Archive for category: emptywheel

If the hapless Democratic Congress ever gets around to an investigation through which they can ask Reggie to turn over the CIA Leak case grand jury materials.

But for now, I’d say he’s still cranky, wouldn’t you?

In commuting the defendant’sthirty-month term of incarceration, the President stated that thesentence imposed by this Court was “excessive” and that two years ofsupervised release and a $250,000 alone are a “harsh punishment” for anindividual convicted on multiple counts of perjury, obstruction ofjustice, and making false statements to federal investigators. Althoughit is certainly the President’s prerogative to justify the exercise ofhis constitutional commutation power in whatever manner he chooses (oreven to decline to provide a reason for his actions altogether), theCourt notes that the term of incarceration imposed in this case wasdetermined after a careful consideration of each of the requitestatutory factors, and was consistent with the bottom end of theapplicable sentencing range as properly calculated under the UnitedStats Sentencing Guidelines.

Indeed, onlyrecently the President’s Attorney General called for the passage oflegislation to “restore the binding nature of the sentencing guidelinesso that the bottom of the recommended sentencing range would be aminimum for judges, not merely a suggestion,” a stance that is fullyconsonant with the policies of this Administration as a whole. Inlight of these considerations, and given the indisputable importance of“provid[ing] certainty and fairness in sentencing . . . [and]avoid[ing] unwarranted sentencing disparities,” it is fair to say thatthe Court is somewhat perplexed as to how its sentence could beaccurately be characterized as “excessive.”[my emphasis]

In the meantime, I’m not holding my breath on the hapless Congress.

The NYT reports that Sara Taylor will come before the SJC today and testify about some things.

Sara Taylor, the former White House political director, has agreed toanswer some questions as a “willing and cooperative private citizen,”during testimony about the United States attorney firings last yearwhen she appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee later today.

But, as a former presidential adviser, she will also honor thepresident’s invocation of executive privilege to keep quiet about“White House consideration, deliberations, or communications, whetherinternal or external, relating to the possible dismissal or appointmentof United States attorneys,”according to a written copy of her opening statement provided by herlawyer’s office. Those parameters were set forth in a letter to Ms.Taylor’s attorney, W. Neil Eggleston, from the White House counsel,Fred F. Fielding.

Now, seeing as how the defining character of human beings is our ability to communicate, I don’t see how, if Sara Taylor refuses to testify about "communications, whether internal or external," we’re going to get much information. This news seems to support Kagro X’s argument–that they’re trying to muddy the waters about where contempt of Congress starts.

Though the power of the various subspecies of executive privilege to prevent witnesses — especially former WhiteHouse officials — from testifying is Read more →

So says Pete Domenici, when asked by Andrea Mitchell whether he would testify before Congress if asked. ThinkProgress points out that a conversation between Rove and Domenici closely preceded David Iglesias’ firing. But I’ll go further, and raise this report.

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush’ssenior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesiasout and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after theelection but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S.attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

Iglesias’ name first showed up on a Nov. 15 list of federal prosecutorswho would be asked to resign. It was not on a similar list prepared inOctober.

Lucky for Domenici that Andrea Mitchell is a beltway-sucking simp. Because rather than say, "In fact, Senator Domenici, you apparently do know about it–and your conversation with Bush is the one thing that most implicates executive privilege in this case,  as it is the Read more →

HJC has announced the list of witnesses for Wednesday’s hearing on Libby’s get-out-of-jail-free. They are:

• Joe Wilson: You guys know him, I think. I suspect he’ll talk about how Bush and Cheney are involved in this case.
• Roger Adams, US DOJ Pardon Attorney. He’ll end up talking about the normal process for commutation. Hopefully, some smart Congressperson will ask him about the measures Congress put into place to prevent bogus insta-commutations after the Clinton pardons.
• Douglas Berman, Fancy Law Professor, who also blogs at Sentencing Law and Policy. Presumably he’ll explain about how Libby had a light sentence within the guidelines and probably about how Libby’s sentence may be used by defense lawyers in the future to argue for leniency.
• Tom Cochran, Vincent Victor [thanks nolo] Rita’s lawyer. This is great theater. Rita, of course, just lost a SCOTUS challenge on the appropriateness of his 33 month sentence. SCOTUS said 33 months sounded about right for a guy convicted of perjury. I’m sure Cochran will have a lot to say about how his client’s bid to have his sentence lowered because he’s a long-term serviceman didn’t work. I guess he doesn’t have the goods on the Vice President, though.
• David Rivkin. Rivkin is the designated Read more →

Fitzgerald’s filing in response to Judge Walton’s request for clarification on Libby’s magical disappearing prison sentence has the feel of bitter duty. Much of it is an attempt to stave off any attempt by Libby’s lawyers to disappear even the supervised release.

As discussed more fully below, it is the government’s position that the supervised release term remains operative, and that, by effect of the commutation, the supervised release term began on July 2, 2007.

It offers three different reasons why Libby should be unable to bid to have the supervised release vacated.

Still, it is not without its snark. It repeats what Fitzgerald said in his statement–that Libby actually got a light sentence.

The Court sentenced the defendant to imprisonment on each of the counts, and the total sentence of imprisonment, 30 months, was at the low-end of the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range. [my emphasis]

And it goes to some length to demonstrate that this kind of commutation has almost never happened before. As in, once.

Before setting forth the specific grounds for its position, the government acknowledges the absence of case law authority that directly addresses whether a term of supervised release may follow a commutation of a term of imprisonment where no actual imprisonment has been served. The government is aware of only one other instance since the passage of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 of a ‘prospective’ commutation, that is, where no imprisonment term was actually served, and no case law analysis arose from that other commutation.

And it explains US Code, "not surprisingly," doesn’t account for the kind of commutation Libby received.

Section 3583(e) sets forth the circumstances permitting termination, extension, modification, or revocation of supervised release, and not suprisingly, § 3583(e) contains no provision for vacating a lawfully-imposed term of supervised release because a Presidential commutation deemed the sentence of imprisonment to be “expire[d].”

After all, Libby didn’t do the same things others had to to get their sentence commuted.

Although defendant Libby apparently did not submit a “petition[] for mercy,” the holding of Schick should still apply here: the defendant has readily accepted the “full benefit of a lesser punishment,” and thus it is appropriate that he still meet the much lesser burdens of the sentence he now faces.

The filing makes me more bitter than I was even last Monday. That’s what we’ve come to–arguing diligently to sustain the scrap of punishment Libby still has.