewed by the Justice Department under a series of publicly available guidelines.

Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web site at www.usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a nonstarter in George W. Bush’s White House. They “require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,” according to the Justice Web site.

Of course, there is nothing that requires Bush to follow these guidelines in reviewing a pardon for Libby (whose lawyer, Ted Wells, stated on the courthouse steps Tuesday that he intended to push for a retrial, adding that he has “every confidence that Mr. Libby will be vindicated.”)

Still, Bush himself publicly reaffirmed his determination to stick to the Justice pardon guidelines as recently as last month.

None of this means that, in the last days of his presidency, Bush won’t feel differently about Libby (who ironically once worked as a lawyer for Marc Rich in an earlier effort to win him a pardon). Libby's supporters will argue forcefully that he was unjustly prosecuted and others, like former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage (who first leaked Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to columnist Robert Novak) were more culpable and should have been charged. Cheney—who once praised Libby as “one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known”—may well make a personal plea to the president.

But for now, one intriguing clue as to White House thinking came from a well-known Washington lobbyist and White House ally who was steering reporters away from the pardon idea this week. “The guidance I get is Libby doesn’t qualify under the guidelines,” the lobbyist, who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters, told a reporter in a TV “green room” this week. The lobbyist wouldn’t say who provided the guidance. But the fine print of the Justice Department guidelines may prove the toughest barrier for Libby to overcome.

"The pardon power is a very, very important power that the president has, and it has to be exercised very judiciously and very carefully. You certainly shouldn't speculate about it while a criminal case is still ongoing. It seems to me you let it go through the process."

He added: "It seems to me you let it go through the process."

Mr. Giuliani is a former federal prosecutor who ... briefly ran the pardon office when he served in the Justice Department. "I know more about pardons than anybody needs to know about them," he said.

But he has also been on the other side: Mr. Giuliani prosecuted the commodities broker Marc Rich for tax evasion when Mr. Giuliani was the U.S. attorney for New York's Southern District. President Clinton pardoned Mr. Rich shortly before he left office in 2001, and Mr. Giuliani, then the mayor of New York, was so upset that he canceled a meeting with Senator Clinton weeks after she was sworn in

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the G-man said:
But how does pardoning him a year and a half from now minimize the damage? If Libby had damage to do, the time to do it would be now, to cut a deal and avoid potential jail time and thousands in legal fees on the appeal.

Bush pardoning Libby at the end of his term would only make sense if Libby, in fact, had no dirt on the administration.

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The thrice-married-and-now-single Limbaugh not only commented on Plame's looks, but told his audience he'd have no problem romantically pursuing her if her marital status were different.

"I have to tell you something, folks," Limbaugh said Friday during his nationally broadcast program. "After all is said and done, I, frankly, don't care. This woman is a babe."

"This woman is a babe, and if she weren't married, I don't care what she's done or what her political affiliation is, I'd be throwing my hat in the ring," Limbaugh said

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Fitzgerald says Plame was covert agent; Cheney further scrutinized
Published: Tuesday May 29, 2007
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has asserted in new court filings that Valerie Plame was indeed a covert agent at the time of her outing, according to a Newsweek report filed by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball.

"In new court filings, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has finally resolved one of the most disputed issues at the core of the long-running CIA leak controversy: Valerie Plame Wilson, he asserts, was a 'covert' CIA officer who repeatedly traveled overseas using a 'cover identity' in order to disguise her relationship with the agency," Newsweek reports.

Wilson's covert status, which is substantiated in an employment report filed by Fitzgerlad, was cited as part of a recommendation to sentence former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to up to three years in prison.

According to that report, Plame traveled "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."

The report added, "When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity...At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson’s employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."

The finding severely hampers a key defense by Libby's lawyers and supporters who have claimed that, since Plame was not covert, Libby had commited no "underlying crime" in revealing Plame's identity.

Furthermore, Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin noted that Fitzgerald's court filing further points to Vice President Cheney's involvement in the outing of Plame.

"Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame," writes Froomkin, "until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby."

