"Bush's move came just five hours after a federal appeals panel ruled that Libby could not delay his prison term. That meant Libby was likely to have to report soon, and it put new pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff."
""I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.""
Yep, last week Wya came down solidly on the side of illegal aliens. This week he came down solidly on the side of a felon convicted by a jury of his peers of lying to a grand jury and sentenced by a Republican judge. This is the crap that he criticized Klinton for doing. What's next Wya?
Good call by Bush. The prison sentence was excessive. Libby was guilty of lying in a probe which resulted in no criminal charges. $250,000 in fines and two years probation sounds like more than sufficient punishment to me. The Democrats crying foul about this are allowing partisanship to make them appear ignorant. What Libby did was no more than what Clinton did and he was never even formally indicted, let alone face trial.
To those who think Libby's sentence was justified: Can you name anyone else found guilty of obstructing justice who was sentenced to 30 months in prison, fined a quarter million dollars and placed on two additional years probation?
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Good call by Bush. The prison sentence was excessive. Libby was guilty of lying in a probe which resulted in no criminal charges. $250,000 in fines and two years probation sounds like more than sufficient punishment to me.
You have got to be kidding me. He was guilty of lying to a grand jury NOT lying to a probe. Lying to a grand jury is a felony. The grand jury does not have to bring charges, that is the purpose of a grand jury, to decide if charges should be brought, but lying to one is a federal offense. He does no time, gets unsupervised probabtion and pays the equivalent of a traffic ticket. Yeah, that's sufficient punishment for a felony .
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RE: Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence
Bad move by Bush but he has a habit of making them soI am not surprised. The privilege of commuting a prison sentence shouldn't be allowed as part of politics. IfLibby were a Democrat he would have rotted in the jail. Abuse of his power IMO. He probably figured he was going down anyways so he might just as well do something positive for his party ......for a change.
Quote:
""I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.""
I hope he follows this train of thought and looks at all the unjustly convicted prisoners in the system. A noble deed ...too bad it is only for one of his friends. This blunder should result in another 5 points off his approval ratings. At this rate he will be in negative territory soon. It will be interesting to see how the main stream GOP leaders deal with this one.
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Libby was guilty of lying in a probe which resulted in no criminal charges.
Wrong, libby was guilty of obstruction of justice,2 countsperjury, and making false statements to the FBI, matter of fact he was guilty of 4 out of the 5 counts brought against him, he violated several laws and on a federal level to boot.If he didnt want to do the time he shouldnt have lied, commuting his sentence is total BS on Bushs part, he was convicted, he was sentenced according to federal guidelines, and he should have went to jail.If they could have convicted Clinton of anything they would have done it in a heartbeat, they must not have thought they had much of a case.
You have got to be kidding me. He was guilty of lying to a grand jury NOT lying to a probe. Lying to a grand jury is a felony. The grand jury does not have to bring charges, that is the purpose of a grand jury, to decide if charges should be brought, but lying to one is a federal offense. He does no time, gets unsupervised probabtion and pays the equivalent of a traffic ticket. Yeah, that's sufficient punishment for a felony Â*.
$250,000 is the equivalent of a traffic ticket? Hokey-dokey.
I didn't say he shouldn't have been charged. I didn't say he shouldn't have been convicted. I'm saying the sentence was too harsh. Show me anyone else who has faced such severe punishment for similar convictions and I'll shut up.
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Its not that easy Ben, he didnt just lie, he complicated the entire investigation, he lied under oath, and made the FBI waste resources trying to unravel the truth from the fiction.Anyone else tried it you suppose theyd get a presidential pardon?
Its not that easy Ben, he didnt just lie, he complicated the entire investigation, he lied under oath, and made the FBI waste resources trying to unravel the truth from the fiction.
So what part of that is different from what Clinton did? Except substitute Congressional investigators for FBI in Clinton's case.
Be all that as it may, however, it's important to note that Libby did NOT receive a presidential pardon, and I don't think he should have. He was clearly guilty, and should've been convicted. I think the punishment sans the jail time would have been appropriate. The judge's imposed sentence was too harsh, and I'll stand by that until someone can show me anyone else who went to prison for similar lengths for similar crimes.
This notion that people in positions of power or notoriety should automatically go to prison regardless of the crime is not a very good blanket to apply, in my opinion. When you have someone like Mark Foley who was sexually propositioning a minor and he doesn't even face a Grand Jury, and yet we're sentencing folks like Libby and Martha Stewart to prison for the crimes they committed, something is wrong with our way of thinking.
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Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence
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