Libby letters released.
Libby letters released.
“Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton top the list of individuals who wrote a federal judge on behalf of former White House aide Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, who will be sentenced today for lying to investigators and a federal grand jury examining the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.”
On the following 30 pages you’ll find an assortment of letters from former colleagues and friends of Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff. The letters, which do not include a missive from Cheney himself, were filed this morning in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.. Included in the correspondence is a letter on former Cheney aide Mary Matalin’s stationery which is signed by her and husband James Carville, the Democratic strategist. Others writing on Libby’s behalf included Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Richard Perle, former Pentagon adviser; James Woolsey, ex-CIA director; Douglas Feith, former Under Secretary of Defense; Christopher Cox, ex-congressman and current Securities and Exchange Commission chairman; Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic; Washington lawyer Leonard Garment; former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson; former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky; and Dr. Anthony Fauci, a National Institutes of Health official.
Read the full text of the letters HERE.
UPDATE: FireDogLake is liveblogging Libby’s sentencing this morning.
UPDATE II: Salon’s Tim Grieve highlights the letter from Paul Wolfowitz: “It is painful for me to reflect on the fact that [Libby's] life would have been very different if we had never met.”
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June 5th, 2007 at 11:13 amfor live blogging from the courtroom. That’s where I’ve been this am.
James Carville is a DINO. When he signed that letter asking for clemency for Scooter Libby, he became a party traitor.
That’s what happens when you sleep with the enemy.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:13 amKeep this list as a handy reference for the trials to come.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:15 amCarville? No surprise from that scumbag. He needs to resign from the party.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:15 amjames carville is such a dick! never did like him!
i’ve been popping into firedog lake every few tb…thanks for that link!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:16 amGeez, what a roll call of scumbags!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:17 amWith letters from criminals like those, he’ll get thirty years instead of three.
thanks trueblue
June 5th, 2007 at 11:17 amCarville is finally dead to me.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:18 amthe first letter is signed “donald rumsfeld”…i have to go sterilize my eyes now.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:18 amThey’re writing to the wrong person. The Judge will sentence, it is the President who pardons.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:19 amJames Carville signed the letter too…wow, what a guy…!!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:21 amCarville & Matalin like to think of themselves as the political latter day Hepburn & Tracy. Uh huh, the Bizarro World version.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:22 amwhat the F^%$ is Carville thinking?
June 5th, 2007 at 11:23 amEvery one of those letter writers already has one of G.Dubious Bushs strings in their hand.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:24 amWasn’t one of the trolls asking “Who is cheering for Scooter Libby” yesterday?
There’s your answer.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:26 amCarville and Lieberman
June 5th, 2007 at 11:27 amThe Go-to guys for when GOPers are attempting to hide behind the word bi-partisan.
Say, this might be a good time to remind the public that Fred Thompson is on the board of the Scooter Libby Defense Fund.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:27 amCARVILLE?! If true, I won’t buy anymore of his books, even though I have enjoyed them in the past.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:27 amIsn’t it wonderful when the representatives of the government support treason, obstruction of justice, IIPA violation, perjury, murder, mass murder, war crimes, oil theft, and please don’t stop.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:28 amit is disgusting that these people would write letters pretending that they have any worth to humanity. none of these authors has any character to spare scooter.
Matalin comes across as barely literate. A middle-school English teacher could use her letter as a showcase of grammatical errors.
Libby’s lawyers were concerned about “bloggers” ridiculing the letter-writers; it seems they might have had Matalin in mind.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:29 am“Fred Thompson is on the (skate) board of the Scooter Libby Defense Fund.”
there, fixed it!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:31 amAnyone sign who isn’t making money off this war???
June 5th, 2007 at 11:31 amIt’s apparent that Wolfie loved Scooter the best. :P
Sorry, I couldn’t get past the Matalin letter….
June 5th, 2007 at 11:32 amSome extracts:
Wolfowitz – [how can he write this with a straight face:] “I know of many examples of Mr. Libby’s service to individuals, but let me mention two that are particularly relevant in the context of the present case. One involves his effort to persuade a newspaper not to publish information that would have endangered the life of a covert CIA agent working overseas.”
Feith – [I'm not making this up:] “Scooter stood out in the government as a person of deeply philosophical outlook and humane principles.” [Seriously WTF is Feith trying to say?]
Alan Simpson – [this is just wierdly sycophantic:] “He is not some hard-hearted partisan who delights in subterfuge, or “cover-up”, or mendacity. He is a splendid human being.”
June 5th, 2007 at 11:33 amWhat? No letter from Judith Miller?
June 5th, 2007 at 11:37 amI thought they had a thing going, being all bound up by their roots and all……………
What’s the old saying about honor among thieves?
June 5th, 2007 at 11:37 amWhile the world awaits Judge Walton’s verdict, the blogosphere has already voted on Libby’s fate in:
“The Sentence Scooter Contest.”