Froomkin adds that in response to charges that Libby's prosecution was unwarranted, "the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney."

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Mrs. Wilson told the CIA Inspector General that she suggested her husband for the trip, she told our committee staff that she could not remember whether she did or her boss did, and told the House committee, emphatically, that she did not suggest him.

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the G-man said:
Valerie Plame has now given three different versions of her story to three different investigating bodies

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well she is a covert spy.

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby left a federal courtroom with his wife Tuesday after being sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

Libby, departing in a car without commenting to reporters, didn't begin his prison sentence immediately. Judge Reggie B. Walton said he saw no reason to allow Libby to delay his prison time pending appeal and planned to rule later after reviewing written arguments.

Libby stood calmly before a packed courtroom when his sentencing was announced.

"People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said.

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the G-man said:
Libby Gets 30 Months in Prison

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby left a federal courtroom with his wife Tuesday after being sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

Libby, departing in a car without commenting to reporters, didn't begin his prison sentence immediately. Judge Reggie B. Walton said he saw no reason to allow Libby to delay his prison time pending appeal and planned to rule later after reviewing written arguments.

Libby stood calmly before a packed courtroom when his sentencing was announced.

"People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said.

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Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man said:
For all that's said about Clinton, no one of his people was ever indicted

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Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man said:
oops. my bad. still, more with reagan.

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Republican candidates leave open possibility of Libby pardon
Nick Juliano
Published: Tuesday June 5, 2007

Republican frontrunners said at Tuesday night’s debate they would pardon former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in jail for perjury.

Calling Libby’s sentence "grossly excessive," former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani touted the pardons he recommended as a federal prosecutor in the Reagan administration and suggested Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff could be up for a pardon in his administration as well.

"A man’s life is at stake," Giuliani said, arguing that the fact special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did not convict anyone of an underlying crime in Libby’s case presented a strong case for a pardon.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney accused Fitzgerald of abusing his prosecutorial discretion in pursuing a case he said was more about politics than justice. Although he didn’t issue a single pardon overseeing his commonwealth, Romney said Libby’s case was worth looking at.
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RAW

It's handy having people in your administration who are willing to commit perjury & obstruct justice

A few weeks/months ago, he said it would be okay if Hillary put convicted criminal Sandy Berger in her administration.

Today, he seems to criticize the Bush administration for (he thinks; he has to google it) doing the same thing.

Then, faced with the seeming inconsistency, he says he wasn't criticizing Bush.

About two hours later, after Raw Story tells him how to think, he, in fact, does criticize them.

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#811763 Re: Sandy Berger - Mon Jan 15 2007 11:15 PM
OK, I obviously need to say more about Berger. He isn't above the law, he deserved the punishment he got for breaking the law. Considering the findings of the Justice Department I wouldn't have a problem with Berger taking a job with another administration. To be specific, it couldn't be anything of high rank. It's an unwritten rule for either party that the top spots don't go for people to have records no matter the circumstances. I agree with that standard. If there is any evidence that he did more than what the Justice Department found then I would say no future job & that he wasn't punished enough.

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Elliott Abrams, an assistant secretary of state under Reagan, pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding evidence from Congress (i.e., lying) over his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Bush I pardoned him; Bush II has appointed him to the National SecurityCouncil as director of its office for democracy, human rights and international operations. The post requires no Senate approval.

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FAIR.org

Btw are you still unsure of Libby's guilt G-man?

• Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton

• (crime committed: )
  Bill Clinton: Perjury, lied to a grand jury.
  Scooter Libby: Perjury, lied to a grand jury.
  
  (punishment: )
  Bill Clinton: No jail time. Disbarred as lawyer.
  Scooter Libby: Sentenced, commuted to probation, but could serve jail time if violates probation.
  
  (Democrat opinion: )
  Bill Clinton: Despite clear guilt, should not be punished.
  Scooter Libby: Same crime, but warrants the most severe punishment.

• The suspicion is rampant that his motivation was a political effort to please the Puerto Rican community that is crucial to Mrs. Clinton's hopes in the coming Senate race from New York.