Say, does anyone remember the Off the Record Club? It was one of the most interesting details revealed at the Libby trial–that there’s this group of GOP-lobbyist-hacks who meet monthly and serve as an on-call damage control group for the Republicans.

But [Richard] Hohlt‘s more significant role may be his leadership of a secretivesocial group of GOP heavy hitters and, occasionally, White Houseofficials, who convene to smoke cigars and mull over politics. Thegroup’s name: the Off The Record Club. Hohlt is the club’s "keeper ofthe flame," says one participant who, like others contacted for thisstory, didn’t want to be named because it violates the group’s rules.Each month or so for more than 15 years, Hohlt has booked a room at aposh Washington hotel or restaurant and invited the guests for dinner.Among the regulars, according to three participants: fellow lobbyistsKen Duberstein, Charlie Black and Vin Weber. Rove and White House chiefof staff Josh Bolten "have both attended these meetings on occasion,"says a White House spokesperson.

[snip]

The club,participants say, helps the White House with damage control—theyprodded GOP pols to back the president’s post-Katrina cleanup—andthinks up ways to get the party’s message across to the press. [my emphasis]

I haven’t forgotten what the Off the Record Club is. I particularly remember that there is a good deal of circumstantial evidence thatthe leak of Plame’s identity got laundered right through the group. Ken Duberstein set up the meeting between Bob Novak and Richard Armitage and then, when the shit started hitting the fan in the fall, he made some kind of obstructive call to Bob Novak. And Richard Hohlt seems to have pressed Novak to write a story on Plame; once Novak wrote that story, Hohlt gave a copy to the White House, three days before the story’s publication. Right there, right at the heart of the leak case … remarkable. You might call it the "Leak in a Box Club."

Here’s my Guardian column explaining all the involvement of Cheney and Bush in the Plame outing–which explains why Bush didn’t want Libby to lose his ability to refuse to testify.

On June 9, 2003, just one day after his national security advisor,Condoleezza Rice, got beaten up on the Sunday shows for claiming no onein the administration knew that the Niger intelligence was bunk, GeorgeBush expressed concern about the allegations. Scooter Libby passed onthat concern to vice president Cheney. Bush’s concern set off a chainof events that ended up in the outing of a CIA spy, Valerie Plame, andthe indictment and conviction of Scooter Libby.

Yesterday, George Bush attempted to preventthat chain of events from continuing any further. He commuted ScooterLibby’s 30-month sentence. Rather than serving time in jail, Libby willremain free, with a fine and probation as the only remainingpunishments for lying and obstructing a criminal investigation. But thereal effect of Bush’s actions is to prevent Libby from revealing thetruth about Bush’s – and vice president Cheney’s – own actions in theleak. By commuting Libby’s sentence, Bush protected himself and hisvice president from potential criminal exposure for their actions inthe CIA Leak. As such, Libby’s commutation is nothing short of anotherobstruction of justice.

[snip]

There are many unanswered questions about the roles of the president,the vice president, and Libby in the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity.Did Bush really ask Libby to take the lead on all this? Did thepresident declassify Plame’s identity so Libby could leak it to thepress? Did Cheney learn – and tell Libby – that Plame was covert? Thosequestions all point squarely at Bush and Cheney personally. But becauseof Bush’s personal intervention, he has made sure that Scooter Libbywon’t be answering those questions anytime soon.

And here’s a link to my appearance on Democracy Now this morning.

 

I will return to the Libby commutation, I promise. But like Josh, I think this IG report is very very important–perhaps as bad as Nixon on steroids.

To review what I presented yesterday just as the Libby thing was exploding, DOD’s IG has released its report on the CIFA and TALON domestic spying program. By far the most disturbing thing is that USNCO, which had a database full of incident reports on the activities of American citizens, seems to have disappeared the entries in that database on November 30, 2005, then disappeared the whole thing in June 2006. The dates are significant because the first date was just two days after Duke Cunningham signed his plea agreement. And the second date was just a month after DOD and HPSCI started investigations into the CIFA/TALON program. Since there is no explanation of how or why the database was destroyed, it sure seems like it may have been hiding data they didn’t want discovered in any investigation.

Today, I’d like to highlight how DOD’s IG justifies the database and avoid claims that the program illegally spied on American citizens. The report states:

Our detailed review of 1,131 TALON reports removed from the CIFA database showed that 263 reports pertained to protests and demonstrations. Of the 263 reports, 157 reports discussed actual actions or events that occurred. Further, 75 of the 157 reports on actual actions or events resulted in reported arrests, required court appearances, violence, destruction, and police intervention. The 75 TALON reports demonstrate that they are necessary to inform local commanders of protests and demonstrations planned for their vicinity for law enforcement and force protection purposes, and not as intelligence information.

Digby’s all over Tim Noah’s latest idiocy.

Clinton was impeached and he faced the music.  He was tried and acquittedaccording to the rules of the constitution. Bush, on the other hand,just used his plenary power to commute a sentence to cover his own baddeeds and keep one of his own aides from having to pay the price forhis crimes. He has used his power for this one man when he has been the stingiest president in history for pardons and commutations.

There’s just two things I’d add. First, Noah, like everyone else who supports Bush’s commutation, is ignorant of basic facts in the case, and basic facts of law. First, as Team USA demonstrated, the Probation Officer ignored mandatory enhancements when it recommended 15 months to Libby. Once Walton put in the mandatory enhancements, 30 months was in fact the minimum in the range. So Libby, in fact, was sentenced to the minimum recommended sentence for his range. Second, it is not "routine" for someone to get bond pending appeal. Again, as Team Libby demonstrated, Congress has made it clear that the "routine" should be that a convicted felon go straight to prison. Ignorance, Tim, is not a sound basis for a winning argument.

