As in, outside of that, yes.Originally Posted by ChaosEngine
So obstructing justice in the case of a non-crime?
Don't bother reading. It goes in circles.
I don't believe it was.
[edit]But I am interested in other opinions as well.
7. It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
40. There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.*
I'm not sure it was either. But the point remains that, regardless of what went before, Libby did perjure himself.
Mario F. made the point in this point and I just haven't seen a response to that yet.
I do.
A CIA covert operative's identity was revealed, a violation of the IIPA. Plame was a covert CIA operative, according to the testimony of the CIA Director to the US House Committee on Gov. Reform 2007.
Also the investigation in which Libby perjured himself was instigated at the CIA’s request.
The leak damaged her career, could have risked her associate’s lives and possibly national security (she worked in a dept. trying to stop WMD being used against the US, ironic huh?).
The only motivation I can see was it was done in retaliation to her husband publishing information/opinion that contradicted the Bush administrations case for war in Iraq.
Or done by accident, but I do not accept incompetence as an excuse, as Libby claims, at this level.
"Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
Friedrich Nietzsche
"I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
George Best
"If you are going through hell....keep going."
Winston Churchill
Why is there no prosecution of the perpetrator?
7. It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
40. There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perjury
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/PerjuryPerjury is the act of lying or making verifiably false statements on a material matter under oath or affirmation in a court of law or in any of various sworn statements in writing.
Under the definition of Wikipedia, I would be inclined to say yes, due to the part that defines perjury as "making verifiably false statements" if that means it counts even if you make a mistake and they verify you are wrong.(law) The deliberate giving of false or misleading testimony under oath
According to wiktionary, no. He did not.
I apologize for not giving a simple yes or no answer. Does perjury count for cases where the witness believes his testimony to be true, and is mistaken? I'm under the impression it does not, or at the very least, people are not charged for it. Does obstruction of justice count as a valid charge for such a witness who believes he's cooperating in an investigation?
The man (Armitage) confessed. Are you being obtuse on purpose?
Last edited by MacGyver; 07-05-2007 at 01:39 AM.
Armitage was _one_ of the leakers, and the only one to confess (without the promise of immunity).
Armitige admits to ‘inadvertently’ leaking that Plame worked for the CIA to Novak. Novak states he confirmed this with a snr White House Official, presumably Libby and a CIA agent, Harlow.
According to M Cooper of Time magazine the leak came from Karl Rove and was confirmed by Libby.
Fleischer also leaked to NBC and Time (was given immunity).
Libby was convicted of;
FOUR counts of perjury
Obstruction of justice
Making false statements
Given that he was counseled by some very expensive lawyers I do not think it was a series of honest mistakes.
Neither did the jury, judge or US dept of Justice.
What makes you so sure it was all just an honest mistake?
"Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
Friedrich Nietzsche
"I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
George Best
"If you are going through hell....keep going."
Winston Churchill
Expensive lawyers improve your memory?
I've already spoken of what I perceive as a bias by the jurors, prosecutor, and judge. I have yet to see anything discussed with that regard.
He had no motive to lie.
How about you find me the exact lies that he is accused of telling, and we look at it a little deeper?
I know I was not asked, sorry for stepping in. But I did manage to put in my opinions so far. So, knowing Chaos will answer is piece, I'll nonetheless add mine here.
I think there was no crime. I think there were political motivations behind all this. And the prosecutor on the Libby case was also politically motivated. I also know, because he was charged, that libby lied under oath.
Originally Posted by brewbuck:
Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.
Wictionary is wrong. Wikipedia links to the exact text of the law, which includes the word material.
So what is to be decided is whether the matter was material.
MacGyver, if I understand correctly, holds the position that, since the original trial was about a non-crime, nothing that went on in the trial could possibly be material.
novacain, I think, has argued that there was an original crime, so the lie was about material things.
I hold no further position on this issue. However, I think the Stalin comparison might as well be Godwin's law.
All the buzzt!
