Whitewash Of A Cover-up Of A Crime...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS CONTACT: Randall Samborn 312-BITE-ME
MONDAY JULY 2, 2007
“We fully recognize that the Constitution provides that commutation decisions are a matter of presidential prerogative and we do not comment on the exercise of that prerogative.
We comment only on the statement in which the President termed the sentence imposed by the judge as “excessive.” The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country. In this case, an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws. It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals. That principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing.
Although the President’s decision eliminates Mr. Libby’s sentence of imprisonment, Mr. Libby remains convicted by a jury of serious felonies, and we will continue to seek to preserve those convictions through the appeals process.”
...as in a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham...PRESS CONTACT: Randall Samborn 312-BITE-ME
MONDAY JULY 2, 2007
STATEMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL
Statement of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald regarding today’s decision by President Bush to commute the 30-month prison sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby:“We fully recognize that the Constitution provides that commutation decisions are a matter of presidential prerogative and we do not comment on the exercise of that prerogative.
We comment only on the statement in which the President termed the sentence imposed by the judge as “excessive.” The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country. In this case, an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws. It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals. That principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing.
Although the President’s decision eliminates Mr. Libby’s sentence of imprisonment, Mr. Libby remains convicted by a jury of serious felonies, and we will continue to seek to preserve those convictions through the appeals process.”
Jenna - be sure Judge Walton takes his blood pressure medicine and cuts back on the salt with his tequilla tonight. OK?
Fitzgerald is an honest prosecutor who worked like a dog for this conviction and got mocked by pissy members of the beltway entitlement set for his efforts. Now his work gets swept away by the chief crook seeking to obstruct justice. I’m gonna guess he’s righteously pissed. I know I am. - Firedoglake
posted by Patrick J. Fitzgerald at 7/02/2007
48 Comments:
Good job, take that Bushco. That's what he gets for flipping the bird at We the People. 67% were against a pardon for Libby.
Win some, lose some-will Dubya over rule this decision too?
Judge affirms ruling to dismiss Gitmo charges
* Story Highlights
* Judge previously dropped charges against Gitmo prisoner
* Prisoner accused of killing U.S. soldier in 2001
* Judge says prisoner cannot be held; court does not have jurisdiction to try him
Thank you fr speaking, Fitz!
I'm still really pissed...
Yeah, Bite me too Bush! I'd Boo-hiss but he's used to it
"When it says Libby Libby Libby on the label label label, it means testimony given, is mostly fable fable fable."
In all reality, didn't President Bush just light a match to his giant fart of a "legacy"?
I think so, reeks. It was a really big fart too.
When can we hire Fitzgerald to prosecute at the Impeachment trial???!!!
This IS a mockery of a travesty of justice. I feel nauseous.
I live by a museum dedicated to Thomas Jefferson. The abject constrast between his principles as a lawyer and President versus what these BushCo criminals are getting away with is totally obscene!!
Rest assured, Mr. Prosecutor and fair Federal judge, the ghosts of American history -and there are many who died to preserve the very principles and laws that you upheld- and our Forefathers, the founders of America, they salute you!
Thanks for doing your job.
From NY Times
The Constitution gives the president the “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” The provision is generally understood to grant complete discretion where federal crimes are involved.
According to Justice Department standards, “requests for commutation generally are not accepted unless and until a person has begun serving that sentence,” and they are generally not granted to those appealing their convictions. Cooperation with prosecutors is usually considered a factor in granting such requests.
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"usually" but not this time!
C'mere and put your head in my lap and we'll hate him together
(I have to emphasize this. I live near both Revolutionary and Civil War sites, too. Talk about haunting spirits!)
Rest assured, Mr. Prosecutor and fair Federal judge, the ghosts of American history -and there are many who died to preserve the very principles and laws that you upheld- and our Forefathers, the founders of America, they salute you!!!!
I salute you too!!
Thanks for doing your job.
This comment has been removed by the author.
A good quote I heard once:
"A travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham."
If equal justice is Patrick's driving force, maybe he could spend a little time prosecuting the felonious behavior of Sandy Berger
NYT “It became an issue of character and courage, really,” said William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, who had argued in his magazine that if Mr. Bush was not going to pardon Mr. Libby, at least he should commute his sentence. “I certainly think Bush did the right thing, and I think he did something important for his presidency. I think conservatives would have lost respect for Bush if he had not commuted Libby’s sentence.”
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Lost respect for breaking every rule in the book! Important! ha LMAO Remember to swallow, Bill
anon I don't recall anyone around here making the claim that Sandy Berger should have been let off. However, that was not Mr. Fitzgerald's call or case...he proved his case against Scooter Libby. Four judges and a jury of his peers agreed.
