Too bad I'm at work when all the good stuff happens. Will someone keep us informed on the site?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The jury has reached a verdict in the perjury and obstruction trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The verdict will be read at noon, court officials said.

Libby, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a fine of $1.25 million if convicted.

A five-count indictment against the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney alleges perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to the FBI and a grand jury investigating how Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA operative.

Libby is not accused of exposing Plame. He resigned in 2005 after the grand jury indicted him.

Prosecutors contend Libby disclosed Plame's covert profession to reporters as part of a plan to discredit her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who alleged that the Bush administration twisted some intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Wilson, who conducted a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, wrote in a July 2003 New York Times editorial that he found no evidence Iraq sought to buy uranium from the African nation, as the administration claimed.

The jury is down to 11 members -- seven women and four men. A week ago, one of the jurors revealed that she had obtained outside information that prompted the judge to disqualify her.

The defense said it would accept 11 jurors to avoid having to start deliberations over with an alternate. The prosecution objected, but U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton overruled, and the panel has continued with one chair empty.

Testimony and evidence in the trial began January 23.

Supppose to be announced at noon.

Guilty.

Don't know the details yet.

I think the prosecution's case was more effective.....I guess we'll have to see what the jury made of it.......I'll say guilty on at least perjury...possible obstruction

Guilty on 4 out of 5 counts

Guilty of 4 out of 5 counts of perjury
False Statements - Not Guilty
Obs of justice - Guilty of 4 out of 5 counts

The 3rd count on perjury and Obstruction are the not guilty

It was interesting to hear the judge's admonition the other day.. that cheney's testimony might have helped Libby....

4 out of 5 is not bad. Hopefully this will lead to other investigations.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty on four of five counts in his perjury and obstruction of justice trial.

Libby, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of $1 million.

The five-count indictment against the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney alleges perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to the FBI and a grand jury investigating how Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA operative.

Libby is not accused of exposing Plame. He resigned in 2005 after the grand jury indicted him.

Prosecutors contended Libby disclosed Plame's covert profession to reporters as part of a plan to discredit her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who alleged that the Bush administration twisted some intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Wilson, who conducted a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, wrote in a July 2003 New York Times editorial that he found no evidence Iraq sought to buy uranium from the African nation, as the administration claimed.

The jury was down to 11 members -- seven women and four men. A week ago, one of the jurors revealed that she had obtained outside information that prompted the judge to disqualify her.

The defense said it would accept 11 jurors to avoid having to start deliberations over with an alternate. The prosecution objected, but U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton overruled, and the panel has continued with one chair empty.

Testimony and evidence in the trial began January 23.

CNN's Kevin Bohn and Paul Courson contributed to this report.

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Libby found guilty
Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty on four of five counts in his perjury and obstruction of justice trial.



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So I wonder how many years that means in terms of sentencing? I would suppose at least 5yrs on each count

I guess that answered my question thnx Terra

... but it would have hurt Cheney.

Exactamundo!

I agree with Silver, Exactamundo!!! Which leads me to this question.....Will Fitz pursue cheney?

This is the first real crack in the Bush armour. This is the first time that they have been held legally accountable for anything. It's a very small start, but lets hope it leads to a cascade.

A little more from DKOS....they have been following the trial at the courthouse


Pre-sentence investigation will be conducted. Report due May 15. Mr Libby will need to make arrangements with probation department. Will give counsel until May 25 dispute with probation.

Wells makes a formal motion to have appeal period extended.

Libby is sitting back from the table. ABSOLUTELY no reaction.

Fitz asks for two minutes with Wells.

Best I can do is give you until April 15. I can give gov't until the 11 of May. Any reply filed by 23 of May. No objection to continuing bail pending appeal.

Wells: Finally, as I understand, if the defense wants to talk to the jurors, we can talk to them.

Walton: It is their prerogative to talk to you, if they desire not to talk, they will be taken to the van, if they don't desire to talk, then counsel should not talk with them.

http://dailykos.com/

We need a better headline on top

LIBBY GUILTY

Silver-tell the mod to change the headline so anyone who comes here instantly can see it

BTW- wasn't this a conspiracy theory just a few weeks ago, and all the naysayers said nothing happened.

Graham you forgot to say Clinton was involved.

Now tell me how great a person Libby is too. why divert the topic?

Do you find lying to a grand jury funny?

Good idea Graham, and I'll do it if Silver says, I want to defer to him since he started this thread.



I'm not aware of just who was speaking about Fitzgerald as though he was pursuing some wacky CT, but I am interested in any examples you can show, of the kinds of statements that were made.

I don't know. He argued in this case that Libby acted alone. On the other hand, some of the testimony seems to point a finger at Cheney. I think Fitz will go after whoever he has enough evidence against, but I've given up trying to predict.

Go for it. Change it to "Libby Found Guilty on 4 of 5 Counts".

I'll take a stab. He is not great at all.



Is that what you think TROU found funny?

