Scooter Libby guilty
…of what amounts to the Martha Stewart offense. (source)
Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing a leak investigation that reached into the highest levels of the Bush administration.
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Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has led the leak investigation, said no additional charges would be filed. That means nobody will be charged with the leak and Libby, who was not the source for the original column outing Plame, will be the only one to face trial.
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Libby was convicted of one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame’s identity and whom he told. Prosecutors said he learned about Plame from Cheney and others, discussed her name with reporters and, fearing prosecution, made up a story to make those discussions seem innocuous.
Libby said he told investigators his honest recollections and blamed any misstatements on a faulty memory. He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI about his conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
Libby was convicted of telling investigators something which, on investigation, turned out not to be true. He was not under oath at the time, but apparently Federal law makes it a crime to lie to someone who is investigating a crime.Â
If you, personally, are asked questions by a police officer, and what you say turns out not to be true, you may wind up in court, trying to prove your recollections and the state of your mind to a jury.
I suspect the safest approach is simply to take the fifth whenever you’re questioned by government official. “I’m sorry, but on the advice of counsel, I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me.”
If people want cooperation, they need to change the law to remove possible booby-traps. They may not like it, but it’s true.
| More from Karl Lembke
Stumble It!
March 6th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
This is utterly stupid. This investigation is about an event that has been proven to NOT be a crime, and then he allegedly lied in that fruitless investigation. The nature of the information he was asked about was such that, anyone, even under normal circumstances, could fail to recall EXACTLY who said what to him or he to them and when and where etc. For the left nutballs benefit I add that I was not in favor of the Clinton impeachement either, and I suppose from that standpoint what goes around comes around…we’d be better of with neither of these cases even existing.
March 6th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
True, the event he lied about isn’t a crime. But for a prosecutor who wants to justify the time and money spent on the case, it’s enough that telling a lie — ANY lie — in that situation is a lie.
Thus: “I’m sorry, sir — under the advice of counsel, I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me.”
No other answer is safe anymore.