Scooter Takes a Fall
The jury deliberated for so long on this case that I thought it would end up being a hung jury and Scooter would walk.
Turns out they convicted him on four out of five counts:
One count of Obstruction of Justice for knowingly impeding the investigation,
One count of Making False Statements to the F.B.I. during their interviews of him regarding his conversations with Russert and Cooper,
Two counts of Perjury before the grand jury when he testified about his conversations with Russert and Cooper.
Libby lied and obstructed Fitzgerald’s investigation into who blew Valerie Plame’s cover, and for that he should be punished. But we also know who the real perpetrators are and they aren’t going to do any time. They weren’t even indicted.
Richard Armitage admitted that he was the one who leaked Plame’s identity to Robert Novak. But Mr. Armitage was very, very sorry about what he did, so nobody even arrested him and charged him with a felony. They figured Armitage’s leak wasn’t deliberate. It was just idle chit-chat from a self described “terrible gossip.”
When asked by Novak if Armitage’s “gossip” was true, Karl Rove confirmed that it was.
And we know from reports of the trial that it was a vindictive Cheney who orchestrated the whole affair. He put politics above national security when he ordered his crew to leak Plame’s CIA status, and then he ordered his right-hand man to take the fall. What a guy… He was probably just being nice by not shooting Scooter in the face.
Patrick Fitzgerald summed up the lingering questions about Cheney’s role quite well in his closing statement: “There is a cloud on the vice president, and that cloud remains, because this defendant obstructed justice….That cloud was there. It was not something we put there.”
It’s also a cloud that won’t clear for many years. Libby’s appeal process will probably last through the end of Bush’s term, so he’ll do very little time before Bush pardons him on his way out of the White House. With that the investigations, if there are any going on, will cease and the whole lot of them will walk away as free men.
With liberty and justice for all? Well all the liars in the Bush Administration will keep their liberty, but there will be no justice.
