MSNBC (David Shuster): Verdict in Libby trial could come at any minute

[tridim]

So sayeth the bottom 1/3 of the screen.

:popcorn: ?

[Mandate My Ass]

1. oh boy

bring it on! :popcorn:

[mod mom]

2. or any day? nothing on FDL.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. hey pass the popcorn

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Abybody else, wants some, plenty to share

[movonne]

9. How come everyone seems to think there will be a conviction??? I

sure hope there is, but who knows...

[Catherine Vincent]

11. Bite your tongue!

:)

[H2O Man]

24. Probably they

have considered the evidence presented in the courtroom. Based on that, there is good reason to suspect that Scooter will be convicted. But, of course, our system of justice provides many a surprise.

[Auntie Bush]

15. I'll take one thank you! Better edit one out.

:popcorn:

[Auntie Bush]

17. I think he's going to be found quilty...otherwise wouldn't they have

someone come out and say they were deadlocked? Just my HO.

[Catherine Vincent]

4. Any minute...

within the next two weeks! :crazy:

[Demobrat]

5. And they know that how?

NT

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Usually the courts do inform the press pool on these things

on high profile cases... and I have the smidgen of a supspicion that this case is a high profile.

[tridim]

8. It was a David Shuster report, so I felt comfortable posting it.

However, I have no idea how they know. It was just the copy they had displayed on the lower third.

[Catherine Vincent]

10. Well that's different.

You should have mentioned Schuster in your OP. Is it too late to edit it?

[H2O Man]

25. He also said

that it could be several more days. The issue would seem to depend on if the jury were asking Judge Walton about the 3rd count, as it were the only one they still had questions on .... or if they are going in order, meaning they are exactly in the middle of deciding Mr. Libby's fate.

[Catherine Vincent]

31. Oh, well thanks for that.

Any minute or several more days.

[WiseButAngrySara]

7. Thanks for the heads-up! ....n/t

[WiseButAngrySara]

12. Good edit! ....n/t

[AlCzervik]

13. once the court knows they have a verdict a 15 minute warning is sent out

[Marnieworld]

14. I've been saying this all day

Once they sent that note I felt that they were wrapping it up. Since then I have been hitting the home page refresh again and again and again .


Guilty. For America let it be guilty.

[texpatriot2004]

16. I'm waiting...nt

[Nimrod2005]

18. Ok, I will be here...........WAITING AND WAITING AND WAITING....

[Bobbie Jo]

19. So, is this the Official Verdict Watch thread? n/t

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. So Cheney can finally come home?

You know they sent that motherfucker out of the country so he wouldn't be around for the Scooter verdict. He's been cooling his heels waiting for the verdict to come in so they could attack anyone who suggested his culpability while he was on foreign soil.

[Catherine Vincent]

30. He's back in the states.

CNN showed a video clip today of he and Bush walking together on their way to a meeting.

[wordpix]

40. He is now a war hero b/c he was in Afghanistan for a few hrs. & escaped a bomb

:sarcasm:

[The Backlash Cometh]

61. Wasn't it suppose to be a ten day trip? Did it go that fast?

Or did he finally realize it was safer to face the music Stateside, than overseas?

[milkyway]

21. Not today. Jury asked for a basic clarification of charge 3, meaning they were probably

just starting to discuss that charge. Besides, the jurors wore jeans today.

[H2O Man]

26. It is being reported

that the jury has sent out for green shirts and Guinness beer. I think that means they'll be waiting until the 17th.

[KoKo]

32. lol's......A good one....

"the lighthearted jury." :D

The suspense is getting hard to deal with...thanks for the levity.

[jean]

33. haha, thanks for the stress relief

[milkyway]

34. lol! If they're going through the charges in order, they might need

until the 17th if they were just getting to the third charge this morning.

[Annces]

35. Oh Heck! n/t

[myrna minx]

36. LOL!

I really needed a giggle. :hi:

[H2O Man]

37. Are people

(yourself included) really feeling nervous/anxious about the jury? Why?

[KoKo]

38. those red t-shirts....

:scared:

[myrna minx]

41. I must admit that I have been skittish today.

The evidence as well as the prosecution has been rock solid, but the jury note as well as Wells' behavior (as reported) made me question whether the jury would come to what I assumed would be the inevitable guilty verdict. I guess that now that it is coming to an end, I realized that I was really emotionally invested in this and not just intellectually invested.

[KoKo]

45. Yep...the emotional investment has been long

with many of us. Hoping that just once someone in the Administration will have to pay...and have it reported. The other crooks in his administration that have gotten prosecuted and convicted are already down the Memory Hole because the MSM doesn't make a big deal out of it. Remember the high level guy who was shoptlifting at Target, got caught and was convicted? I don't even remember his name...because there are so many who never are followed up on. But, there are others.

