Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Libby found guilty on 4 of 5 counts, hopes for presidential pardon
By Rob Silverblatt
Tufts Daily (Tufts U.)
03/07/2007

(U-WIRE) MEDFORD, Mass. — After a jury convicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Tuesday of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury, the question looming over Capitol Hill is what the next chapter in the CIA leak saga will be, according to The Associated Press.

Found guilty on four of the five counts with which he was charged — he was acquitted of one of the counts of making false statements — Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff now faces up to 25 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

But will Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and District Judge Reggie B. Walton throw the full weight of the law at him?

Tufts University political science professor Kent Portney said that in all likelihood, Libby will face a much more lenient sentence. "My guess is that it will be in the range that the sentencing guidelines would have prescribed," he said.

These federal guidelines, although their mandatory use has been declared unconstitutional, still serve as an approximate benchmark for most sentences. As such, Portney predicted that the maximum sentence will likely be around 27 months.

Although Libby's defense team has promised to seek a retrial and, if that fails, to appeal the verdict, Portney said that success is unlikely. He said that he hasn't heard anything that "comes close to being grounds to grant an appeal."

Still, defense attorney Theodore Wells remained optimistic after the trial. "We have every confidence Mr. Libby ultimately will be vindicated," he said, according to the AP.

The high-profile trial, which included testimony from well-known journalists, including NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert and former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, came after the media reported in 2003 that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent at the time.

Plame is the wife of diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, who, while in Niger, found documents that he said were used to justify the Bush administration's claim that Iraq was purchasing uranium from Africa. He said that these documents were forged.

After Wilson made his feelings public, the White House was accused of leaking Plame's identity as revenge. During the trial, Libby was accused of lying to investigators about his involvement in the Plame affair.

Karl Rove, Bush's chief of staff, and Cheney also came under fire for potential involvement in the leak.

Portney said that Fitzgerald was relatively restrained in his trying of the case and could have, had he chosen to, taken a more aggressive stance against both high-ranking officials. "My sense is that he didn't push the case as far as he could have," he said.

But that's not to say that Fitzgerald will not exert pressure on Libby to implicate Rove and Cheney in exchange for a lighter sentencing recommendation.

"If Fitzgerald wants to develop additional information in this case ... he can go to Libby's lawyers and say, 'If you don't tell us everything you know, we're going to ask for a very severe sentence,'" Portney said.

Still, he said that Fitzgerald's past behavior suggests that this may not happen. "Judging by how restrained he was in the prosecution, I wouldn't be surprised if he was restrained here too," he said.

Fitzgerald has already indicated that no more charges will be filed, according to CNN.

A potential spoiler for those celebrating the verdict is the prospect of a pardon from President George W. Bush. Libby may get sympathy from Bush, who has the constitutional authority to set aside his sentence.

Tufts assistant political science professor Phillip Munoz said that a pardon would be a long shot, but still a possibility. "It's probably highly unlikely," he said. "It would seem to come at a huge political cost for Bush, but he's not running for reelection and he's certainly not poll-driven, so you never know."

If it comes at all, he said that it would likely happen right before Bush exits the Oval Office.

Portney said that a pardon should by no means be ruled out. "I think I wouldn't be surprised if Bush issued a pardon," he said.

While the Plame affair has been plastered across the media for years, the trial was over after seven weeks. The one count on which Libby was acquitted was making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about a conversation with Matthew Cooper, a former Time Magazine writer.

Portney said that he was not surprised by the verdict of guilty on four charges and not guilty on one.

He said that the prosecution had "oodles of evidence" to combat Libby's claims that a bad memory, rather than malicious intent, caused him to misinform investigators, but that some charges were stronger than others.

"I was expecting that [the jury] would probably want to be discerning enough to make at least one of the counts not guilty," he said.

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