CornedBee
"There is not now, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be, any programming language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad code."
- Flon's Law
So did at at the time of writing -- my poor attempt to sidestep it, really.
What would have been a better illustration of "trials" that aren't "trials"?
7. It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
40. There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.*
@MacGyver
Libby confirmed Plame's identity to Novak, after Armitage had 'let it slip' (according to Novak).
That is a crime and Libby as a lawyer would know that (assuming he could remember....).
Is concealing that crime a motive to obstruct a grand jury?
Is protecting the other leakers enough motive?
How about the other charges?
-Obstruction of justice
-Making false statements
Libby's bad memory again?
We did not spend 14 days hearing this evidence.
We did not spend 10 days deliberating.
The jury did.
The judge did.
Both agreed that it was not just a case of 'bad memory' and was a crime.
This leaves you with the position that ALL these people were politically motivated.
What evidence do you have to back up this claim?
The 'military commissions' at Camp X-Ray are sham trials. Twice declared illegal by the US supreme court.
Read up on the trial of David Hicks an Australian.
[he had been in Gitmo for ~6 years waiting for a trial, ~4 without charge]
Notice how he was given a 'gag' order preventing him speaking to the press until after the Australian election this year (which is not legal).
Given what happened on the first day of his trial, I do not think I would have had the courage to contest the case. I too would have taken the plea bargin just to get out of Gitmo, let alone to get a release date.
It was a politically motivated sham trial designed to appease the Australian public before the election later this year.
"Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
Friedrich Nietzsche
"I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
George Best
"If you are going through hell....keep going."
Winston Churchill
o rly???
Nope, this isn't true. So now if we put you on trial for lying, would you want a jury to convict you of purposely making false statements even if you honestly believe this to be true? You must know that we are perfectly able to prove this right or wrong, so this is a verifiably false statement, is it not?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_Affair
Now check this out:
So what's your excuse? Are you juggling national security issues, and is this how it came to pass that you "forgot" this important fact that it was Rove and not Libby who was Novak's second source? Or perhaps you'd like to pretend to be human and just have a memory that can't be 100% relied upon, something which Libby is not allowed to use as his defense.In July 2005, it was revealed that Rove was Novak's second Bush administration source. Novak told Rove about Plame, using her maiden name, and Rove responded by saying "I heard that, too", or "Oh, you know about it."[54] Through his personal attorney, Robert Luskin, Rove has stated that other media sources told him about Plame, although he's not sure which journalist first told him.
So yes, Novak got his information from Armitage and then confirmed by Rove, but Rove's source was the media, which means Rove didn't leak out anything secret.
An interesting fact about Armitage: He was also Woodward's source.....
Assuming it happened. Try again.
Or again, maybe the fact that none of this happened, and you're arguing now about yet another crime that never occurred?
I refuse to restate it here. I've already offered my reasons why I believe the judge, the prosecutor, and the jury was biased against Libby. If you wish to disagree with my reasoning, that's your right, but do not pretend I didn't offer any reasons.
I'll add further proof that the jury was biased:
Bold addition and underlining done by me.According to Collins, "What we’re in court deciding seems to be a level or two down from what, before we went into the jury, we supposed the trial was about, or had been initially about, which was who leaked [Plame’s identity]. Some jurors commented at some point: ‘I wish we weren’t judging Libby. You know, this sucks. We don’t like being here.’ But that wasn’t our choice." Collins described how after 10 days of deliberations, "What we came up with from that was that Libby was told about Mrs. Wilson nine times...We believed he did have a bad memory, but it seemed very unlikely he would not remember about being told about Mrs. Wilson so many times....Hard to believe he would remember on Tuesday and forget on Thursday."[80][81] Collins told the press "Well, as I said before, I felt like it was a long, you know, haul to get this jury done. And if Mr. Libby is pardoned, I would have no problem with that."[82]
So overall, this is a second juror to want Libby pardoned, the Mr. Collins that stated that the jury wanted to go after Rove instead of Libby. This juror also stated that the jury did indeed believe Libby had a bad memory.
