I'm just sayin'.

Right Wing Nuthouse gets the Libby verdict down in a (four paragraph) nutshell Instead, all they got was Scooter Libby who lied to the FBI and the Grand Jury about who told him what and when about a non-clandestine CIA agent who was married to someone ...

Civil suits are different from criminal suits, and they actually provide much less protection for the defense than a criminal trial (there is no 5th amendment, you can be compelled to testify in both depositions and in court, and the standard of proof is a lower standard).

The Federal Rules of Evidence are the Federal Rules of Evidence regardless of whether the case is civil or criminal. Whether or not the judge chose to allow prior acts -for purposes of impeachment- does not bear on their materiality, it merely bears on their relevance. They were still not -material- facts, at least as far as the elements of the charges sought by Ms. Jones in that case were concerned.

Yes. Clinton chose to lie about them. No one is arguing that. What was said was that they were -material- facts. They were not. As I said before, materiality is a specific legal term, and the claim was raised that Clinton lied about a material fact. This claim was wrong. The claim was also raised that Clinton's lie was somehow worse than Libby's lie. This was not only wrong, but asinine and desperate whining.

The idea that because there was "no crime committed" (other than Libby lying under oath) Libby should be excused EVEN THOUGH he lied under oath is just ridiculous. Trying to distinguish this case from Clinton's (and furthermore, trying to do so in a way that claims Clinton's lie about his personal life was somehow worse) is the height of either disingenuity or stupidity.

Focus. Wilson basically charged the Bush admin. with lying. Cheney launched a counterattack. They set out to undermine Wilson in any way they could.

Now if you want to claim that Libby forgot whether he originally learned of Plame from Cheney, or from Rove, then you might have a point.

But to claim that it is credible that he though maybe he heard it first from the people he was leaking it too, is just downright absurd.

It is curious that the jury thought that Libby was less trustworthy than Tim Russert or Matt Cooper, when it came down to it though the jury did find that Cooper wasn't nearly as trustworthy as Russert. All had motives here to be less than forthcomin....

It isn't so much legal entrapment, it is more how it comes across, and that is mostly because you have a case where the underlying crime wasn't really investigated or charged. The leaker was known from the beginning, it was sort of like a special prosecutor out to justify his job rather than closing up shop and saying there is no there, there.

Also, I will be honest with you, I can buy the faulty memory defense, at least with regards to knowing exactly what was said to whom and where you heard it from first.

If you asked me about conversations I had at meetings or whatever at work from several months ago, I likely couldn't tell you exactly who I heard what from or exactly what I told somebody. I might be able to tell you the general idea of some of those meetings, but not exactly who said what.

I am a secretary for an organization. But if you asked me specific questions about things discussed, I would probably have to look at those minutes to give you the exact details of what was said. Shoot our last meeting was three weeks ago, I could tell you some of the things we talked about, but probably not who said what when.

I think the other thing that bothers me here is that many of the reporters who testified had faulty memories as well, but they weren't charged with perjury either.

This looks more like a prosecutor justifying his position by collecting a scalp, not like justice.

Here are some of the reactions of sites on my blogrolls talking about today’s verdict in the Scooter Libby trial.
......

I'm sure everyone and their mother is blogging it. One thing I would point out
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing a leak investigat...

They asked him questions he didn't want to answer truthfully!

Could you expand a bit? How on earth do you see entrapment?

And what is so hard to see about intent? Is it not rather clear that the WH would rather have reporters blamed for the leak than have it revealed to be WH retaliation against Wilson?

ACtually it was material evidence.

Civil suits are different from criminal suits, and they actually provide much less protection for the defense than a criminal trial (there is no 5th amendment, you can be compelled to testify in both depositions and in court, and the standard of proof is a lower standard).

One thing that can be permitted in a civil suit is allegations of other possible prior acts, and sexual harrassment is implied when one person is in a powerful postition compared to the other, and the president definitely outranks an intern.

The judge ruled that this evidence could be sought.

Clinton chose to lie about it under oath.

I don't think there is much debate over the requirements for Clinton to tell the truth in a deposition in a lawsuit where he is the defendant. I think there may be some legitimate complaints on whether the Jones lawsuit should have been allowed to go forward, but a judge ruled that it could, and Clinton was obligated to tell the truth.

My issue with Libby isn't so much whether he lied, but that I haven't seen much proof of intent, and in the end and from the beginning of the investigation Fitzgerald knew there was no crime.

Basically at the beginning before he ever called Libby to testify he should have closed shop, and said "look folks, there wasn't a crime" and gone home. Libby's situation feels like entrapment-and honestly I have a hard time seeing the proof of intent, it seems like the case was built as much around a bunch of reporters with fairly faulty memories who weren't charged as with one many who was.

You are on a roll today, James. Once again, showing quite a bit of contempt for your fellow citizens, and the underlying rationale for our system of jury trials.

I served on a jury once that had multiple charges. Like the Libby jury, we had no problem sifting through those charges that met the reasonable doubt standard, and those that fell short. And I know that I was not the only one in that room who was able to conclude that one of the charges (a minor one) seemed utterly unfounded and just piling on.

Our reaction to that was to make us more critical of the other charges (defending against the suspicion that maybe the prosecution was BSing about the whole case), not less critical.