Well, I suppose we could look at journalistic and pundit opinion pieces that seemed to discredit both the Fitzgerald investigation (there were pieces questioning his political bent etc) and the Wilsons..(saying she was not a noc, that she had high visibility etc).....and that it was just not possible that there was a conspiracy at the top (esp since bush said he'd fire anyone who disclosed the identity of a CIA agent) when it is quite obvious from events that occurred (although not yet proven legally) that there was a concerted effort to discredit both Plame and Wilson.......right out of the office of the VP and that bush probably knew all along.

A Juror is holding a press conference on MSNBC, saying they did what they were assigned to do and decided on what the evidence showed. But they felt Libby was a fall guy and they were wondering.."where's Rove...where's Cheney..why aren't they up there"

Well, it certainly still leaves a door open for some other prosecutor to pick up where Fitz left off..wasn't he working with Mc Nulty and sharing info on the Niger forgeries?




edit this was in reply to Silver

seems sort of odd.

I wouldn't be at all surprized if this web eventually includes Chenny,Rice, Bolton and Rove.

I think that Congress has to look at that because nobody else will.

Libby's defense team will dance the system long enough to get to the calendar point where a pardon will be issued by "W" - so save your breath everybody-all I wonder is if this will effectively also delay the civil trial on behalf of the Wilsons?





lenal
:football: -

That was my other thought PP.....but let's hope they'll actually do it......more grist for the Conyer's mill?

here's what I thought could be an emphasis on the part of Fitz (I admit that we'd have to have heard the words and I could be reading into it...ever the optimist)

Who cares about Bolton? How would he be involved in this stuff? There is no crime for being an obtuse jerk. I kind of doubt that Rice would have been involved, this would have been the doings of the most political of the higher ups, which of course would mean Cheney and Rove as very live possibilities.

I hear ya Lenal, but it still doesn't change the legal verdict....he is still guilty....pardoned or not....fall guy or not.

This is ultimately the realm of Congress, because there is no Independent Council (convienently) anymore to go after the Executive. Bush and Cheney have been shown to go after a NOC and reveal her covert job and all associated with her. Her cover was working for Brewster Jennings which was a CIA boilerplate operation working on stopping Nuclear Proliferation to protect America. That has been destroyed by them. They have put our nation at greater risk so they not only have undermined our troops, but undermined America. Who then are the America Haters? From Reagan on I see who really hates us.

I bet the ink ain't dry on the pardon.

Is that what we'd call a pre-emptive pardon?

Just heard on MSNBC that Scooter Libby was Marc Rich's lawyer at one time.

Where's Graham?

Wait a minute, here. Is anyone else getting the same thing out of this that I am? Remember back when the Valerie Plame scandal broke? We had Right-wing talking heads and Bush Apologists swearing up and down that 1) it didn't happen, 2) if it did, it was Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame themselves who did the outing, and 3) outing Plame the way it went down wasn't actually a crime. Now there's an eerie silence coming from the self-righteous Righties who swore this was a "nothing" story. I wonder how they'll try to spin this now, since, according to them, Libby was just convicted of something he didn't do and which isn't a crime anyway.

just picked up this tidbit on MSNBC - Did you know that Libby was Marc Rich's attorney in that scandal case?
Another little fragile thread in the web?



lenal
:mardi-gras:

I thought that Graham might have had someone else in mind when he talked about the "naysayers", but I suppose these pundits might be whom he had in mind.

This now opens the door for the prosecuter to make a deal for his testimony against the VP.

Perhaps Cheney will now forget to take his medicine.....!

Give them time CB.....they have to formulate a new excuse.....(in the manner of a Lakoff sound-bite)

My great concern is the manipulation in the justice department. It would be interesting to look closer into the districts the 18 justice attorneys were fired in. I know it will have something to do with 2008 but perhaps it has something to do with the guilt of VP and President in exposing CIA agent.

You seem to forget, according to Fitzgerald this didn't have anything to do with who outted Valerie Plame, it was about false statements made to law enforcement and a grand jury when they were investigating who outted Valerie Plame. No one knows who did it yet.

It's already been revealed that Richard Armitage accidently revealed Plame's identity to Bob Woodward. The right wing spin will be that there was no conspiracy, but libby was unfairly targetted by Fitzgerald who needed to have something to show for two years of work. At worse, Libby is guilty of stupidly try to cover up a crime that didn't happen. And we know there was no crime because Armitage was never indicted.

Richard Armitage admitted it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Armit...e_investigation

But according to Fitzgerald, Libby also spoke to Judy Miller about Plame shortly after Armitage spoke to Woodward. However it doesn't appear to be a crime to do that. Seems like it should be, but if it were, they would have prosecuted Armitage.

Shrub will make sure he never sees the inside of a prison. The two Border Patrol agents convicted last year will serve his sentence for him.

This is line by line stolen from Clinton era. Now I must remind you that there is a big difference between poking with a cigar and putting a CIA operatives life in danger because you want to discredit her husband.
One is just gross and the other grossly criminal.