This video from the USA is of former CIA officer Valerie Plame testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday, March 16, 2007.
Plame believes she was outed as retaliation against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who criticized the Bush administration’s prewar intelligence on Iraq.
By Barry Grey:
Judge orders former Cheney aide Lewis Libby to begin serving prison sentence
16 June 2007
US District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Thursday rejected the request of I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, that he remain free pending the outcome of appeals on his perjury and obstruction of justice conviction in connection with the exposure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.
Libby was convicted by a jury on March 6 of lying to FBI agents and a federal grand jury investigating the leak of Plame Wilson’s CIA identity in July 2003. Top Bush administration officials, including Libby and Bush’s chief political adviser Karl Rove, informed a number of reporters of Plame Wilson’s CIA status in an attempt to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had published a column in the New York Times exposing administration lies about alleged Iraqi nuclear weapons programs.
The investigation carried out by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald showed that Vice President Dick Cheney personally told Libby and other officials to speak with selected journalists and inform then of Plame Wilson’s CIA position. The dirty tricks operation was an effort to intimidate critics of Bush’s Iraq war policy. …
If he goes to prison, he will become the first high-level White House official to do so since Watergate, when several of Richard Nixon’s top aides, including H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, served jail terms.
Vote to impeach Cheney in
Posted by: “Compa€ ¦ñero” companyero@bellsouth.net chocoano05
Fri Jun 15, 2007 6:10 am (PST)
It’s finally hitting the mainstream media around here! Take less
than 10 seconds and vote to impeach Cheney!
http://www.baynews9.com/Home.html
Scroll down about mid way.
Stand up for our brothers and sisters dying for a lie in Iraq!
Let’s make some noise!
Do you think Vice President Dick Cheney should be impeached for
allegedly deceiving the country about Iraqi WMD?
LikeLike
*CIA Leak Trial Judge Received Threats*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:47 am (PST)
I would wager that the ONLY people rushing to Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s
defense are Washington insiders — powerful people…. the Beltway crowd
… the Bush White House gang.
So, since Judge Reggie Walton, the judge in the Lewis Libby trial, is
getting threatening letters (even death threats) and his family is
getting threatening mail, it can ONLY be coming form those same
Washington insiders, the ones in charge of our country, and their “friends.”
What does THAT tell us about the criminality of the current White House
gang?
We ALL have MUCH more to fear from the Bush administration (Bush calls
it his “government,” not his “administration) than we have to fear from
the Mafia or any organized crime figures.
—————————————————
**CIA Leak Trial Judge Received Threats*
by MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press
Jun 14, 2007
WASHINGTON –
The federal judge who oversaw I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s CIA leak trial
said Thursday that he received threatening letters and phone calls after
sentencing the former White House aide to prison.
“I received a number of angry, harassing mean-spirited phone calls and
letters,” U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said. “Some of those were
wishing bad things on me and my family.”
Walton made the remarks as he opened a hearing into whether to delay
Libby’s 2 1/2-year sentence. He said he was holding the letters in case
something happened but said they would have no effect on Thursday’s
decision.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, argues
that he shouldn’t have to report to prison until his appeals have run out.
Walton has said he’s not inclined to grant that request. But even if he
rules that way, it is unlikely Libby would be taken away in handcuffs.
Rather, it would lead to more maneuvering in Libby’s legal fight.
Libby’s newly formed appellate team – Lawrence S. Robbins and Mark
Stancil – are standing by. If Libby loses Thursday,
[NOTE FROM ME: Libby did lose — he is scheduled to report to prison
in 6-8 weeks.]
his lawyers have said they will ask an appeals court for an emergency
order delaying the sentence. Because one of the issues in the appeal is
whether Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had the authority to
charge Libby, defense lawyers also could ask the Supreme Court to step in.
[NOTE FROM ME: That is a DISTRACTION by LIbby’s lawyers. Here are
the documents appointing Patrick Fitzgerald SPECIAL COUNSEL in the
CIA leak investigation:
December 30, 2003 Letter of Deputy Attorney General, at:
February 6, 2004 Letter of Deputy Attorney General, at:
August 12, 2005 Memorandum of Deputy Attorney General, at:
Here is U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s website while functioning
as SPECIAL COUNSEL in the CIA leak investigation:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/
Be aware that at the time the CIA leak investigation was undertaken
by the U.S. Justice Dept., John Ashcroft was the Attorney General.
He eventually recused himself when the investigation began to look
into White House involvement and he would have had a conflict of
interest (of course, Ashcroft had stayed on the job just long enough
to give the White House time to destroy documents). Ashcroft then
turned the matter over to his Deputy Atty. Gen. James Comey who
appointed Patrick Fitzgerald (who was U.S. Attorney for Illinois) as
“Special Counsel” in the CIA leak investigation.
It is important to note that John Ashcroft, James Comey, Patrick
Fitzgerald and Judge Reggie Walton were ALL APPOINTED by Bush to
their positions — not a Democrat in the bunch.]
Then there is the pardon question.
Libby’s supporters have called for President Bush wipe away Libby’s
convictions. Bush publicly has sidestepped pardon questions, saying he
wants to let the legal case play out.
If Bush were to decide to issue a pardon, a delay would give him more
flexibility to pick a time that makes the most political sense.
Bush’s father pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and
five others in the Iran-Contra arms and money affair on Christmas Eve 1992.
[NOTE FROM ME: Sneaky man that he is, Bush Sr.. assumed we would all
be too busy on Christmas Eve to notice his infamous pardons, which
were so much WORSE than ANY Clinton pardons that they make Clinton’s
pardons pale into insignificance. Bush Sr. pardoned men who were
under subpoena to testify against him in the Iran-Contra trial …
so these pardons saved Bush Sr.’s own neck.]
President Clinton pardoned more than 100 people on his way out the White
House door, including former Housing and Urban Development Secretary
Henry Cisneros and Whitewater scandal figure Susan McDougal.
[NOTE FROM ME: Susan McDougal never committed any crime …she had
refused Ken Starr’s threats to testify against (and LIE about)
President Clinton or be charged with contempt of court and jailed.
Susan McDougal went to jail — for almost TWO YEARS — rather than
testify FALSELY against the Clintons. She was taken out of the
courtroom in LEG IRONS and CHAINS and incarcerated in a series of
awful women’s prisons, as Ken Starr tried to break her will. She was
frequently awakened in he middle of the night to be moved to a
different prison … this was done to disorient here and break her
spirit. Ken Starr directed all this punishment. He wanted to get the
Clintons and he didn’t care who he hurt in the process. Ken Starr is
still at large although he is a criminal of the worst sort — he
used the power of his office to harass witnesses… that is a crime.]
After a monthlong trial, jurors found in March that Libby lied to
investigators about how he learned that Valerie Plame, the wife of an
outspoken war critic, worked for the CIA, and whom he told.
[NOTE ROM ME: Libby also committed PERJURY when he lied to a grand
jury more than once, and he was found GUILTY of OBSTRUCTING
justice. Libby knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it anyway.
Libby was well-known in Washington circles for having a steel-trap
memory … all of a sudden, now, he tells us he has a “poor” memory
.]
Libby maintains his innocence and says any misstatements were the result
of a bad memory, not deception.
To win a delay of his sentence, Libby’s lawyers would have to show there
was a good chance they could overturn the conviction on appeal.
Attorneys argue that, during trial, they were unfairly prohibited from
discussing the classified issues that were weighing on Libby’s mind at
the time of the leak and from questioning witnesses that could have
helped his case.
Read this at:
http://www.examiner.com/a-780438~CIA_Leak_Trial_Judge_Received_Threats.html
LikeLike