Judge Walton and Team America didn't do anything wrong.
Scooter Libby is a liar, he will always be a liar and in most Americans' eyes, a traitor to his country (and to humanity).
Bush commutes Libby prison sentence - Yahoo! News
"President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak investigation Monday, delivering a political thunderbolt in the highly charged criminal case. Bush said the sentence was just too harsh."
Did Bush give a shit what was going on down in Texas, Florida, or any one of his connected boot camps for youth? Did he think those kids deserved better? Sure funny some of his letter writers and Libby's defense fund committee are connected to scandals involving sexual abuse/slavery/trafficking of children.
“A commutation of sentence reduces the period of incarceration; it
does not imply forgiveness of the underlying offense, but simply
remits a portion of the punishment. It has no effect upon the underlying conviction and does not necessarily reflect upon the
fairness of the sentence originally imposed. Requests for commutation
generally are not accepted unless and until a person has begun serving that sentence. Nor are commutation requests generally accepted from persons who are presently challenging their convictions or sentences through appeal or other court proceeding. . . Generally, commutation of sentence is an extraordinary remedy that is rarely granted.
Appropriate grounds for considering commutation have traditionally
included disparity or undue severity of sentence, critical illness or old age, and meritorious service rendered to the government by the petitioner, e.g.,cooperation with investigative or prosecutive efforts that has not been adequately rewarded by other official action. A combination of these and/or other equitable factors may also provide a basis for recommending commutation in the context of a particular case. The amount of time already served and the availability of other remedies (such as parole) are taken into account in deciding whether to recommend clemency.”
Section 1-2.113 Standards for Considering Commutation Petitions
http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/
petitions.htm
Who the hell listens to windbag Kristol anyway? He looks like a bloated drunk. He snickered about wife beating (his wife), he's trained to lie. He's puke. Neocons are war mongers.
Justice has been undone today!
It is a sad day for America!
Can you tell me if what I've got is the real White House phonebook, in case the switchboard's down when I call about Scooter? | Corrente
Being an outsider looking in, this is funny.
Cant the Special Prostrate I mean Prosecutor whats his name Biloxi fix this?
But people get over it. It happened.
Or is there going to be another 6 months of wasted hot air.
Any of you left wingers got some ideas for pulling out of Iraq yet?
Nancy who said that ? hehehehehe
He still has the 250k fine though.
If I were Libby and had the choice I'd rather spend 2.1/2 years relaxing in protected custody that do in my 250K.
What say you lot?
Dear dear SQ you get more Barbie doll looking by the minute.
Do Buffalo's have wings love?
Events & News - Calendar - Conference 2007 notes
Seen this on your evening news lately? (They all have they plastic.botox.delay.look don't they?)
Does Libby think he is above the law? Does Bush and Cheney? How far is too far for these creeps? Do you care?
Was it political that Sutton, Rove and Gonzales covered up that pedophile mess down in Texas?
Any of the above (link)look like they might "party" as the enablers called it with 10 year olds? ^^^^^^^^
I'm seeing a lack of surprise here in the comments. I know I'm not.
Nice to see an enduring Bush legacy beyond his war and environmental pollution increases.
http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/clintonpardon_grants.htm
February 18, 2001
My Reasons for the Pardons
By WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON
HAPPAQUA, N.Y. — Because of the intense scrutiny and criticism of the pardons of Marc Rich and his partner Pincus Green and because legitimate concerns have been raised, I want to explain what I did and why.
First, I want to make some general comments about pardons and commutations of sentences. Article II of the Constitution gives the president broad and unreviewable power to grant "Reprieves and Pardons" for all offenses against the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that the pardon power is granted "[t]o the [president] . . ., and it is granted without limit" (United States v. Klein). Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that "[a] pardon . . . is . . . the determination of the ultimate authority that the public welfare will be better served by [the pardon] . . ." (Biddle v. Perovich). A president may conclude a pardon or commutation is warranted for several reasons: the desire to restore full citizenship rights, including voting, to people who have served their sentences and lived within the law since; a belief that a sentence was excessive or unjust; personal circumstances that warrant compassion; or other unique circumstances.
The exercise of executive clemency is inherently controversial. The reason the framers of our Constitution vested this broad power in the Executive Branch was to assure that the president would have the freedom to do what he deemed to be the right thing, regardless of how unpopular a decision might be. Some of the uses of the power have been extremely controversial, such as President Washington's pardons of leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, President Harding's commutation of the sentence of Eugene Debs, President Nixon's commutation of the sentence of James Hoffa, President Ford's pardon of former President Nixon, President Carter's pardon of Vietnam War draft resisters, and President Bush's 1992 pardon of six Iran-contra defendants, including former Defense Secretary Weinberger, which assured the end of that investigation.
