Do conservatives believe that justice was served with the Libby conviction?

Question

Not negatively targetting conservatives, rather desire to know conservative's real opinion on the matter.

I believe it is a step in the right direction. Your thoughts please.

The reason I firmly support the conviction is there is no doubt that Libby lied to the grand jury.

Since he comitted perjury, he should be punished for the crime regarless of what he was lying about.

Answer 1

well that is a vague question. However...

""Since he comitted perjury, he should be punished for the crime regarless of what he was lying about.""

You did say that. and I agree with it. He lied to a grand jury and should be punished for it...
The question for you is... by your own words, shouldn't Bill Clinton also have been punished for doing the exact same thing?

And to those who say no crimes were committed. Well perjury is a crime. No there was nothing for him to have to lie about. But he did anyway apparently. Maybe he was stupid maybe he was confused I don't know. There isn't a case for anything but his perjury but it is still a crime to lie like that.

Answer 2

No, I believe it is another case of political prosecution.
Libby was being questioned about an issue that the prosecutor already knew the answer to. He knew who leaked Plaim's name and it was not Libby. In fact the prosecutor also knew that Plaim was not a CIA operative and that no crime was committed by revealing her name. He went ahead and convened a Grand Jury anyway. He subpoenaed Libby questioned him under oath.
Libby could have pulled a "Hillary" and claimed that he did not recall any of the details. Instead, he did his best to answer the questions knowing in his heart that he had committed no crime.

Due to some confusion and memory lapses he answered some questions incorrectly. It is for these answers that he was later prosecuted and summarily convicted. He may well win on appeal since a good case can be made that none of his answers, even if they were deliberate lies, can be considered material to the case at hand since the case at hand was later proved not to even be a crime. It has also been discovered that one of the jurors is a radical liberal newspaper journalist that is already on record hating the Bush administration.

Answer 3

I have not really followed the case that close. Because I feel like it has been blown out of proportion and it is smoke and mirrors to give you and I something else to pay attention to.

Politics aside, if he did in fact obstruct an investigation, perjure himself, then so what...he is guilty.

If he, in fact, outed a covert CIA agent, he should rot in prison.

I think however the whole fiasco is a witch hunt, blame-shifting and scape goating (that ought to cover both parties). But if he broke the law, he broke the law. Don't pass go.

I do think this whole mess has opened a dangerous precedent with the press/sources issue.

Answer 4

No, it was merely politics as usual. Scooter Libby was scapegoated to answer for the Leftist witch hunts of our Executive office. Not that this is the province of only Leftists, the right wing has also been complicit in political witch hunts.

Answer 5

No~Scooter didn't leak valerie's name or position,abranhoff did. She wasn't an undercover agent at the time anyway. Well maybe now the republicans will grow some b--- and go after berger for stealing those documents and after william jefferson.

Answer 6

He had a fair trial, will be pardoned and can now serve as a scape goat for Cheney.

Look for him in future elections after they sanctify him like that traitor Ollie North.
Yes I'm a conservative, but not a fundament sniffing neocon.

Answer 7

No I don't think there were grounds for a trial in the first place. It was ridiculous and cruel to try him

Answer 8

It is a travesty & a miscarriage of justice. Libby isn't guilty because NO CRIMES WERE COMMITTED!

Answer 9

Well, assuming he had a fair trial, yes.

Answer 10

THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE BEEN SPINNING SO MANY LIES, IT'S HARD TO KEEP UP.



http://mediamatters.org/items/200703060008

Libby's guilty verdict: Media myths and falsehoods to watch for
On March 6, a federal jury found former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby guilty on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to federal investigators. In the wake of this decision, conservatives and other media figures can be expected to revive and advance numerous myths and falsehoods regarding the CIA leak case that have circulated throughout the media since Libby's indictment in October 2005.

