Submitted by BuzzFlash
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
BuzzFlash has had a personal interest in the Libby case, since we were the second online – and for that matter journalistic source of any sort – to report on the importance of the outing of Valerie Plame in the infamous Bob Novak column.
David Corn, of the Nation, was the first person to recognize the potential significance of the brief passage in Novak’s column. Corn wrote a commentary in the Nation that speculated that the two senior administration staffers who confirmed Plame’s covert role to Novak might have violated Federal law. Specifically, they might have broken a Congressional prohibition on outing covert CIA staff.
After Corn’s column broke (with the mainstream press still silent), we interviewed Corn and wrote a few editorials and alerts about the potential damage to our national security caused by a White House seeking vengeance.
Eventually, the CIA filed a formal request to the Justice Department to investigate whether the law had been broken, thus compromising the CIA’s efforts – in Valerie Plame’s case – to track (oh the tragic irony) the illicit sale and transfer of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
At that point, Bush said that he would fire anyone responsible for the leak, if such a leak took place. He never asked his staff about the leak, for obvious reasons. Because Bush and Cheney – as the Libby trial revealed – were aware of and involved in the leak planning, with Bush even declassifying national security information for Libby to use to try and smear Joe Wilson.
At the point Bush made his pledge to fire anyone involved in the Plame outing, the mainstream press started to periodically cover the story. Bush also then put Attorney General John Ashcroft in charge of a cover-up. After that, the White House adopted the mantra that they could not answer any questions about the leak because there was a legal investigation going on.
In fact, when asked yesterday about whether or not Bush might pardon Libby, a White House spokesperson called the question hypothetical and that the White House wouldn’t comment because Libby’s lawyers were going to appeal the case (actually first request a new trial) and so legal proceedings will still going on – and the White House won’t comment on ongoing case. Sure, right.
Last week, Bush himself was asked about the possibility of a Libby pardon were Libby to be convicted, and Bush indicated that he wouldn’t answer such a question.
What the White House is going to do is wait and hope that D.C. Court of Appeals, on which the infamous partisan Federal Judge David Sentelle sits, will save them from the issue of a pardon by overturning Libby’s conviction on some technicality.
Sentelle has an interesting history in this area. He was one of the judges who overturned the Iran-Contra felony convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter on a technicality.
We have written about Sentelle several times. Not only is he a right winger who believes that there is a liberal conspiracy to destroy America, he is the one that appointed Ken Starr as the Clinton Special Prosecutor after Jesse Helms and another Neo-Confederacy senator told him to. Sentelle is a partisan GOP judicial operative, who is there to save Republicans from legal jams that they get into.
He also does the ideological bidding of the White House. In the last two weeks, he has been part of a 2-1 majority on the D.C. Court of Appeals ruling on the side of the White House to suspend Habeas Corpus.
It is important to als remember that Poppy Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger so that he wouldn’t "flip" and spill the beans on Daddy Bush in terms of his neck-deep involvement with Iran-Contra.
Pardons by Bushes to save their own necks are in the bloodline.
Bush will pardon Libby if he needs to, because Bush is already implicated in the Valerie Wilson outing – as we know from the Libby trial.
If Libby were to "flip" and spill the beans to Fitzgerald, Bush and Cheney would be forced to resign or face impeachment.
But Bush is going to wait it out and hope that the back bench of activist partisan right wing judges appointed over the Reagan, Bush and Bush administrations will save him the politically costly act of pardoning Libby.
If for some unexpected reason, Judge Sentelle doesn’t get the job done – or Nino "the Fixer" Scalia fails if the Libby appeal reaches the Supreme Court – then Scooter knows Bush will do the deed and grant him the ultimate Bush get out of jail card: a pardon.
Because if Libby talks, Bush and Cheney will likely face some hardcore jail time themselves.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
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