No Probation For Scooter Libby?

I just heard it on CNN going on in the other room. There is a glitch, a procedural problem that may prevent Scooter Libby from serving any time under supervised probation, and it’s all because Bush commuted Libby’s sentence before he spent a single day serving it.

According to US District judge Reggie Walton, there is a problem if a convicted felon has his sentence commuted before setting foot in prison.

From MSNBC:

“The law, Walton said in court documents, ‘does not appear to contemplate a situation in which a defendant may be placed under supervised release without first completing a term of incarceration.’”

This problem arises from Bush’s reluctance to talk to anyone about this decision before making it public. Had he run the idea past his Attorney General . . . no scratch that . . . past some legal minds in the Department of Justice, they would have, in all probability, pointed out this technicality in the law. Either that, and he did consult the Justice Department, they pointed out the problem, and he went ahead anyway.

Either way, Bush looks really bad. An incompetent who says that a fine and probation was enough punishment, and then blows it on the probation, or a devious and dishonest president who was given a way to get his friend off the hook almost entirely.

Walton is giving the special prosecutor and Libby’s lawyers until Monday to come up with arguments on this.

All I can say is How Much Is ENOUGH!

Bush Commutes Scooter Libby’s Sentence . . . Yawn

If anyone is surprised that Scooter Libby was going to have his sentence commuted, that’s because they still think that there is still fairness in this world. My prediction of today’s events, encapsulated here, was very nearly dead on.

It was probably a bone thrown to those of us with a sense of decency and fair play that Libby has to pay the $250,000 fine, but give me a break. Someone with a college nickname like “Scooter” doesn’t have to get a 2nd mortgage on his house to pay it.

There is a sense of moral outrage out there today, and I can only say ditto to those, because the words have already been said.

Want moral outrage? With feeling? Go read the commentary at Sommervell County Salon.

Justice. We need justice. I vote that every penny of that fine goes to Valerie Plame, the CIA operative whose cover was blown.

UPDATE:

I am ignorant of the law. I'm not trained in it, but I study it a lot. Tonight it was pointed out to me that had Scooter Libby received an outright pardon, as I predicted, he would be open to congressional subpoena to testify about any and all that he might know about the Valarie Plame affair.

But since his sentence was commuted, if he were to be asked to testify in any of these things, Libby would just be able to plead the 5th. This makes Libby's sentence commutation more than despicable. It's an attempt at outright stonewalling.

Stonewalling. Where have I heard that term before?

Scooter Libby Gets Thirty, Fined Two Fifty Large

Thirty months, that is.

It’s usually in stories like this you get to find out how many months they will actually get “inside”, you know, 30 months with X months with time off for good behavior. Not in this article. On top of 30 months Libby is going to have two years of “supervised release” when he leaves prison.

You know, so they can make sure he doesn’t lie anymore.

Well Scoots, I recommend a new nickname for you. “Scooter” works at country clubs and polo grounds, but in stir, all it will get you is the ride of your life. So I recommend something like “Knuckles” or “Johnny Two-Tap”. Or if that doesn’t work, because, let’s face it, you look like Mr. Sta-Puf, how about “HIV Mutha”?

Scooter Libby’s head rolled when Carl Rove decided to out a CIA agent, and some people got mad about that. Why, oh why did they not find him guilty of treason? Outting an undercover agent is a treasonable offence. You get the chair, like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, for such an offense. So why not the chair? Well, as it turns out, too many had outted Valerie Plame. It was a target-rich environment for reporters. The issue wasn’t who outted Valerie Plame, but who DIDN’T, and who of the pack outted her first? The only one who didn’t out her was Carl Rove, and that’s because he didn’t have to. He had his guys do the job for him, and the Nuremburg defense, I hear, “I was only following orders”, was overruled in 1946, so they couldn’t use that.

What defense did they use? The one that worked: “Everyone was doing it.”

But we needed a head and Scooter drew the short straw (or more likely, it was drawn for him).

So they tried and convicted Scooter Libby of

“failing to tell the truth to a federal grand jury and the FBI about the disclosure of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. Libby was convicted of two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements to FBI agents, and one count of obstructing justice.”

There is no word whether Bush will pardon Libby for his lying ways. Wait, did I just write that without pausing? I sure did. Let’s try that again. We haven’t heard when Bush will pardon Libby because as we all know, lying to prosecutors, investigators, or the American public is perfectly OK as long as you can get away with it. And even if you get found out, what are they going to do to you?

So go ahead, Dubya. Pardon Scooter. You know you are going to and so do we.

That’s how bad it has gotten.

Scooter Libby's Defense: Everyone is Doing It

And what is Scooter Libby’s defense in his obstruction of justice case? Well it looks like it’s simply that he shouldn’t be prosecuted for the leak because everyone and his or her brother or sister were outing Valerie Plame to news reporters.

Yep, there it is in a nutshell.

Except he isn’t being tried for leaking that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative.

He is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.

Libby made false statements to the FBI because he was hiding something. To say that he forgot what he said to who makes perfect sense if you are obfuscating on all fronts. Maybe he should have remembered Ronald Reagan’s famous quote:

“I’m not smart enough to lie”.

But what I can’t figure out is why it is a defense that all sorts of government officials were exposing a CIA agent, not just Scooter Libby.

At least they’re not lying about it.