In anticipation of this misinformation, Media Matters for America has listed those baseless and false claims likely to surface in the coming days and weeks:

No underlying crime was committed. Since a federal grand jury indicted Libby in October 2005, numerous media figures have stated that the nature of the charges against him prove that special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation of the CIA leak case found that no underlying crime had been committed. But this assertion ignores Fitzgerald's explanation that Libby's obstructions prevented him -- and the grand jury -- from determining whether the alleged leak violated federal law.
There was no concerted White House effort to smear Wilson. In his October 2005 press conference announcing Libby's indictment, Fitzgerald alleged that, in 2003, "multiple people in the White House" engaged in a "concerted action" to "discredit, punish, or seek revenge against" former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. In August 2006, it came to light that then-deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage was the original source for syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak's July 14, 2003, column exposing CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Numerous conservative media figures subsequently claimed that this revelation disproved the notion of a "concerted" White House effort to smear Wilson. But to the contrary, David Corn -- Washington editor of The Nation and co-author of Hubris (Crown, 2006) the book that revealed Armitage's role in the leak -- noted on his Nation weblog that Armitage "abetted a White House campaign under way to undermine Wilson" and that whether he deliberately leaked Plame's identity, "the public role is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband."
Libby was not responsible for the leak of Plame's identity. Some in the media have suggested that because Libby did not discuss former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity with Novak -- the first journalist to report she worked at the CIA -- he is not technically responsible for the leak. But such claims ignore the fact that Libby discussed Plame's CIA employment with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller on several occasions prior to the publication of Novak's column naming Plame as a CIA operative.
Libby merely "left out some facts." Some media outlets -- such as The Washington Post -- have suggested that FBI agent Deborah Bond testified at the trial that Libby simply "left out some facts" when he was interviewed by her in 2003. Specifically, the Post asserted that Bond said Libby "did not acknowledge disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters." In fact, Bond testified that Libby actually denied having leaked Plame's identity or having had any knowledge of her -- this despite the fact that two reporters had already testified that he leaked Plame's identity to them.

Libby's leak was an effort to set the record straight. Critics of the CIA leak case have repeatedly claimed that the indictment stems from an effort by Libby and Vice President Dick Cheney to rebut a purportedly inaccurate attack on the administration by Wilson. According to these critics, Wilson falsely accused Cheney of having sent him to Niger to investigate reports that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium from the African country. In fact, Wilson, in his July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed, did not say he was sent by Cheney. Rather, Wilson wrote that it was "agency officials" from the CIA who "asked if I would travel to Niger" and "check out" a "particular intelligence report" that "Cheney's office had questions about," so that CIA officials "could provide a response to the vice president's office."
There is no evidence that the Plame leak compromised national security. Some media figures critical of the CIA leak case have attempted to downplay its significance by claiming that no evidence exists that the public disclosure of Plame's identity compromised national security. In fact, news reports have indicated that the CIA believed the damage caused by the leak "was serious enough to warrant an investigation" and that the subsequent disclosure of Plame's CIA front company likely put other agents' work at risk. Further, Fitzgerald stated that Plame's identity had been protected by the CIA "not just for the officer, but for the nation's security." And in their recently published book, Hubris, Corn and Newsweek investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff reported that, at the time of the leak, Plame was the chief of operations for the CIA's Joint Task Force on Iraq, which "mount[ed] espionage operations to gather information on the WMD programs Iraq might have."
Fitzgerald is a partisan prosecutor. Over the course of the CIA leak investigation and the Libby trial, conservative media figures have attempted to cast Fitzgerald as a "prosecutor run amok" who is engaging in "the criminalization of politics." But Fitzgerald's background and prosecutorial record undermine the suggestion that his pursuit of Libby was politically motivated. Indeed, Fitzgerald is a Bush administration political appointee who, as U.S. attorney, has investigated high-level public officials from both parties, including former Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R), Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D), and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D).
Fitzgerald exceeded his mandate in investigating violations beyond the IIPA. The administration's defenders also have accused Fitzgerald of exceeding his original mandate. Media figures have repeatedly asserted or implied that Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate possible violations of the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), which prohibits the knowing disclosure of the identity of a covert intelligence officer. In fact, his mandate was far broader. The Department of Justice granted Fitzgerald "plenary" authority to investigate the "alleged unauthorized disclosure" of Plame's identity.
Plame's employment with the CIA was widely known. This falsehood has taken at least two forms -- that Plame's employment with the CIA was known in the Washington cocktail party circuit and that her neighbors knew that she worked for the CIA. In fact, Fitzgerald stated in the indictment of Libby that Plame's employment was classified and "was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community," a finding he reiterated at a post-verdict press conference. Moreover, as Media Matters noted, contrary to The Washington Times' assertion that "numerous neighbors were aware that she worked for the agency," none of the neighbors cited in The Times' own news reports or in other reports said that they knew before reading the Novak column that Plame worked at the CIA. Her acquaintances told reporters that they believed she worked as a private "consultant."