On Jan. 20, 2001, I granted 140 pardons and issued 36 commutations. During my presidency, I issued a total of approximately 450 pardons and commutations, compared to 406 issued by President Reagan during his two terms. During his four years, President Carter issued 566 pardons and commutations, while in the same length of time President Bush granted 77. President Ford issued 409 during the slightly more than two years he was president.
The vast majority of my Jan. 20 pardons and reprieves went to people who are not well known. Some had been sentenced pursuant to mandatory-sentencing drug laws, and I felt that they had served long enough, given the particular circumstances of the individual cases. Many of these were first-time nonviolent offenders with no previous criminal records; in some cases, codefendants had received significantly shorter sentences. At the attorney general's request, I commuted one death sentence because the defendant's principal accuser later changed his testimony, casting doubt on the defendant's guilt. In some cases, I granted pardons because I felt the individuals had been unfairly treated and punished pursuant to the Independent Counsel statute then in existence. The remainder of the pardons and commutations were granted for a wide variety of fact-based reasons, but the common denominator was that the cases, like that of Patricia Hearst, seemed to me deserving of executive clemency. Overwhelmingly, the pardons went to people who had been convicted and served their time, so the impact of the pardon was principally to restore the person's civil rights. Many of these, including some of the more controversial, had vigorous bipartisan support.
The pardons that have attracted the most criticism have been the pardons of Marc Rich and Pincus Green, who were indicted in 1983 on charges of racketeering and mail and wire fraud, arising out of their oil business.
Ordinarily, I would have denied pardons in this case simply because these men did not return to the United States to face the charges against them. However, I decided to grant the pardons in this unusual case for the following legal and foreign policy reasons: (1) I understood that the other oil companies that had structured transactions like those on which Mr. Rich and Mr. Green were indicted were instead sued civilly by the government; (2) I was informed that, in 1985, in a related case against a trading partner of Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, the Energy Department, which was responsible for enforcing the governing law, found that the manner in which the Rich/Green companies had accounted for these transactions was proper; (3) two highly regarded tax experts, Bernard Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown University Law Center, reviewed the transactions in question and concluded that the companies "were correct in their U.S. income tax treatment of all the items in question, and [that] there was no unreported federal income or additional tax liability attributable to any of the [challenged] transactions"; (4) in order to settle the government's case against them, the two men's companies had paid approximately $200 million in fines, penalties and taxes, most of which might not even have been warranted under the Wolfman/Ginsburg analysis that the companies had followed the law and correctly reported their income; (5) the Justice Department in 1989 rejected the use of racketeering statutes in tax cases like this one, a position that The Wall Street Journal editorial page, among others, agreed with at the time; (6) it was my understanding that Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder's position on the pardon application was "neutral, leaning for"; (7) the case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated not only by my former White House counsel Jack Quinn but also by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard Garment, a former Nixon White House official; William Bradford Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department; and Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff; (8) finally, and importantly, many present and former high-ranking Israeli officials of both major political parties and leaders of Jewish communities in America and Europe urged the pardon of Mr. Rich because of his contributions and services to Israeli charitable causes, to the Mossad's efforts to rescue and evacuate Jews from hostile countries, and to the peace process through sponsorship of education and health programs in Gaza and the West Bank.
While I was troubled by the criminalization of the charges against Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, I also wanted to assure the government's ability to pursue any Energy Department, civil tax or other charges that might be available and warranted. I knew the men's companies had settled their disputes with the government, but I did not know what personal liability the individuals might still have for Energy Department or other violations.
Therefore, I required them to waive any and all defenses, including their statute of limitations defenses, to any civil charge the government might bring against them. Before I granted the pardons, I received from their lawyer a letter confirming that they "waive any and all defenses which could be raised to the lawful imposition of civil fines or penalties in connection with the actions and transactions alleged in the indictment against them pending in the Southern District of New York."
I believe my pardon decision was in the best interests of justice. If the two men were wrongly indicted in the first place, justice has been done. On the other hand, if they do personally owe money for Energy Department penalties, unpaid taxes or civil fines, they can now be sued civilly, as others in their position apparently were, a result that might not have been possible without the waiver, because civil statutes of limitations may have run while they were out of the United States.
While I was aware of and took into account the fact that the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York did not support these pardons, in retrospect, the process would have been better served had I sought her views directly. Further, I regret that Mr. Holder did not have more time to review the case. However, I believed the essential facts were before me, and I felt the foreign policy considerations and the legal arguments justified moving forward.
