Sibel Edmonds claims now tied to Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings

for the third sunday, beginning on january 6 (previous articles here and here), the uk london sunday times continues to not only scoop every u.s. news outlet on the sibel edmonds story, but also to hurl a gale-force wind at the bush house of cards...

AN investigation into the illicit sale of American nuclear secrets was compromised by a senior official in the State Department, a former FBI employee has claimed.

The official is said to have tipped off a foreign contact about a bogus CIA company used to investigate the sale of nuclear secrets.

The firm, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was a front for Valerie Plame, the former CIA agent. Her public outing two years later in 2003 by White House officials became a cause célèbre.

The claims that a State Department official blew the investigation into a nuclear smuggling ring have been made by Sibel Edmonds, 38, a former Turkish language translator in the FBI’s Washington field office.

Edmonds had been employed to translate hundreds of hours of intercepted recordings made during a six-year FBI inquiry into the nuclear smuggling ring.

She has previously told The Sunday Times she heard evidence that foreign intelligence agents had enlisted US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Her latest claims relate to a number of intercepted recordings believed to have been made between the summer and autumn of 2001. At that time, foreign agents were actively attempting to acquire the West’s nuclear secrets and technology.

luke ryland, who has been on top of the sibel story for nearly two years, offers this disturbing update on apparent bush administration reaction to the recent media attention...

Significantly, since the Times began this series three weeks ago, the White House has quietly moved to legalize the sale of nuclear technology to Turkey in an apparent attempt to 'Exonerate Neocon Criminals' who have been illegally selling this technology for a decade. Congress has 90 days to block this legislation, otherwise it becomes law. If Turkey wants and deserves nuclear technology, this decision should be made openly and transparently, not the result of stealth decisions made by this administration to hide crimes of senior US officials.

We need public open hearings to determine which officials have been supplying the nuclear black market before this becomes law.

it's more than astounding that our complicit u.s. news media continue to stonewall this story when it's creating tidal waves of reaction everwhere outside the u.s... 'course, look at how long they were able to delay reporting the downing street memo...

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The most in-your-face criminal gang the world has ever seen

all effort to maintain even a pretense of accountability and respect for the rule of law has been abandoned...

The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.

The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide.

Among the e-mails that could be lost are messages swapped by any White House officials involved in discussions about leaking a CIA officer's identity to reporters.

Before October 2003, the White House recycled its backup tapes "consistent with industry best practices," according to a sworn statement by a White House aide.

Backup tapes are the last line of defense for saving electronic records.

Separately, the statement reveals the extent to which the White House is apparently unable to answer how many e-mails are missing from White House servers.

The White House "does not know if any e-mails were not properly preserved in the archiving process," said the statement by Theresa Payton, chief information officer for the White House Office of Administration. "We are continuing our efforts," said Payton, whose staff is responsible for the White House e-mail system.

If the e-mails were not saved, the White House might have violated two laws requiring preservation of documents that fall into the categories of federal records or presidential records.

yeah... well... ok... it was abandoned quite some time ago...

my fantasy...

scene: fade-in to white house conference room where george bush, dick cheney, and their senior staff aides are seated along one side of the table... across from them are seated select senior members of congress, the military, and the judiciary, who have jointly requested the meeting...

congressional spokesperson: thank you, mr. president for agreeing to meet with us and for gathering your senior officials on such short notice... let me get right to the point... we are here to demand your resignation and that of the key members of your administration... we are doing this under the full authority of the united states constitution... the supreme court has affirmed that we have this authority, and the joint chiefs of staff have agreed to provide us with the full backing of the united states military... our intent is not a takeover, but rather to restore the rule of law, adherence to the constitution with its mandated balance of powers, and the responsibility for accountability and oversight that the constitution has vested in congress... a caretaker administration has been appointed and is waiting to assume the day-to-day functions of running the government until such time as national elections can be scheduled, no later than six months from today... should you choose not to comply with this request, mr. president, the joint chiefs of staff have authorized the senior military provost marshall to detain you and your officials so that the caretaker government can be installed...

hey...! it's MY fantasy, and i'm stickin' to it...

just for fun, besides george and dick, who else would you want seated at the table...?

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Let the truth be told... Luke has more on Sibel Edmonds...

here, here, or here...



she's absolutely right... it's our fight too...!