More importantly, though, Noah pretends–as all shameless pundits do–that Libby was convicted solely of lying. "Just like Clinton," Noah wants you to believe. And if Clinton gets away with it, so should Libby.

Nuh uh, Tim. Clinton was hiding two things: a blowjob between consenting adults, and a soggy cigar. Embarrassing, surely. But not a full-fledged investigation into the actions that resulted in the exposure of a CIA NOC. The reason Libby got his 30 month sentence was not, as Noah would have you believe, because Libby lied about Dick. Libby got his 30 month sentence because he prevented us from learning about Dick’s role in outing Valerie Wilson. You know: the really dangerous Dick, the one who would out a CIA spy as ugly retaliation for exposing his lies.

Well, folks, we’re down to congressional remedies and public opinion if we’re going to hold Cheney responsible for outing a CIA spy. To that end, here are some questions I suggest HJC pursue:

Did Bush ask Libby to take the lead in responding to Wilson’s allegations on June 9, 2003? How did Libby learn of Bush’s concerns about the allegations? What did Bush say to Libby? Is this conversation why Vice President Cheney, in October of the same year, effectively said that the President had asked Libby to stick his neck in a meat grinder?

What classified documents did Cheney see when he was at the CIA researching Wilson’s trip? Were any of those documents written by Valerie Plame? If so, did those documents identify Plame by pseudonym or cryptonym, making it clear that Plame was covert?

Did Bush unilaterally declassify Valerie Plame’s covert identity and the CIA report on Wilson’s trip? Did Cheney ask him to specifically?

What did Cheney and Libby mean when they told Craig Schmall, on July 14, 2003, that Bob Novak’s column outing Valerie Plame "wasn’t his problem"? Did they know, already at that point, that it was somebody’s problem?

When and where did Libby tell Cheney that he was going to testify to the FBI that he had forgotten Plame’s identity until he learned it anew from Tim Russert? Did Cheney help Libby concoct that atrociously bad story?

Have Cheney and Libby ever discussed ensuring that Libby would avoid jail time? Cheney issue his statement on Libby’s sentencing from his personal lawyer’s office. Did he do so to ensure that he could issue a statement making a clear call for pardon or commutation, while hiding the discussions he had behind Attorney-Client privilege?

That’s just off the top of my head. Now let me give it more thought…

Via email from his spokesperson:

Wefully recognize that the Constitution provides that commutation decisions are a  matter of presidential prerogative and we do not comment on the exercise of that prerogative. 

We comment only on the statement in which the President termed the sentence imposed by the judge as “excessive.”   The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings 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.

Although the President’s decision eliminates Mr. Libby’s sentence of imprisonment, Mr. Libby remains convicted by a jury of serious felonies, and we will continue to seek to preserve those convictions through the appeals process.

For the record, when I said almost the same thing on Hardball, I hadn’t gotten this yet in the email. Glad to see that my feeble mind is thinking along the lines of a great mind.

Update: Oh wait, I think I said the bit about the fact that this was not an excessive sentence for a different interview, that will no doubt be cut. You’ll have to take my word for it then.

 

Well, George did it. Made sure that Scooter wouldn’t flip rather than do jail time. He commuted Libby’s sentence, guaranteeing not only that Libby wouldn’t talk, but retaining Libby’s right to invoke the Fifth.

This amounts to nothing less than obstruction of justice.

Here’s Bush’s statement, in which a guy who is pushing to restore minimum sentencing laws says that Libby’s sentencing–which was the minimum according to the guidelines, was too tough:

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years ofprobation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, thedistrict court rejected the advice of the probation office, whichrecommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors thatcould have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

Irespect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prisonsentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting theportion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirtymonths in prison.

Update: Here’s an article about how the Bush Administration is pushing to restore minimum sentencing guidelines. And don’t forget that in AL, a judge has just upped the sentence against Don Siegelman.

Update: Here’s a link to the post showing that the research into the Wilsons went into overdrive as soon as Bush expressed a concern about the Niger allegations.

Once upon a time in a land called Plameology, I was utterly obsessed with the CIA report on Joe Wilson’s trip. As I pointed out some time ago, the trip report, in addition to Valerie’s identity, was classified at the beginning of leak week. And as I pointed out over the weekend, it is crystal clear that Libby, at least, leaked material from this, knowing it was classified, with no claim it had been declassified. Moreover, he probably leaked it to Novak, though both claim Libby said nothing of substance to Novak when they spoke on July 9.

My renewed interest in the trip report comes from a line recently unsealed from Tatel’s opinion refusing Judy’s and Cooper’s attempt to quash her subpoena. In a part of the opinion that supports the argument that Rove perjured himself (presumably about both his Novak and his Cooper conversations), Tatel included the following quote from Novak’s grand jury testimony:

According to Novak, when he “brought up” Wilson’s wife, “Mr. Rove said, oh, you know about that too” (II-154) and promised to seek declassification of portions of a CIA report regarding the Niger trip, which Rove said “wasn’t an impressive piece of work or a very definitive piece of work” (II-158).

That is, according to Novak, Rove promised to declassify the trip report, even while providing a judgment about it. And, by all appearances, Tatel thinks that grand jury testimony supports the case that Rove lied in his own grand jury testimony.

The Appeals Court decision not to grant Libby bond pending appeal, along with last week’s Cheney series, may well ensure that Libby does some jail time, however short.

Appellant has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question.

I’m not holding my breath yet, mind you. But it’s going to have to be an untimely pardon or commutation … or jail time for Scooter Libby.

Update: With this unanimous decision, that makes two more Republican appointees who think Scooter should probably go to jail. How many more Republicans, coming out in favor of incarceration for Libby, will it take to quiet the raging Libby Lobby?