So why the conviction if jurors believed he had a bad memory, and at the same time, they wanted him to serve no time and be pardoned? Why convict him? Do you still think it's impossible for political motives to be at work here?
Sorry you are right, Libby was not Novak’s source.
I read an article that stated Libby confirmed Plame’s identity to Novak (after Armitage’s leak) but have now found multiple sources that say it was Rove.
Libby WAS however Miller’s source (according to her testimony to the grand jury) in an interview weeks before Novak’s story was published (ie Libby was the ORIGINAL leak).
Libby let Miller spend a few months in jail for contempt (refusing to name Libby).
Then Miller _suddenly_ found a waiver (from Libby) giving her permission to name Libby as the source and was released.
Libby was also suspected of being Coopers source as well.
I asked why you disagreed with the judge and jury whom had spent 24 days on this case.
Your response;
So I looked back thru the thread…..
You have presented no evidence that would allow you to make a better judgment than those whom where presented with the facts of the case over 14 days.
Your reasons for thinking the jurors are ‘politically motivated' posted in this thread are;
These are you assumptions and opinion, not reasons.
Reasons require evidence.
A few pages back it was not bias by the jurors, but now it is?
Didn’t the Republicans appoint the prosecutor and judge?
If so why did they appoint ones with such an obvious political bias? (bad memories?)
Why was disallowing a memory expert ‘bias’? (Considering the judge directed the jury to consider the limits to human memory during the trial.)
What else was disallowed?
I do not think blocking evidence is proof of bias. Legal experts agree that both the prosecutor and judge did an exceptional job (see the link I posted earlier from the Washington Post).
Read you own quote, they thought he had a bad memory but that it was not as bad as Libby made out.
That is the jurors thought Libby lied/exaggerated.
Here is another quote from Collins, (who is also a reporter for the Washington Times)
Is protecting your boss (the VP) motive?
Ahh thats right, the jurors are all politically motivated and none of the 12 gave poor old Libby a fair go.........
"Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
Friedrich Nietzsche
"I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
George Best
"If you are going through hell....keep going."
Winston Churchill
No, I don't believe so. My apologies.
Thanks for the insight, I'll look into it.
But at the moment I don't care.
I'm just sweeping up a little for being too [whatever]. Maybe I'll read your arguments later.
[I at least entertain opposing arguments, unlike someone I am acquainted with.]
7. It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
40. There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.*
Title 18 of the United States Code -- PART I--CRIMES -- CHAPTER 79--PERJURY
I don't claim to be a law expert, but my opinion of this is that under this definition Libby is not guilty of perjury if he made a mistake in statements under oath, but believed said statements to be true.
Therefore the real situation here is whether or not he purposefully made untrue statements. If he did, then yes, he's guilty of perjury. If not, then he was wrongly convicted of perjury.
And that is why I take his motive to lie, or lack thereof, so seriously. First he had no motive imo. Secondly, if he got all his statements correct and admitted that whatever they said he messed up on, he messed up on.......
How would that change the situation with regard to the investigation?
It wouldn't. He wouldn't be charged in any investigation of a crime, and nor will Armitage. This whole trial was a sham.
The only statements that I can perceive to be coming "from the other side" in this discussion are as follows:
- The US justice system couldn't allow something as bad as what I'm alleging to occur.
- Libby did indeed lie to cover up for someone.
The first point is rather humorous, since I hear about the system failing all the time, including from people who think that the death penalty is terrible and mistakes occur more frequently than we would want to believe in such cases.
The last point is just ridiculous. If it is such, and the prosecutor doesn't do more, that mistake is worse than anything else he's done on the matter. If there is a "someone else", then I demand someone here that holds to this Queatrix-like conspiracy theory that they name this "someone else" or provide something that reasonably suggests there is a "someone else".
Last edited by MacGyver; 07-05-2007 at 04:44 AM.
