Bad Deeds for 7-5-2007

What Goes Around, Came Around – In the all talk about commuting the prison sentence of Scooter Libby, we have been repeatedly reminded over the past weeks that President Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, who was convicted of tax evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran. Who could have talked Bill Clinton into doing that? Well, Marc Rich’s attorney was…drum roll, please …Scooter Libby. During hearings after Rich’s pardon, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who had represented Rich from 1985 until the spring of 2000, denied that Rich had violated the tax laws, but criticized him for trading with Iran at a time when that country was holding U.S. hostages. In his letter to the New York Times, Bill Clinton explained why he pardoned Rich, noting that U.S. tax professors Bernard Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown University Law Center concluded that no crime was committed, and that the companies’ tax reporting position was reasonable. [New York Times, February 18, 2001]. In the same letter Clinton listed Libby as one of three “distinguished Republican lawyers” who supported Rich’s pardon.

Bush Administration Argues That 33-Month Sentence is Reasonable in Another Case With Same Charges on Which Scooter Libby Was Convicted – When President Bush decided this week that longtime vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby would not face jail time for perjury, his primary justification was that Libby’s 30-month sentence was “excessive.” In commuting Libby’s sentence, Bush directly contradicted an opinion outlined in a friend-of-the-court brief filed last year by his administration arguing that a 33-month sentence for perjury was “reasonable,” In the case, which was decided last month, the Supreme Court upheld the nearly three-year sentence handed down to Victor Rita, a 25-year military veteran, who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. The court ruled that prison sentences falling within federal guidelines established in the mid-1980s can be presumed to be reasonable, as the Bush administration advocated in its brief. The Justice Department brief, written by Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, argued in Rita’s case that because his crimes were “serious” and he “expressed no remorse at sentencing” the defendant could not show his sentence “is outside the range of reasonableness.” Libby’s 30 month sentence fell within the same guidelines, and an appeals court found the sentence to be reasonable and ordered the neoconservative war architect to prison, before Bush’s 11th-hour intervention ensured he would never spend a day behind bars.

Contact the White House Regarding the Commutation of Libby’s Prison Sentence
Some discussion points:
The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencing which occur every day throughout this country. In this case, an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws. It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals. That principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing.

Bush vowed to fire anyone in his White House involved with leaking classified information. It is now known that the leakers were Richard Armitadge and Karl Rove. They have not been fired and Rove just had his security clearance renewed. Why?

Bush’s action has negative implications for current and future CIA operatives and our national security.

This commutation implies that Bush is an accessory and has more to cover up.

Phone comments: 202-456-1111
e-mail comments to White House
Or: call all these phone numbers

Rep. Duncan Hunter Says Ann Coulter is ‘Approaching That Level of Being a Great American’ – Yesterday on MSNBC’s Hardball, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) defended Ann Coulter’s attacks on John Edwards, including that she wishes he “had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.” He said that Elizabeth Edwards’s calls to stop making personal attacks against her family were attempts to “silence conservative voices.” He added that Coulter “is a very articulate spokeswoman for the conservative view” and “closely approaching that level of being a great American.” Coulter has repeatedly made anti-gay slurs compared Muslims to members of the Ku Klux Klan, and advocated assassinating President Clinton. These extremely hateful views aren’t what characterize a “great American.” There is a huge difference in asking someone not to speak hatefully and trying to silence conservative voices. Watch the video for yourself.

According to Hunter’s website, in order to send e-mail to Congressman Hunter, you must be a resident of the 52nd Congressional District of California, so here’s his phone number: (619) 448-5201.

Fred Thompson Was a Spy for the Nixon Criminal Clique in the White House. – The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight — asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system, he telephoned Nixon’s lawyer. Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, “At That Point in Time,” Thompson said he acted with “no authority” in divulging the committee’s knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon’s resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson’s actions. “Thompson was a mole for the White House,” Armstrong said in an interview. “Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was.”

Australian Defense Minister Brendan Nelson Has Admitted that Securing Oil Supplies is a Key Factor Behind the Presence of Australian Troops in Iraq

News Corp Trying to Own All News – News Corp., parent of Fox News, has been in the limelight in recent weeks for its bid to acquire Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, the company also owns a number of small local papers in New York. On Monday, News Corp. said it would expand the reach of the Brooklyn and Queens newspaper chains it bought last September into more neighborhoods. They just bought two weekly newspapers in the Bronx, The Bronx Times and The Bronx Times Reporter, which it hopes will complement The New York Post.

How the War in Iraq Was Almost the War With China – Early in 2001, the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century,” aka the Hart-Rudman Commission, presented a report to the incoming George.W. Bush administration warning that terrorism would be the nation’s greatest national security problem, and saying that unless the United States took proper protective measures a terrorist attack was likely within its borders. The commission headed by former Senators Gary Hart (Democrat, Colorado) and Warren Rudman (Republican, New Hampshire), included other former legislators, Executive Branch officials, military leaders and representatives from business, academia and the news media. According to Gary Hart, neither the president nor the vice president nor any other senior official from the new administration took time to meet with the commission members or hear about their findings. Hart says that in the first few meetings, commission members would go around the room and volunteer their ideas about the nation’s greatest vulnerabilities, most urgent needs, and so on. At the first meeting, one woman on the commission said that the overwhelming threat was from China. Sooner or later the U.S. would end up in a military showdown with the Chinese Communists. There was no avoiding it, and we would only make ourselves weaker by waiting. No one else spoke up in her support. The same thing happened at the second meeting — discussion from other commissioners about terrorism, nuclear proliferation, anarchy of failed states, etc, and then this one woman warning about the looming Chinese menace. And the third meeting too. Perhaps more. Finally, in frustration, this woman left the commission.

“Her name was Lynne Cheney,” Hart said. “I am convinced that if it had not been for 9/11, we would be in a military showdown with China today.” Not because of what China was doing, threatening, or intending, he made clear, but because of the assumptions the Administration brought with it when taking office. (There are relatively few complaints from China about the Iraq war. They know that it got the U.S. off China’s back!) Lee Hamilton, who had also been on the commission, was sitting at the same lunch table and backed up Hart’s story.

Bush Pardons Cheney – At Fourth of July picnic, Cheney belches after eating hot dog and says, “Pardon me.’ Bush replies, “OK.” Sign the petition to impeach Cheney.

Regards,

Jim