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Accountability under Hillary? Not a chance!

when i posted on this ridiculousness earlier, this major implication escaped me... robert parry sets me straight...

“The first thing she intends to do is to send me and former President Bush and a number of other people around the world to tell them that America is open for business and cooperation again,” said Bill Clinton, who has accompanied the senior Bush on international humanitarian missions over the past several years.

What was perhaps most stunning about the remark was its assumption that Americans would be impressed that the country’s two dominant political dynasties would team up in early 2009 to tidy up some of the mess created by the headstrong son of the senior dynasty, the Bush Family.

The Bushes and the Clintons – who have held pieces of the nation’s executive power for more than a quarter century dating back to George H.W. Bush’s election as Vice President in 1980 – essentially would be keeping matters within the board rooms of the Washington Establishment.

In responding to Bill Clinton’s remark, George H.W. Bush issued a statement making clear he would not join in any slap at his son’s foreign policy. That also means Hillary Clinton’s “first thing” is unthinkable if her new administration were trying to exact any accountability from George W. Bush for his wrongdoing.

So, to get the senior Bush’s cooperation on the worldwide tour, there would have to be an implicit understanding that the second Clinton administration wouldn’t investigate the younger Bush’s crimes – from authorizing torture, ordering warrantless wiretaps, exposing CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity, waging war under false pretenses and other abuses of executive powers.

yeah, it simply hadn't occurred to me that hrc was signaling that accountability wasn't on her agenda if she becomes president, but that interpretation makes perfectly good sense... when bill and george h.w. teamed up after the tsunami, i scratched my head, but chalked it up to two former presidents trying to do the right thing, but, after they kept it up and had clearly become best buds, i began to see them as cut out of the same cloth, which, i have come to understand, is absolutely the correct view...

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"Today's political crisis cannot be overstated"

i much prefer the term "constitutional crisis" to "political crisis," but, regardless of the terminology, we are in some seriously deep shit, and i flat out don't get why it isn't headline news on every media outlet in the country... yeah, call me naive...

Election Year 2008 may represent a last-ditch opportunity to save the American Republic and its noble promise of “unalienable rights” for all mankind. Today’s political crisis cannot be overstated.

For the past seven years, George W. Bush has mounted an unprecedented assault on the nation’s Constitution. He has followed a neoconservative path toward an imperial system built on an all-powerful Executive, an ill-informed and frightened public, and a military dispatched globally on ill-defined missions in an endless war.

In this Brave New World, up is down.

President Bush tells us that he values “freedom” and “liberty” as he tramples on our most treasured constitutional rights: habeas corpus protections against arbitrary arrest, the Fourth Amendment’s requirements for search warrants, the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a fair trial, the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Bush also shows contempt for the principle of free speech. Whenever he faces criticism, he deploys his government subordinates and the powerful right-wing media to attack the citizens who dare dissent.

From the Dixie Chicks to Valerie Plame, we have seen what happens to Americans who get in the way of Bush’s political/media machine.

yes, indeed, robert parry, that's precisely how i see it too... robert parry and his consortium news is one of few credible truth-tellers out there, and no one should ignore what he has to say...

The clever neoconservatives recognized that the vulnerability of a modern democracy was through its media. If independent, honest sources of information could be cut off – and if the public could be overwhelmed by misinformation and fear-mongering – the neocons knew they could dominate the political process.

The neocon strategy was aided and abetted by a Washington press corps that had lost its way, seduced by the financial rewards of lucrative careers.

The political system failed, too. Many Republicans worked hand in glove with the neocons, while many Democrats chose to accommodate, rather than resist.

That is still the state of play as we enter this pivotal election year. So what can be done?

I believe that this battle for the survival of the American Republic will be won or lost primarily on the battlefield of information.

So, just as the neocons promote false narratives to confuse the American people, we must tell honest narratives and get this information to the people.

robert parry is entirely reader-funded and offers free access to his website... think about helping him out... he's always scraping to stay in business...

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it is happening...

John Stewart signaled the start of the writer's strike on Thursday. His shows are written fresh so none are in the can. HBO: Real Time with Bill Maher is also fresh and Friday's featured an Interview with Blackwater expert Jeremy Scahill:



Blackwater's Total Intelligence Solutions, LLC, very name suggests a private version of what SAIC/Government's attempted with the Total Information Awareness program. SourceWatch calls Blackwater USA, "America's Holy Warriors". And why not, as Friedrich Nietzsche said:

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose."

