From the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON -- President Bush commuted the sentence of former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Monday, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case. Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, according to a senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been announced.Bush's move came hours after a federal appeals panel ruled Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case. That decision put the pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
The message is loud and clear -- anyone in the Bush administration can commit whatever crimes they want. And if anyone tries to hold them accountable, President Bush will be there to pardon them.
This is one of the lowest points in the history of the presidency and our country.
They do take care of their own.
Well, this will make Bush's poll numbers even lower, I imagine. I didn't even think that was possible...
Although I think those White Collar guys have their own prisons. They don't share cells with people whose taxes they've stolen.
Watch for the Cheney organizations (AEI and Hoover Institute, etc) to start throwing some money Libby's way to appear at conferences and write articles. It's as good as Hush Money.
Couldn't agree more.
"Did you represent a crook who stole money from the United States government, was a fugitive and should never have been given or granted a pardon by the facts that you know?" snapped Kanjorski."No, sir," Libby responded. "There are no facts that I know of that support the criminality of the client based on the tax returns."
Libby then said prosecutors from the Southern District of New York "misconstrued the facts and the law" when they prosecuted Rich.
"(Rich) had not violated the tax laws," said Libby.
On the other side of this there is George W. Bush, who apparently thinks that this 30 month sentence--or any sentence for that matter--was "too excessive". This coming from a man who oversaw over 130 executions of a lot of poor, and poorly represented death row convicts in Texas.
Among the list includes the infamous case of Carla Ray Tucker where Bush mocked the woman in response to her execution, and the equally infamous case where Carl Johnson was "represented" by an appointed counsel who slept through his trial . . .
The Gonzales memoranda suggest that Gonzales was rarely, if ever, prompted to delve deeply into the cases he was reviewing for Bush. In his summary of the case of Carl Johnson, for example, dated September 18, 1995, the day before Johnson's execution, Gonzales failed to mention that Johnson's trial lawyer had literally slept through major portions of the jury selection. His memo on Irineo Tristan Montoya, dated June 18, 1997, the day of Montoya's execution, omits the single most important issue in the case: an alleged violation of international law, which had been brought to Bush's attention by, among others, the U.S. Department of State. His memo on Bruce Edwin Callins, dated May 21, 1997, the day of Callins's execution, fails to note that Callins's appeal to the Supreme Court generated the most famous death-penalty dissent in the past quarter century, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, a longtime death-penalty supporter.
So this is what Bush Republican has come too. These people in the White House are the real criminals. It's time we showed them that no American--no matter how high his office is, is above the law. And that we, as Americans, will never accept a two-track justice system--one for the poor, and one for the wealthy and politically connected.
It's past time for impeachment.