The suggestion that I granted the pardons because Mr. Rich's former wife, Denise, made political contributions and contributed to the Clinton library foundation is utterly false. There was absolutely no quid pro quo. Indeed, other friends and financial supporters sought pardons in cases which, after careful consideration based on the information available to me, I determined I could not grant.
In the last few months of my term, many, many people called, wrote or came up to me asking that I grant or at least consider granting clemency in various cases. These people included friends, family members, former spouses of applicants, supporters, acquaintances, Republican and Democratic members of Congress, journalists and total strangers. I believe that the president can and should listen to such requests, although they cannot determine his decision on the merits. There is only one prohibition: there can be no quid pro quo. And there certainly was not in this or any of the other pardons and commutations I granted.
I am accustomed to the rough and tumble of politics, but the accusations made against me in this case have been particularly painful because for eight years I worked hard to make good decisions for the American people. I want every American to know that, while you may disagree with this decision, I made it on the merits as I saw them, and I take full responsibility for it.
William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd president of the United States.
I can live with Bill's pardons much better than this time around. At least his decisions had SOME logic.
4:14 am Are you "left wingers"...anon, your assuming makes an ass of you-again.
Here's your pullout plan-the one the Army has had on the books for nearly 3 years. Your prez is too much of a brain fried drunk/druggie lunatic to implement the plan. His daddy should have pulled out too haha It's not often one can call someone an SOB and really mean it.
There are 3586 dead soldiers,I knew some of them. How many did you know? How many grieving mothers have you held? I have lost count.
I have soldiers in my family too...so how about you call 1-800-BITE-ME? Got kids? Pick one to sacrifice for your kooky prez. My own are too smart to spare...
Planning a U.S. Military Disengagement Strategy from Iraq
They conclude that the United States must be prepared to withdraw from Iraq under non-optimal conditions and that the chief U.S. goals should be to devise an exit strategy for Iraq that focuses on bolstering Iraqi government legitimacy even if this does not involve creating a Western style democracy
8:20 LOL good ones;)
"Yeah but what about Clinton?"
Like a broken record again.
lol fo' shizzle my bizzle.
I called and left my comment to the decider.
I'm still trying to call the prez. The line is busy. Think he'll take my call? haha
fo' shizzle my bizzle- yeah that is funny;)
Glad to see you can keep your sense of humor!
Call the switch board- they'll put you through.
Yew kin kall me instahd Jan.
This was a BS trial. You should be ashamed of yourself. You went hunting and came up EMPTY. Then you got the guy on technicalities. The president did the right and moral thing. now go to hell.
BS trial my @ss, didn't bother to read the evidence introduced into court, did ya?
"The president did the right and moral thing. now go to hell."
And I wonder how much this troll was paid by Prezildent Despondent to spread false statements?
Again - this is a witch hunting trial. They knew all along that he was not the leaker and they went tripping him up. I know truth hurts. This Pardon was the right thing to do. And by the way - 2008 - you will have another repulican in teh white house. So .... deal with it.
"And by the way - 2008 - you will have another repulican in teh white house. So .... deal with it."
And I wonder how much this troll was paid by Prezildent Despondent to spread false statements?
Can someone tell me why Scooter Libby chose to lie to the grand jury and why he chose not to testify in his own trial? Or why his team of lawyers chose not to do what they said they would be doing in their opening statements of Libby's trial?
Did the FBI lie about what Scooter Libby said? Is President Bush saying the FBI, Fitzgerald and his team all lied? Is that what the President is telling the American people? Has the President lied to the American People or Cheney has lied?
What possible reason would all these Judges have against Scooter Libby if he were so innocent?
Three Girls Died, Others Hospitalized, After HPV Vaccine
Isn't this the vaccine that the government pushed? Then it was found politicians were getting kick backs on for promoting, like Gov. Rick Perry of Texas aka Dubai Rick?
CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS: WHITE HOUSE TURNS OFF COMMENT LINE
Considering what is in some of Bush's friends back rounds, one can imagine what they are blackmailing him with.
3:06 Yeah and that's bullsh*t, cause they pay me nothing to speak the truth! I think I should get paid to educate repugs...
"3:06 Yeah and that's bullsh*t, cause they pay me nothing to speak the truth!"
And now a word from our sponsor...Yeah, now go pick up your check at the unemployment office like a good lad.
Unemployment line...good one. I work 100 hours a week pal, and I'm no lad.
TaxProf Blog: iPhone = iTax: Apple Employees Will Have to Pay IRS for Steve Jobs' "Gift"
TrustMe.com - Wolfowitz, his girlfriend, Liz Cheney, and the "seedy" of Lebanon
Could it be?
Compost at 8:20
Ha! You are so hilarious!
And so true...
yeah, "compost" the great pretender.
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