Libby would be the first one that anyone knows...but even then probably more than half of Americans could care less about him. He's important to us on the Netroots though. Getting him would be the first step to accountability. It would open more doors that have been sealed shut.

I don't have my hopes up, though...or am just trying to supress them.

[KoKo]

47. While we wait: The Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials....

Our Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials
By Justin Rood - December 4, 2006, 7:11 PM

A number of readers have sent in tips to help the folks at Powerline, who recently admitted to having trouble remembering administration officials (beyond Scooter Libby) who had been accused of corruption or resigned in the face of scandal.

How could you foresake us! cry our old pals Claude Allen, David Safavian, Brian Doyle. Who could forget former FDA commissioner, Lester Crawford? After the jump, you'll find our partial (but fast-growing) list. If we're missing a name, please send it along!

Indicted / Convicted/ Pled Guilty

* Scooter Libby - Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff - resigned after being indicted for Obstruction of Justice, Perjury, and Making False Statements in connection with the investigation stemming from the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

* Lester Crawford - Commissioner, FDA - resigned after only two months on the job. Pled guilty to conflict of interest and making false statements.

* Brian Doyle - Deputy Press Secretary, DHS - Resigned in wake of child sex scandal. Pled no contest to 32 criminal counts.

* Claude Allen - Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy- resigned, pled guilty to shoplifting from Target stores.

* David Safavian - former head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget - convicted of lying to ethics officials and Senate investigators about his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

* Larry Franklin - intelligence officer, Defense - resigned, pled guilty to passing secrets to Israel.

* Roger Stillwell - desk officer, Interior Department - pled guilty to failing to report Redskins tickets and free dinners from Jack Abramoff.

* Frank Figueroa - senior DHS official, former head of anti-sex-crime Operation Predator - pled no contest to exposing himself to 16-year-old girl in Florida mall. Girl says he fondled himself for ten minutes. Figueroa forfeited his badge, gun, and access to databases; employment status pending internal DHS review.

* Darleen Druyun - senior contracting official, U.S. Air Force - pled guilty and sentenced to nine months in prison for her role in the Boeing tanker lease scandal.

* John Korsmo - chairman, Federal Housing Finance Board - pled guilty last year to lying to the Senate and an inspector general. He swore he had no idea how a list of presidents for FHFB-regulated banks were invited to a fundraiser for his friend's congressional campaign. On the invites, Korsmo was listed as the "Special Guest." Got 18 months of probation.

* P. Trey Sunderland III - chief, Geriatric Psychiatry, Nat'l Institute of Mental Health - admitted to a criminal conflict of interest charge for failing to report $300,000 received from Pfizer, Inc. *As of 12/11/06, still employed by NIMH.

Resigned Due to/Pending/After Investigation

* Carl Truscott - Director, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Bureau - resigned. A report by the Justice Department's Inspector General found that Truscott wasted tens of thousands of dollars on luxuries, wasted millions on whimsical management decisions and violated ethics rules by ordering employees to help his nephew with a high school video project.

* Joseph Schmitz - Inspector General, Defense - Resigned amid charges he personally intervened to protect top political appointees.

* Steven Griles - Deputy Secretary at the Interior Department - resigned, currently under investigation by the Justice Department for his ties to Jack Abramoff.

* Susan Ralston - assistant, White House - resigned amidst revelations that she had accepted thousands of dollars in gifts from Abramoff without compensating him, counter to White House ethics rules.

* Dusty Foggo - Executive Director, CIA - stepped down following accusations of corruption in connection to the Duke Cunningham scandal. Under investigation.

* Janet Rehnquist - Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services - resigned in the face of allegations she blocked a politically dangerous probe on behalf of the Bush family.

* Ken Tomlinson, Board Chairman, Corporation for Public Broadcasting; member, Broadcasting Board of Governors - resigned at the release of an inspector general report concluding he had broken laws in spending CPB money to hire politically connected consultants to search for "bias" without consulting the board. At BBG, a separate investigation found he was running a "horse racing operation" out of his office, and continuing to hire politically-wired individuals to do "consulting" work for him. He's still there.

* George Deutsch - press aide, NASA - resigned amid allegations he prevented the agency's top climate scientist from speaking publicly about global warming.

* Richard Perle - Chairman, Defense Policy Board - resigned from Pentagon advisory panel amid conflict-of-interest charges.

* James Roche - secretary, U.S. Air Force - resigned in the wake of the Boeing tanker lease scandal, after it was revealed he had rather crudely pushed for Boeing to win a $23 billion contract.

* Marvin Sambur - top contracting executive, U.S. Air Force - Druyun's boss, Sambur resigned in the wake of the scandal. Investigations cleared him of wrongdoing.

* Philip Cooney - chief of staff, White House Council on Environmental Quality - a former oil industry lawyer with no scientific expertise, Cooney resigned after it was revealed he had watered down reports on global warming.

