Libby Drops Appeal
Via TPM, I see that Scooter Libby has dropped his appeal.
As you may remember, the standard talking point of administration apologists back in July, when President Bush chose to commute Libby's prison sentence, was that the commutation was necessary because Libby had been denied bail while his appeal was pending, an appeal which we were told would almost surely result in his conviction being overturned. We were also told that Bush's Solomonic decision--to commute Libby's sentence but not grant a full pardon--was ideal because it would allow the appeal to move forward so that Libby could be vindicated and clear his name.
I guess those talking points are inoperative now. Regardless of how his lawyers try to spin this, the reality is that Libby dropped his appeal because he had almost no chance of winning it.
As you may remember, the standard talking point of administration apologists back in July, when President Bush chose to commute Libby's prison sentence, was that the commutation was necessary because Libby had been denied bail while his appeal was pending, an appeal which we were told would almost surely result in his conviction being overturned. We were also told that Bush's Solomonic decision--to commute Libby's sentence but not grant a full pardon--was ideal because it would allow the appeal to move forward so that Libby could be vindicated and clear his name.
I guess those talking points are inoperative now. Regardless of how his lawyers try to spin this, the reality is that Libby dropped his appeal because he had almost no chance of winning it.
17 Comments:
Perhaps he couldn't afford it. These legal proceedures are so expensive. Where the hell is a normal family-man like Libby going to get that kind of money? Are people are just going to give it to him? Through fund drives, and dinners, and stuff?
And then there's the torment the country would go through.
Yes, he did the right thing, the noble choice.
Please, I'm not sure that Libby's decision to drop his appeal should be cast as being "noble." Nothing about Libby's behavior was noble. He saw the handwriting on the wall and reacted accordingly.
snark, alley cat, snark
Well, what would you have someone say to an enabler? They deserve at least a modest kick in the pants on their way out the door.
Regardless of how his lawyers try to spin this, the reality is that Libby dropped his appeal because he had almost no chance of winning it.
Well, what is victory? At best, it appeared that he had a chance at a retrial, with a final verdict unlikely to arrive before the Bush pardon shop would be closed for good.
One might well ask why this was not obvious at the time.
Tom Maguire
Tom,
I think even retrial was a long shot. The bottom line is that these kind of appeals almost never prove reversible error. And Fitzgerald and company are excellent lawyers. They don't get too many convictions overturned.
My point here is only that supporters of commutation (and pardon) have consistently pretended that Libby had some kind of surefire appeal. But he didn't. That was always a load of b.s.
I'll go out on a limb: the fix is in. Bush will make the base happy with a holiday, excuse me, Christmas Pardon, and since Libby knows this the appeal is pointless, not hopeless.
Bush has nothing to lose and the applause of the fanatics to gain. He'll do it.
I think it overstates the position of Bush and those who supported the commutation to suggest that they claimed Libby had a "surefire" appeal, and I believe you will search in vain for any such claim from the administration.
The fact that he has now elected not to appeal has no bearing whatsoever on the correctness of the decision to commute at the time that decisions was made. It was the proper choice, and it will stand.
My guess is that the pardon will come next Christmas, not this one.
I'll go further out on a limb and guess that no one will ever show that Bush received money for his library in return for such a pardon, and that none of Bush's relatives will derive any benefit from it. And we can all take comfort from the fact that at the time he is pardoned Mr. Libby will not be a wanted fugitive. Ah yes, the power of the pardon...absolute, by golly, absolute...
For the record, Mr. Bush's statement commuting Libby's sentence made no mention whatsoever of any appeal--the word does not appear in the statement.
Here are the concluding, money paragraphs of the statement:
"Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.
"My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.
"The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power."
My own view was that the only ground on which an appeal had a chance of success was the consitutionality of Fitzgerald'a appointment. I believe that if he had appealed on that ground alone and had won, there would not have been a retrial. But I'm not certain on that one...
For the record, Mr. Bush's statement commuting Libby's sentence made no mention whatsoever of any appeal--the word does not appear in the statement.
Here are the concluding, money paragraphs of the statement:
"Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.
"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.
"My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.
"The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power."
My own view was that the only ground on which an appeal had a chance of success was the consitutionality of Fitzgerald'a appointment. I believe that if he had appealed on that ground alone and had won, there would not have been a retrial. But I'm not certain on that one...
Neutral- there is no doubt that Libby’s commutation will stand, but how do you reach the conclusion that it was the proper choice?
Let’s review the facts. In 2002/03, the Bush Administration made the decision to invade Iraq and depose its regime. The primary justification it offered for this action was Iraq’s possession of WMD (this was the sole justification that it offered internationally). Why and how the Administration actually made the decision remains obscure, but it is clear that there were a number of senior officials within the Administration, including Scooter Libby, who were pushing for regime change in Iraq long before 9/11. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that these officials performed their duty of seriously weighing the consequences of a war with Iraq; instead, it seems they acted as cheerleaders for a war they had long favored.
