Bush Pardons Libby!!

[thewizeard]

Well why not. This seems the way the Bush administration works. Pure corruption.

[vidcc]

Not a pardon (that will come just after the election), the conviction stands.
All Bush has done is give into the right wingers and keep one of theirs out of prison.

[Skiz]

Well why not. This seems the way the Bush administration works. Pure corruption.

Get real, seriously....

All he said was that he didn't have to sit in prison for 2+ years while appealing the conviction.

The conviction, fines, etc. all stick.

Did you bash Clinton when he showed everyone how pardons work?

Clinton issued 140 pardons as well as several commutations on his last day of office (January 20, 2001).[11] When a sentence is commuted, the conviction remains intact, but the sentence can be altered in a number of ways. Some controversial actions include the following:

* Carlos A. Vignali had his sentence for cocaine trafficking commuted, after serving 6 of 15 years in federal prison.
* Almon Glenn Braswell was pardoned of his mail fraud and perjury convictions, even while a federal investigation was underway regarding additional money laundering and tax evasion charges.[12] Braswell and Carlos Vignali each paid approximately $200,000 to Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, to represent their respective cases for clemency. Hugh Rodham returned the payments after they were disclosed to the public. Braswell would later invoke the Fifth Amendment at a Senate Committee hearing in 2001, when questioned about allegations of his having systematically defrauded senior citizens of millions of dollars.[13]
* Marc Rich, a fugitive, was pardoned of tax evasion, after clemency pleas from Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, among many other international luminaries. Denise Rich, Marc's former wife, was a close friend of the Clintons and had made substantial donations to both Clinton's library and Hillary's Senate campaign. Several months after her last donation, emails reveal Republican attorney "Scooter" Libby asked her to approach Clinton about pardoning Marc Rich. Clinton agreed to a pardon that required Marc Rich to pay a $100,000,000 fine before he could return to the United States. According to Paul Volcker's independent investigation of Iraqi Oil-for-Food kickback schemes, Marc Rich was a middleman for several suspect Iraqi oil deals involving over 4 million barrels of oil.[14]
* Susan McDougal, who had already completed her sentence, was pardoned for her role in the Whitewater scandal; McDougal had served 18 months on contempt charges for refusing to testify about Clinton's role.
* Dan Rostenkowski, a former Democratic Congressman convicted in the Congressional Post Office Scandal. Rostenkowski had served his entire sentence.
* Melvin J. Reynolds, a Democratic Congressman from Illinois, who was convicted of bank fraud, 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice, and solicitation of child pornography had his sentence commuted on the bank fraud charged and was allowed to serve the final months under the auspices of a half way house. He had served his entire sentence on child sex abuse charges before the commutation of the later convictions.
* Roger Clinton, the president's half-brother, on drug charges after having served the entire sentence more than a decade before. Roger Clinton would be charged with drunk driving and disorderly conduct in an unrelated incident within a year of the pardon.[15] He was also briefly alleged to have been utilized in lobbying for the Braswell pardon, among others.

[bigboab]

No one person should have the right to overrule the law of the country. Stinks of dictatorship or sovereignty.

[vidcc]

Get real, seriously....

All he said was that he didn't have to sit in prison for 2+ years while appealing the conviction.
.

Oh in that case I look forward to the prison time being reinstated if he loses his appeal.

This was a political move not a case of correcting an injustice. The proper procedures where followed by the judiciary and the sentence was well within the guidelines.

Did you bash Clinton when he showed everyone how pardons work?

I am happy to say I am not a fan of presidential pardons ANY president.

[ilw]

is there anyone, anyone at all, who thought libby would go to jail?

[clocker]

So the same President who has no problems extending the duty cycle of National Guardsmen thinks that it's inappropriate for Scoot to serve some time in prison...yup, no surprise there.
Of course, when a President has been skating along on the lowest public approval ratings ever,what has he got to lose?

Besides, with Cheney positioning himself as the forth branch of government, Bush probably figures that Dick will pardon him.

[Skiz]

Did you bash Clinton when he showed everyone how pardons work?

I am happy to say I am not a fan of presidential pardons ANY president.

I don't believe anyone does. Hence why they do it last day.

Also, my point wasn't that I approve it, but that it thewizeard poke was at Bush, not the ridiculous pardons themselves.

Of course, when a President has been skating along on the lowest public approval ratings ever,what has he got to lose?

It's not just Bush that Americans have lost confidence in, it's the confidence of the government to do anything straight forward. They aren't a voice of the people any longer it seems to me.

Congress as a whole has an approval rating of 48%.

[j2k4]

Judged on his trespass alone, and as a singular matter, let us say Libby ought to serve some time.

What, then, of democrat Richard Armitage, THE guilty party in the Plame affair, and who has not even been called on anyone's carpet.

Could someone explain precisely how this fact escapes being designated as prosecutorial ineptitude, or political, or corrupt.

[vidcc]

I don't believe anyone does. Hence why they do it last day.

Also, my point wasn't that I approve it, but that it thewizeard poke was at Bush, not the ridiculous pardons themselves.

in your opinion....

Was Bush right to commute the sentence?

and....

Should Libby have his conviction upheld on appeal should Bush issue a full pardon?



I do like the way Clinton's pardons are being raised by the talking heads right now but never the pardons of Bush 41 or Reagan etc.

I confess I didn't bother reading your copy paste earlier because....well it's just another "Clinton did this" talking point, and as a parent I now fully appreciate questions from my mother when I was a child such as "if so and so jumped off a cliff would you jump off as well?" ( I can't do the accent)

HOWEVER.......I have read it now and was pleasantly surprised to see that it didn't neglect to mention who Marc Rich's attorney was at the time.

Could you post a link to your source please? Because I read a lot of right wing blogs, listen to a lot of right wing talk radio and media in general and particularly since the commutation they have mentioned Marc Rich a lot, but I haven't seen mentioned that Libby was his attorney in any of them......the independent and left side has mentioned it in passing it for a long time, but never made a thing of it.