That is why "America's Holy Warriors" are so intent upon private military warriors smiting sin. It is another reason that people should become alarmed at Scahill's disclosure that Erik Prince of Blackwater, USA, just received part of a $15 billion contract to fight the war on drugs. And that is just some of what we know about. Blackwater seems eager to smite sin with military force. How long before Blackwater gets into smiting sex porn and nudity, despite our First Amendment, et al?

So when my First Amendment right to what I want to write, see, produce or watch is encroached upon, I am loudly a First Amendment absolutist. And then Bill Mahers' other guests, Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, were a direct dichotomy to an absolute First Amendment. Valerie Plame agreed that the death penalty was appropriate for those that revealed her CIA employment. The blueprints that are used to destabilize parties, religions, race relations, labor, states and regions can anger opponents. It is better to carve out exceptions to our First Amendment, we are told.

On PBS: Bill Moyers Journal, we learned that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is pushing for even more media consolidation and plans to ram it through before Christmas.

What is happening in Pakastan CAN happen here. Look around. It is happening already. We need our First Amendment and our writers now more than ever.

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Iranian nuclear weapons are today's Iraq WMD's

from think progress...

In her first interview since Bush administration officials outed her as a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson reveals to Minutes that she was involved in preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. In the interview to be aired this Sunday, CBS reports that she was “involved in one highly classified mission to deliver fake nuclear weapons blueprints to Tehran.”

and anyone would be in the least bit surprised by this because...? the threat of iran obtaining or manufacturing a nuclear weapon is in precisely the same category as saddam's wmd... our country's movers and shakers are totally committed to a state of endless war, regardless of the country or the area of the world, as long as it provides the opportunity to keep the rivers of cash flowing into the "right" pockets (apologies for the bad pun), to extend their power and global hegemony, and to monopolize the world's resources... iranian nuclear weapons are today's convenient smokescreen, cleverly designed to distract from their real motivations, and to keep the peasantry quivering in our boots, at least when we're not buying lottery tickets and hoping to strike it rich... we are one pathetic bunch of citizens...

[UPDATE]

i would be guilty of a glaring omission if i didn't mention that valerie plame's role with iran was first reported by larisa alexandrovna at raw story on february 13, 2006... larisa has been on top of a number of things, often WAY before the rest of the so-called responsible and serious traditional media... click on over to larisa's weblog, at largely, and show her some love...

congrats, larisa...

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Will Fitz testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee?

according to cliff schecter...

Just now on Face the Nation, Chuck Schumer said that the Judiciary committee was considering calling Patrick Fitzgerald to testify about the Plame leak.

would fitz be subject to having his testimony prevented under a claim of executive privilege...?

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Now that Libby's a done deal, how about some answers to THESE questions, George?

froomkin...

* Does the president approve of Libby's conduct?

* On whose behalf did Libby act?

* Did the White House make any sort of a deal with Libby or his defense team?

* What did Bush know and when did he know it?

* When did he find out that Karl Rove and Libby had both leaked Plame's identity? Before or after he vowed that any leakers would be fired? Did anyone lie to him about their role? Why didn't he fire them?

* How does the conduct of his aides comport with Bush's vow to restore ethics to the White House? How does the commutation?

* What factors did the president take into account in deciding to commute the sentence?

* What does the president consider an appropriate punishment for perjury and obstruction of justice?

* What was Cheney's role in the commutation?

take your time, george... don't rush... it IS, after all, the 4th of july, the day we celebrate the constitutional principles on which the united states was founded, and you no doubt would like to take some time to observe the day... otoh, do you suppose you could have some answers ready, say, by friday evening...? we know the tradition of the friday evening news dump, and, being a holiday week and all, maybe there won't be so many people crawling all over them then... whaddaya say...?

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A reminder of why Scooter's sentence was not "excessive"

thanks to the liberal doomsayer, who offers us this reminder of just exactly what was behind scooter libby's conviction and why bush's decision yesterday is such a blatant mis-use of presidential power...

(note: the good stuff starts at 4:55...)