Once we invaded and discovered that Iraq had no WMD, it should have been obvious to these officials that they had made a terrible mistake. (Even if one accepts for argument’s sake that there were adequate justifications for the war apart from WMD, the fact that we invaded a country based on a false premise was itself tremendously damaging to our interests and international standing). The only honorable and patriotic thing for these officials to do was to resign and take the blame for failing their president and their country. If they had been Japanese, they would have been expected to commit ritual suicide.
Instead, Administration officials, including Libby, took a “circle the wagons” approach. Rather than acknowledging their own errors, they pointed fingers at the CIA (the CIA, particularly its director, deserved plenty of blame, but this in no way exculpated the Administration). This type of “permanent campaign” behavior is bad enough in connection with ordinary matters of government—it is totally unacceptable in connection with a decision to put tens of thousands of American soldiers in harm’s way.
As far as I am concerned, the Plame/Wilson matter is of little significance except as an outgrowth of this decision to deflect blame. The evidence does not support the charge that anyone intentionally outed Plame. As for the attacks that the Administration made on Wilson’s credibility, the issue is not whether those attacks were true (some, perhaps all, were). The issue is whether they were relevant. Even if everything Wilson said was a lie, it does not change the fact that the Administration started a war based on a false factual premise. Whether the Administration sincerely believed this false factual premise is important, but it is still subsidiary to that indisputable fact.
The jury found that Libby lied about his role in disclosing Plame’s identity. The evidence was adequate to support the jury’s verdict, and, as AL notes, Libby’s chances on appeal were slim. Frankly, none of that makes much difference to me. Even if Libby were innocent (which I doubt), he should have counted himself lucky to spend a few years in prison to atone for his role in the disastrous decisionmaking that led to the war. He should not have asked for nor accepted any presidential pardon or commutation. By commuting Libby’s sentence, Bush demonstrated, at the very least, an indifference to accountability among his senior aides.
It is ironic that you would try to justify Bush’s action by reference to Clinton’s disgraceful pardons of Marc Rich and others. At the time of the Rich pardon, Libby (who had been Rich’s lawyer) gave some incredible testimony to the House Government Reform Committee in which (as I recall) he acknowledged on the one hand that Rich may have committed treason and, on the other, refused to condemn the pardon. Perhaps we should have known at that time that he was not fit for government service.
Dear MLS:
I made no effort of any kind to justify Bush's action by reference to Clinton's disgraceful pardons. I mentioned those pardons only to illustrate that they have been used in ways far more unsavory than in the Libby case, and very recently.
I will not bother to cut and paste the innumerable pre- and post-9/11 comments from Democrats, including Mr. Clinton, advocating war with Iraq. I fail to see that this has anything to do with the propriety of Mr. Bush's decision to commute. And I simply disagree with your assertion that the administration sought to "deflect blame" to the CIA. The NIE's asserting that Saddam possessed WMD's were, as are all NIE's, consensus documents, ultimately approved by the Director of Central Intelligence. That Mr. Tenet declared the WMD's to be a "slam dunk" may be characterized by Bush opponents as deflecting blame; others would recognie it simply as fact. And it is a fact acknowledged by Mr. Tenet. (Joe Wilson, no less, declared on the eve of the invasion that Saddam had them and would use them.)
I agree that Mr. Libby lied, and I believe he deserved to be convicted. I have said so in a number of places, and indeed said so before the verdict was in. I do disagree with the sentence, and apparently you do not. Neither of us matters at all--the power to commute rests exclusively with the president, and he exercised it for the reasons he stated. He, and only he, was given the requisite authority by the electorate. All others are simply saying "shut up and deal."
Neutral,
Aren't there a few more right-wing justifications for Cheney's treasonous exposure of a covert CIA operative that you could regurgitate for us? -- and make sure to do it twice, because that's the only way it could be made better.
'cause you know, it's not like we've ever heard these arguments before.
Poor Mr. c2hetc., I'll leave you to worry yourself about how it was that "Cheney" exposed a "covert" operative, and to tell us why that exposure was "treasonous." I'm not aware that I had offered any justifications, right-wing or otherwise, for any of these things, since I had not heretofore known that any of them happened.
Apparently all of these events escaped the attention of Mr. Fitzgerald, which I suppose is understandable since we all know he was a puppet dancing on strings pulled by Karl Rove.
When certain fevers hit the brow, there can be no cure...
My favourite headline on all this was over at 23/6 "Some of the news, most of the time":
Libby Won't Appeal Wrist-slapping
MLS said: The only honorable and patriotic thing for these officials to do was to resign and take the blame for failing their president and their country. If they had been Japanese, they would have been expected to commit ritual suicide.
Ah, seppuku~ one can only wish for such truly noble self-sacrifice amongst men such as these ~
Snark & wishful thinking, of course.
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