printDenis Collins, juror in Scooter Libby’s trial, said that Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff was the fall guy. “‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?'” is how Collins described the pickle jurors found themselves in during Libby’s scuttlebutt-driven trial. Still, it did not prevent them from convicting Libby, and rendering conflicting verdicts, to boot.
Not that he was a sympathetic sort, but CIA director George ‘Slam-Dunk’ Tenet was also the fall guy for Cheney, Bush, Rove, and Rice. They’re good at letting the minions take the wrap for their infractions.
More crucially, the “crime” for which Libby was convicted was also the crime for which Martha Stewart went to jail: lying to the FBI. Not for leaking the identity of former (so-called) classified CIA operative Valerie Plame. (Or, in Stewart’s case, insider trading.) Richard Armitage did that.
Where a prosecutor could never hope to prove his case in a court of law, he goes looking for other charges. He manufactures crimes. If he can’t get a defendant —usually a high-profile one —on the facts; the prosecutor will often get him for lying. After all, if the prosecutor has not been able to prove his case, this must mean the hapless accused has been lying, right?
Republicans failed to protest Stewart’s sham of a trial, but have been perfectly capable of articulating why Scooter Libby’s conviction is suspect. But that’s to be expected. Stewart is a rock-ribbed Democrat; Scooter a Republican. Democrats are as partisan.
Let’s hope Cheney cashes in some Halliburton shares to help defray the costs of Libby’s $6-million defense.
Where a prosecutor could never hope to prove his case in a court of law, he goes looking for other charges. He manufactures crimes ….
So after the Duke Lacrosse business, the Mexican border prosecution of the guards and now Libby’s trial what are we foreigners to make of the US legal system’s failure to protect its citizens from despotic behaviour?
Who do we look to now?
The lesson is clear. Never, ever, ever fail to exercise your right recognized in the fifth amendment not to give information that can be used in a criminal proceeding against you–even if a judge claims you don’t have that right in front of a Grand Jury or he claims that his offering you limited immunity overcomes your fifth amendment rights. Had Libby gone to jail for contempt of court for not answering questions put to him in front of the Grand Jury he’d have spent much less time in jail than he now faces and he’d be out by now. He’d also have a great deal smaller legal bill.
How much more evidence do we need? Our government is run by a corrupt armed gang whom we trust at our peril.
As an attorney, I am very concerned about a trial and verdict that elicits jury reactions like this. It appears to me that this was rank legalism as opposed to justice.