Bush Should Have Pardoned Libby!
The WSJ editorial board sums up the travesty of justice in the Libby case perfrectly:
…This, however, will stand as a dark moment in this Administration’s history. Joe Wilson’s original, false accusation about pre-war intelligence metastasized into the issue of who “outed” his wife, Valerie Plame, as an intelligence officer. As the event unfolded, it fell to Mr. Libby to defend the Administration against Mr. Wilson’s original charge, with little public assistance or support from the likes of Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell or Stephen Hadley.
In no small part because of these profiles in non-courage, it was Mr. Libby who found himself caught up in prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s hunt for the Plame leaker, which he and his masters at Justice knew from Day One to be State Department official Richard Armitage. As Mr. Fitzgerald’s obsessive exercise ground forward, Mr. Libby got caught in a perjury net that we continue to believe trapped an innocent man who lost track of what he said, when he said it, and to whom.
And future presidential candidate and former prosecuting attorney Fred Thompson has this to say on Town Hall on June 7,2007:
As I’ve been saying for many months, this is a “he said-she said” case about political infighting that would have never been brought in any other prosecutor’s office in America.
I couldn’t agree more. Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald presided over one of the biggest travesties of justice and wastes of tax payer dollars in recent US History. Fitzgerald knew from the start that Libby was not the leaker- which was the original charge and that leaking Plame’s name was not a crime because she was not a “covered person.” When this information was realized, Libby should have been immediately cleared. Instead a loyal public servant and good man had his career and life ruined by an overzealous partisan prosecuting attorney on a fishing expedition.
An ex-Clinton National Security Advisor gets caught stuffing highly classified national security documnets down his pants from the National Archives and nary a peep from the Democrats and the media. But not for Libby. The Democrats and Fitzgerald made up their mind early on that they were going to get Libby on something whatever it took and whatever the crime.
This is an absolute travesty of justice that should never have ocurred. That it did and that Bush did not issue a full pardon is a disgrace. But I can’t say I am surpirsed. He has let me (and millions of others) down before. I thought this MBA president was supposed to be decisive. Either the guy is innocent and wrongly convicted and you pardon him or not. Don’t give me this commutation stuff. If he is innocent of the original charges which he was then clear the man’s good name and reputation. Dispense justice as you have a responsibility to do under our Constitution.
And as for those of you who say: “Well, he still lied under oath.” I agree with Senator Thompson who makes the case that “inconsistent staements” are not necessarily equivalent to perjury and that the entire case was about putting a high level Bush Admin official behind bars:
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald proceeded to make public statements and employ tactics that would have brought condemnation in any other setting. He moved heaven and earth for a year and a half in order to come up with some sort of “process” crime against a high-level Administration official — so that he could try them in one of the most anti-Bush Administration places in America, Washington DC.
The best he could come up with was a man who was not well known to the public, but who was basically working two full-time jobs after 9/11 — trying to prevent such a thing from happening again. The White House physician says that, “Mr. Libby worked himself to exhaustion day after day reviewing national intelligence estimates.” Of course, he had to make time for hours of testimony before Fitzgerald’s grand jury and Fitzgerald found inconsistencies. At trial, practically every government witness not only was inconsistent with other government witnesses, but was inconsistent with regard to their own prior testimony.
I love how the lefties are always talking about “social justice” and the rights of the wrongfully convicted- their love for Miranda etc… Yet as the Duke case and the Libby case illustrate, those on the left are not reticent about using the heavy hand of government to punish select enemies of the left be it rich white kids at a prestigious university or somebody like Scooter Libby who was 100% innocent of the original charges brought against him. This was a travesty of justice. Shame on President Bush for not issuing a pardon and clearing this good man a long time ago.
July 3, 2007 4:19 pm 
Gregg:
I think commuting Libby’s sentence was the smartest thing Bush could do. He just couldn’t completely win either way. Whether you agree with the jury or not, the jury said he was guilty.
So Bush took the only road he could. Pardoning would have pleased a small core of conservatives, but would have completely upset the majority of Americans. Commuting kept libby out of jail, showed he disagreed with the whole process and showed he defended the people working for him, while still showing at least a small amount of respect for the court’s decision.
And Libby is now an underdog hero. I am a 100 percent sure he will get a huge book deal and will make a fortune on the talking circuits over the next decade. Sure he has a conviction on his record, but he can wear that like a red badge of courage while raking in $10k per speaking engagement. Look at Oliver North’s career post Iran Contra. Heck, that man sold weapons to terrorists, and he now has his own TV show and talk shows. Libby will be rich and comfortable.
Politically, I think this was the best that Bush could do with a very bad situation. Either way he was going to look bad.
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Gregg,
So, you are advocating jury nullification for cases where you don’t like then politics behind it?
You said, “Scooter Libby who was 100% innocent of the original charges brought against him.”
Actually, no charges were brought against him, until he lied under oath.
Kevin
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