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The usual suspects weigh in with totally predictable opinions on Libby

there was a knock on my door late last evening... it was my daughter-in-law's mom coming to tell me in shocked tones that bush had commuted libby's sentence... not the most excitable of people and not, by any stretch, a news or politics junkie, she had been watching local news on a san francisco station and evidently the news announcers there were reporting bush's decision in thinly veiled outrage (not inappropriately, imho)... anyway, she was unusually agitated, which, i suspect, is a good thing... maybe it's starting to sink in to those among us who are not as news and politics-obsessed that we have a situation in this country that is seriously out of control...

from today's wapo editorialist...

The WaPo argues that President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's entire prison sentence "sends the wrong message about the seriousness" of his offense. "We agree that a pardon would have been inappropriate and that the prison sentence of 30 months was excessive," the editors write. "But reducing the sentence to no prison time at all, as Mr. Bush did -- to probation and a large fine -- is not defensible" ... under the headline "Soft on Crime," the NYT argues that President Bush's decision underscores "the way this president is tough on crime when it's committed by common folk." The editors write that when the president was explaining his decision, he "did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell" ... the Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, argues that the president didn't go far enough. By "failing to issue a full pardon," the editors write, "Mr. Bush is evading responsibility for the role his Administration played in letting the Plame affair build into fiasco and, ultimately, this personal tragedy" ... NYT columnist David Brooks argues that Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence was "exactly right." "It punishes him for his perjury, but not for the phantasmagorical political farce that grew to surround him. It takes away his career, but not his family."

i'd summarize some of the more ridiculous and heavily spun verbiage for you, but you can do that for yourselves in 10-second eyeballing of the above...

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Bill Moyers for President

i could have sworn i posted this the other day, but, when i went looking for it, it wasn't there... anyway, here it is again, from one of the very best u.s. media has to offer...

Begging His Pardon

by Bill Moyers

We have yet another remarkable revelation of the mindset of Washington's ruling clique of neoconservative elites—the people who took us to war from the safety of their Beltway bunkers. Even as Iraq grows bloodier by the day, their passion of the week is to keep one of their own from going to jail.

It is well known that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby—once Vice President Cheney’s most trusted adviser—has been sentenced to 30 months in jail for perjury. Lying. Not a white lie, mind you. A killer lie. Scooter Libby deliberately poured poison into the drinking water of democracy by lying to federal investigators, for the purpose of obstructing justice.

Attempting to trash critics of the war, Libby and his pals in high places—including his boss Dick Cheney—outed a covert CIA agent. Libby then lied to cover their tracks. To throw investigators off the trail, he kicked sand in the eyes of truth. "Libby lied about nearly everything that mattered,” wrote the chief prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. The jury agreed and found him guilty on four felony counts. Judge Reggie B. Walton—a no-nonsense, lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key type, appointed to the bench by none other than George W. Bush—called the evidence “overwhelming” and threw the book at Libby.

You would have thought their man had been ordered to Guantanamo, so intense was the reaction from his cheerleaders. They flooded the judge's chambers with letters of support for their comrade and took to the airwaves in a campaign to “free Scooter.”

Vice President Cheney issued a statement praising Libby as “a man…of personal integrity”—without even a hint of irony about their collusion to browbeat the CIA into mangling intelligence about Iraq in order to justify the invasion.

“A patriot, a dedicated public servant, a strong family man, and a tireless, honorable, selfless human being,” said Donald Rumsfeld—the very same Rumsfeld who had claimed to know the whereabouts of weapons of mass destruction and who boasted of “bulletproof” evidence linking Saddam to 9/11. “A good person” and “decent man,” said the one-time Pentagon adviser Kenneth Adelman, who had predicted the war in Iraq would be a “cakewalk.” Paul Wolfowitz wrote a four-page letter to praise “the noblest spirit of selfless service” that he knew motivated his friend Scooter. Yes, that Paul Wolfowitz, who had claimed Iraqis would “greet us as liberators” and that Iraq would “finance its own reconstruction.” The same Paul Wolfowitz who had to resign recently as president of the World Bank for using his office to show favoritism to his girlfriend. Paul Wolfowitz turned character witness.

The praise kept coming: from Douglas Feith, who ran the Pentagon factory of disinformation that Cheney and Libby used to brainwash the press; from Richard Perle, as cocksure about Libby’s “honesty, integrity, fairness and balance” as he had been about the success of the war; and from William Kristol, who had primed the pump of the propaganda machine at THE WEEKLY STANDARD and has led the call for a Presidential pardon. “The case was such a farce, in my view,” he said. “I’m for pardon on the merits.”