For all the latest Libby/Plamegate news, documents, legal developments and other essential materials, see:
June 5th, 2007 at 11:39 am“The Plamegate Scandal Resource Center.”
okay — i’ll likely set the most
June 5th, 2007 at 11:39 aminteresting of each of these as
separate posts — victoria toensing’s
is absolutely priceless! — but this
one: larry d. thompson — is from a
potential presidential candidate — so
it needs to be seen, FIRST. . .
Years ago I read Carville’s “Had Enough?” and touted him to everyone I knew.
Now he’s finally dead to me. I guess we know who converted who in that politically mixed marriage.
R.I.P. James Carville’s last shred of credibility.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:43 amThe fact that there’s no letter from Cheney speaks volumes.
Sorry, Scootie, no pardon…
June 5th, 2007 at 11:44 amIt’s a shame that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff finds his personal relationship to a convicted criminal more important than protecting the integrity of the government and its intelligence.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:45 am30 months!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:46 amWhat a top notch group of all Americans to back one up! No wonder this administration is considered the worst ever, they have no sense of right and wrong.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:47 amComment by nolo — June 5, 2007 @ 11:39 am
Good god……blech.
Ted Bundy’s friends had no idea either…..
June 5th, 2007 at 11:48 amShorter Mary Matalin – “Won’t anyone think of the children?”
Her letter really is that bad…
“One of my many enduring and endearing memories of Scooter is of his unviversal love of families.”*
“… what further justice would be served by additional devastation to [his family] and the many other children who love Scooter.”
*Must explain why he went after the wife of an administration critic.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:48 amThe sentence that Libby recieves matters little. He will be pardoned by the President. He will not see a day of jail time, since they will appeal the sentence and verdict all the way up until the last days of the administration, when Scooter will be pardoned. This is a dead issue.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:49 amMy gawd … the only thing missing from the Wolfowitz letter was a marriage proposal. Sheesh …
June 5th, 2007 at 11:57 amSo why did James Carville write a letter to Libby? Has James dropped his brain on the floor and Mary stepped on it?
June 5th, 2007 at 11:59 amCarville is a Washington operative who has no core principles.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:59 amwow, the judge published a list of traitors to the constitution.
niiiiice.
June 5th, 2007 at 12:09 pmMy gawd … the only thing missing from the Wolfowitz letter was a marriage proposal. Sheesh …
Comment by Unholy Moses
Wasn’t it horrifying? That letter was making me squirm….
*shudder*
June 5th, 2007 at 12:27 pmScooter was a friend to families? I think Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson have a few kids, no? Oh forget it, I just realized it’s only criminal Republican families Scooter has regard for. I wonder if he sent Mary Cheney a baby gift?
June 5th, 2007 at 12:50 pmDonald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton top the list of individuals
Correction: Should read Rumsfield, Kissinger, Woofowitz, and Bolton “top the list of scoundrels”
June 5th, 2007 at 12:50 pmDisgusting, revolting, nauseating group of dirtbags, Carville too. YEEEccccchhhhh.
June 5th, 2007 at 1:07 pmFauci?! The go-to guy on AIDS and other immune disorders?
Who knew he was in Sally Quinn’s circle?
June 5th, 2007 at 1:59 pmTucker Carlson’s daddy, Richard Carlson, also wrote a letter on Libby’s behalf. This isn’t surprising since Richard served on Libby’s defense fund advisory committee. What is surprising is that no one, not even Tucker, mentions it.
June 6th, 2007 at 2:12 amI went through all the letters. Smoking Gun links to the PDF of all the letters – not just the famous people. Lots of what a wonderful father Scootie Pootie is and how much of an honoralble person he is and how they can’t reconcile the convicted Scootie to the Scootie they knew IRL. Don’t take Scootie from his kiddies. Poor Scootie Pootie and his family have been through so much.Well, boo hoo. He should have thought about his kids when he lied. He should have thought about the consequences of lying. And let’s not forget the letter from the neighbor who talks about how Scootie Pootie helped pull out a car from snow of another neigbhor who -gasp – is a liberal Democrat. Quite a few letters from Dems who talked about even though they disagreed with his politics he was a wonderful guy. Does anybody think Scootie and his Repub pals would have written similar stuff for a Dem? Hell, no. Would harpy Mary Matalin have signed a letter for a Dem like Carville did? This pompous prick had all the benefits of a wealthy American and he’s supposed to get off scott free because he gave up money and personal time for “public service.” You mean “public service” that he’would have made a killing off when he got done with the current gig. Wah wah wah. All the “I was his roomate at Phillips Andover” and “we played croquet at Yale” and the ski vacations in Aspen- hell, I was wondering if I was going to see letters from Biff and Prudence about how Scooter had mentored Biff Jr. at his summer internship at Hewey, Dewey and Cheathem. There’s some serious satirical material there for a huge Daily Kos diary there.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:15 am