MSNBC just showed on the flicker tape that Scooter filed an emergency appeal to hold off serving time.........

Question

Is this a ploy to buy time for the pardon he is praying for or will Cheney let him go to jail?

open4one - if there was no underlying crime - WHY did he LIE?

katydid - look at how long Martha Stewart was in jail for lying about business deals not deals concerning the nation.

Answer 1

Man enough to constantly lie under oath and attempt to subvert the laws of the land - but not man enough to do his time.
He certainly is a good symbol for todays Republican party.

Answer 2

This is because the judge has been especially harsh towards Libby. First, the sentence exceeding the recommendation. Then the order to start serving the sentence immediately. C'mon, it's a perjury, not child molestation! Let him stay out on bail until he appeals. Where's the harm? How is justice denied?

As for the "crime", it was well-established at the beginning of the investigation that Armitage (a liberal State Dept official who had no love for Bush) was responsible for the leak, not Libby. And because Armitage leaked her name, without knowing she was covert and without the intention of causing harm, then no crime was actually committed.

You can't "re-leak" a secret. Once it is printed in a newspaper, it's kind of hard to "leak" it again, no? So, tell me again: where is the underlying crime? I'm curious about this.

Answer 3

Sure, it was to be expected. Journalists & talking heads knew this all along, but they want to string out the drama of the story. DOJ guidelines for pardons require that all appeals be exhausted, so Scooter needs to appeal to the Ct of Appeals and lose, before Bush can give him his pardon.

Answer 4

You can't obstruct justice when there is no crime of which to obstruct the investigation. It's not perjury when there's no case because there are no "material matters" to lie about.

There was no underlying crime. There's nothing for him to be guilty of.

You're assuming he deliberately lied. I haven't seen the transcript, but I really doubt that Valerie Plame was a very important subject to him at the time. People have memory lapses all the time, and if you've never been interrogated in front of a Grand Jury, you simply don't know how easy it is to get someone to "lie". All you have to do is ask the same set of questions as many times as you can rephrase them, and you can get someone to "lie" about what color the tie they are wearing at the moment.

The FACT is that if it wasn't about a material matter, it was NOT "perjury", and since there was no underlying crime, there were NO "material matters".

Answer 5

Some of these answers crack me up -- He was convicted of a "noncrime"! lol. Found guilty by a jury -- and now breaking the Law, commiting perejury and obstructing justice are "noncrimes". Fitzgerald coudn't get to the underlying crime becuase Libby lied and obstructed justice.

This spin must be republican talking point of the day on Rush's show.

Answer 6

He's doing everything he can to stay out. I support his right to appeal and use the system to gain his freedom. Too bad his ex bosses don't feel the same way all the time.

Pardoning him won't happen until the end of his term. It would prove the disdain Bush/Cheney has for the process if he did it now.

Answer 7

If you can tie it up in appeals for a year then Bush can pardon him on the way out the door. That beats federal prison any day.

Answer 8

It's Bush's call to pardon or not to pardon not Cheney's. I don't think Cheney cares.If Bush is smarter than we think he is he will not give old Scooter the Pardon!

Answer 9

Who knows if the pardon will come.

I think Bush-Co. knows they've basically hit rock bottom. Maybe they'll feel they have nothing to lose by issuing the pardon.

Answer 10

You break the law, you go to jail. Oops thats only for the poor.