One beltway insider reports that the entire community is grieving—“weighted down by the sheer, glaring unfairness” of Libby's sentence.

And there’s the rub.

None seem the least weighted down by the sheer, glaring unfairness of sentencing soldiers to repeated and longer tours of duty in a war induced by deception. It was left to the hawkish academic Fouad Ajami to state the matter baldly. In a piece published on the editorial page of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Ajami pleaded with Bush to pardon Libby. For believing “in the nobility of this war,” wrote Ajami, Scooter Libby had himself become a “casualty”—a fallen soldier the President dare not leave behind on the Beltway battlefield.

Not a word in the entire article about the real fallen soldiers. The honest-to-God dead, and dying, and wounded. Not a word about the chaos or the cost. Even as the calamity they created worsens, all they can muster is a cry for leniency for one of their own who lied to cover their tracks.

There are contrarian voices: “This is an open and shut case of perjury and obstruction of justice,” said Pat Buchanan. “The Republican Party stands for the idea that high officials should not be lying to special investigators.” From the former Governor of Virginia, James Gilmore, a staunch conservative, comes this verdict: “If the public believes there’s one law for a certain group of people in high places and another law for regular people, then you will destroy the law and destroy the system.”

So it may well be, as THE HARTFORD COURANT said editorially, that Mr Libby is “a nice guy, a loyal and devoted patriot…but none of that excuses perjury or obstruction of justice. If it did, truth wouldn’t matter much.”

going back to a comment from the late, great, much-missed molly ivins from july 2006...

Dear desperate Democrats, here's what we do. We run Bill Moyers for president. I am serious as a stroke about this. It's simple, cheap and effective, and it will move the entire spectrum of political discussion in this country. Moyers is the only public figure who can take the entire discussion and shove it toward moral clarity just by being there.

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Send Scooter to Guantánamo - the best idea I've heard in a long time

it makes elegant sense, doesn't it...?

Send Scooter Libby to Guantánamo -- Or Shut It Down

There's A Special Place for Those Who Endanger our National Security...

Scooter Libby participated in "outing" a covert CIA operative and was convicted of lying about it. The Senate should call for him to serve his time in Guantánamo -- or they should shut it down forever.

Today a judge ruled that Scooter Libby must begin serving his prison sentence while his appeals are being heard. Libby, of course, participated in the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame -- thus endangering our national security -- and was convicted and sentenced to thirty months in jail for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Well, we have a special suggestion. Why shouldn't Scooter Libby serve his sentence at the Guantánamo Bay prison? After all, the Bush Administration asserts that things are just fine there, and Libby -- unlike many at Guantánamo -- has in fact been convicted of a crime that endangered our national security.

Let's ALL tell the Senate to send Libby to Guantánamo -- or shut down the 'American gulag' for good.

Many conservatives would argue that conditions at Guantánamo just wouldn't be right for Libby. If that's the case, why the double standard? Why not shut it down and give the prisoners there access to a fair trial in our judicial system?

When it's clear that the U.S. is responsible for the torture and abuse of prisoners -- including many who have been detained for years without being charged with any crime -- our standing in the world community is irreparably harmed. If it's not good enough for Libby, it ought to be shut down.

Take action now!

what a terrific idea...! wish i'd thought of it...!

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What if? What if Libby isn't pardoned? What if Libby goes to jail? What if Libby talks?

robert parry poses some very interesting what ifs...

[I]f U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton orders Libby to start his jail term in July while his appeals proceed – as it now appears the judge will – Bush will be faced with the prospect of Libby serving more than half his sentence before November 2008 and a risk that Libby finally might cooperate with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

If Libby, who was Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, were to start talking, he could explain the full role of Bush and Cheney in orchestrating the smear campaign against Iraq War critic Joseph Wilson, which set the stage for Libby and other administration officials to leak the identity of Wilson’s wife, covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, in summer 2003.

Libby also had a front-row seat to the White House cover-up that followed the revelation in September 2003 that the CIA had sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department, complaining about the security breach and prompting the start of a formal investigation.

The evidence from Libby’s trial makes clear that Bush and Cheney had authorized a media campaign to discredit former U.S. Ambassador Wilson, who undertook a CIA fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002 and accused the White House in July 2003 of “twisting” intelligence about Iraq’s alleged pursuit of uranium in Africa to justify going to war.

At minimum, the evidence shows that Bush selectively declassified parts of a National Intelligence Estimate to undercut Wilson, and Cheney ordered Libby to share the information with friendly reporters.

and...? and...? go on... i'm all ears...

From the start, Bush and Cheney appear to have sensed that they could make the cover-up work if they transformed it into a political spat. To a great extent, they have been proven correct in that assumption.

Now, their last remaining Plamegate concern is that “Scooter” Libby might calculate that he stands a better chance of reducing his time in jail if he tells the whole story rather than trust that his loyal silence will be rewarded by a pardon from a thankful President Bush.

as molly ivins - rest her dear soul - used to say, i'm serious as a heart attack... i would give the left portion of an important part of my anatomy if scooter would sing like a canary, and bring down the whole filthy mess right on top of george and dick... nothing, and i mean NOTHING, would give me greater satisfaction than to see those two driven from office in disgrace so we could get about putting things in the united states to rights... bastards...

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I don't care what Bill Kristol says, George, DON'T PARDON LIBBY

george, you're a miserable, rotten, s.o.b., and damn near everybody knows it, even bill kristol... your polls are in the toilet - 29% according to pew - and you've turned about as radioactive as a president can get... you may think you've got nothing to lose by pardoning scooter, but i beg to differ... yes, as outrage has piled on outrage, i've thought that, certainly, THIS ONE would be the straw, and i've been repeatedly proven wrong... but, george, might i remind you that there are such things called odds, and even YOU aren't immune... this one may be it, george... think about it...

President Bush: Don't Pardon Scooter Libby

Scooter Libby, former Assistant to the President and Vice Presidential Chief of Staff, has just been sentenced to 30 months in jail for obstruction of justice and perjury during the investigation of who revealed the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Libby disclosed during the trial that he was acting on the orders of "his superiors." Others in the White House may still face indictments.

President Bush is probably considering pardoning Libby, just as his father did more than a decade ago for six high-level officials who broke the law in providing arms to Iran and the Nicaraguan contras.

This isn't a failed real estate deal, or a stained blue dress -- this is the national security of the United States. Valerie Plame was a covert agent working to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Her husband, Joe Wilson, tried to expose the administration's lies in rushing us into the invasion of Iraq; in petty retribution for his efforts, Bush administration officials leaked his wife's identity to the press.

The former President Bush called those who reveal the names of covert operatives "the most insidious of traitors." Regrettably, we cannot be sure that justice will be served in this case. His son, President G.W. Bush, has the unilateral power to pardon Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and anyone else involved in leaking Plame's identity.

Sign this petition and add your name to the list of Americans calling on President Bush to publicly renounce the use of his presidential pardon for Scooter Libby. Then, forward the petition link on to some friends -- let's ALL tell the President that his "get out of jail free" card should NOT be used in cases of endangering national security.

(click here to sign the petition...)

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Jeffrey Toobin, CNN legal analyst, boo-hooing over Scooter

i'm watching cnn pipeline and jeffrey toobin, cnn's "legal analyst" is practically in tears over scooter's sentence... "small children," "not indpendently wealthy," "two and a half years is a REALLY long time"... c'mon... get real... what about scooter's "legal defense fund"...? surely, THESE people can help insure that scooter doesn't end up pushing a shopping cart down k street... besides, the charges are very serious... perjury and obstruction of justice related to an investigation of OUTING a covert cia agent isn't exactly a shoplifting conviction...

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Judge Walton sticks Scooter with 30 months and a $250K fine

good... and walton makes a key point...

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Tuesday for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, stood calmly before a packed courtroom as a federal judge said the evidence overwhelmingly proved his guilt.

"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.

[...]

Walton fined Libby $250,000 and placed him on probation for two years following his release from prison. Walton did not immediately address whether Libby could remain free pending appeal.

mmmm-hmmmmm... "overwhelming evidence"... "special obligation"... "not do anything that might create a problem"... well, i hope libby's still feeling good about taking the fall for darth...

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Are there any consequences at all for the White House Press Secretary to tell outright lies?

no...

greenwald...

In February of this year, Tony Snow chatted with Bill O'Reilly and said this (h/t Zack):

Very quickly -- very quickly, you got this Valerie Plame case. Now, it turns out that [special counsel] Peter (sic: Patrick) Fitzgerald doesn't -- can't even identify any harm. She wasn't a covert agent. She wasn't compromised. . . She wasn't covert anymore.

Are there any consequences at all for the White House Press Secertary to tell outright lies like that? Does that prompt any media scandals? Why can Tony Snow say with impunity that Plame "wasn't a covert agent" when their own CIA confirms that she was?

this is only another reminder, as if we needed any, that the bush administration and its sycophants will say whatever they believe is necessary to maintain the wall of protection around the presidency... they have lenin's strategy down to a fine art...

"This administration, I've never seen an organization that learned the lessons of Lenin as clearly as these guys," said Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) ... . "These guys must tack up Lenin's philosophy on their bedstand every night. Particularly when Lenin suggested if you say something often enough, with enough conviction, everybody will believe it."

greenwald continues...

Many people who listen to right-wing commentators such as these get their "news" about the world primarily, even exclusively, from these sources. And these sources, knowing that, routinely create their own self-affirming though wildly warped realities, in the process denying the most established facts or asserting propositions for which there is no factual basis.

[...]

But, as they so often do, they [make] them anyway, because those statements [help] to defend the Leader and bolster their political agenda. Most of all, they know that their readers will trust what they say even when those statements are demonstrably false.

and it works quite well, doesn't it...?

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Libby's lies threw Fitz off Cheney's trail

which was undoubtedly the whole idea...

according to froomkin...

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 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.

[...]

Fitzgerald quotes the Libby defense calling his prosecution "unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics." In responding to that charge, the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney.

Libby's lies, Fitzgerald wrote, "made impossible an accurate evaluation of the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of information regarding Ms. Wilson's CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions."

It was established at trial that it was Cheney himself who first told Libby about Plame's identity as a CIA agent, in the course of complaining about criticisms of the administration's run-up to war leveled by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. And, as Fitzgerald notes: "The evidence at trial further established that when the investigation began, Mr. Libby kept the Vice President apprised of his shifting accounts of how he claimed to have learned about Ms. Wilson's CIA employment."

The investigation, Fitzgerald writes, "was necessary to determine whether there was concerted action by any combination of the officials known to have disclosed the information about Ms. Plame to the media as anonymous sources, and also whether any of those who were involved acted at the direction of others. This was particularly important in light of Mr. Libby's statement to the FBI that he may have discussed Ms. Wilson's employment with reporters at the specific direction of the Vice President."

in case that didn't quite sink in, froomkin goes on...

Not clear on the concept yet? Fitzgerald adds: "To accept the argument that Mr. Libby's prosecution is the inappropriate product of an investigation that should have been closed at an early stage, one must accept the proposition that the investigation should have been closed after at least three high-ranking government officials were identified as having disclosed to reporters classified information about covert agent Valerie Wilson, where the account of one of them was directly contradicted by other witnesses, where there was reason to believe that some of the relevant activity may have been coordinated, and where there was an indication from Mr. Libby himself that his disclosures to the press may have been personally sanctioned by the Vice President."

[Froomkin added italics and I changed them to boldface]

got it...? i thought you might...

(thanks to jlfinch at daily kos...)

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Send Scooter to the slam

fitz thinks it would be a good idea that the courts send a "message" about obstruction of justice and lying... i agree...

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby betrayed the public's trust and deserves to spend 2 1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said Friday.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and an assistant to President Bush, is the highest-ranking White House official convicted since the Iran-Contra affair two decades ago.

"Particularly in a case such as this, where Mr. Libby was a high-ranking government official whose falsehoods were central to issues in a significant criminal investigation, it is important that this court impose a sentence that accurately reflects the value the judicial system places on truth-telling in criminal investigations," Fitzgerald wrote in court documents.

yes, i know scooter's attorneys are going to ask for no jail time and, yes, i know that sentencing may be deferred until the appeals run out, but, as airtight a case as i believe fitz has, he wouldn't be calling for 2-3 years unless he thought the verdict would be upheld... his argument that the sentence should reflect the seriousness of the crime, while certainly cogent, wouldn't have much weight if it wasn't already in the cards...

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