* Thomas Scully - Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - shortly after Scully resigned in 2003, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General found that Scully had pressured the agency's actuary to underestimate the full cost of the Medicare reform bill by approximately $100 billion until after Congress passed the bill into law. Scully was also charged wtih conflict of interest allegations by the U.S. attorney's office for billing CMS for expenses incurred during a job search while he still headed the agency. He settled those charges by paying $9,782.

* Michelle Larson Korsmo - deputy chief of staff, Department of Labor - Helped her husband (see Frank Korsmo, above) with his donor scam. Quietly left her Labor plum job in February 2004, about two weeks before news broke that she and her husband were the targets of a criminal probe.

* David Smith - Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, Interior Department - resigned after shooting a buffalo and accepting its remains as an illegal gratuity. He eventually paid over $3,000 for the dead buffalo, but only after the internal inquiry had commenced.

* Sean Tunis - Chief Medical Officer, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) - Last summer, the State of Maryland suspended his medical license because he faked documentation relating to his medical education. Despite that, he stayed on board for several months at CMS, albeit on administrative leave. He has since been replaced, although it's not clear when because CMS did not announce the switch and has not responded to our calls.

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:2zC-SkrP4RUJ:www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002075.php+Bush+Administration+Official+shoplifted+at+Target&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

[H2O Man]

48. Thanks.

Heck of a list, eh?

[myrna minx]

54. Oh mercy, that is one long, incredible list.

Thanks for posting.

[myrna minx]

51. Libby is the base of my (tongue in cheek) Maslow's hierarchy of

wants. lol. Start with Libby and build upward.

Year after year we have been disappointed in the lack of culpability with these people even when scandal after scandal surfaces. I think that we have grown accustomed to disappointment that it seems accountability for anyone in this administration or justice for anyone destroyed by them seems like a fantasy. Well, methinks that what once was merely a fantasy will now come true. I believe we will have some justice in this case.

[H2O Man]

46. Yep.

A lot of us who have participated on the DU Plame Threads have invested a lot of energy into the case. I think that in a relatively short time, we will be happy with the way this trial turns out. And then we will invest in moving those results forward.

[myrna minx]

53. I do think that Libby will be found guilty,

but my hands are secretly wringing due the anticipation. If this case has put us through the wringer, I can't even imagine what it has been like for Joseph and Valerie Wilson.

[wordpix]

43. I'm anxious---if Scooter doesn't get convicted for his lies, it means Cheney goes scot free

At least until the Plame-Wilson trial against Cheney if it goes to court

[H2O Man]

44. True.

It's important that Libby is convicted. But I'm confident that the prosecution's case was very strong. While nothing would shock me, I think that Libby is going to be convicted.

[bobbolink]

68. I heard it was Guinness shirts and green beer.

Happy Shamrocks to ye! :toast:

[H2O Man]

69. And to you! n/t

[LSparkle]

22. They've been saying that for the past week!

"At any minute ... " or ... NOT.

[bdamomma]

23. I am not so positive regarding the verdict, but I do hope

they find him guilty.

[mmonk]

27. The big question. What follows if there is an acquittal?

Has the original investigation into who leaked her status been satisfied?

[wordpix]

39. if they acquit Scooty the Lier it will be like the OJ verdict & we will be screwed

The Wilson-Plame fund to prosecute BushCo for treason would then be our only hope.

http://www.wilsonsupport.org/

We know Cheney is implicated as Leaker-in-Chief---our man David Shuster covering the trial has said over and over that Fitz has made it abundantly clear Cheney is leaking all over the place.


Hoping for Fitzmas today!!!

[mmonk]

42. Thanks for the reminder.

http://www.wilsonsupport.org/

[Bake]

28. Apparently they're not "hung"

No pun intended. But it appears that they are at least reaching a verdict. If they were to tell the judge they were unable to reach a verdict (i.e., hung), the judge would doubtless call them into court for the "Allen charge," an instruction that they were to go back into deliberations and not come out without a verdict (ok, that's a bit of a non-legalese paraphrase).

Bake

[Bake]

29. Based on the evidence, it would be difficult to acquit

I think the best the defense could hope for was a hung jury.

Bake

[nolabels]

59. Don't underestimate how many undercover republicans they probably.......

packed in the jury. My guess the people who ratted out that one juror were republicans trying to get rid of a democratic juror. I am predicting for no conviction.

[KharmaTrain]

49. Sounds Very, Very Good

The tip off was that the jury proceeded with 11...meaning there had been enough progress in deliberations that the judge didn't find it necessary to push for an alternate to join the deliberations, which would have meant starting all over. By Welles not objecting that indicates he couldn't find a way to get a mistrial and probably can't use the dismissed juror for a basis of an appeal (be assured if there's a conviction, there WILL be an appeal) and to get this phase done.

I also think Shooter's sitting abroad and running out of "allies" to visit...the only way he comes back is after a verdict.

Considering the time of day, if a verdict is reached, they may wait until tomorrow to announce so it gets a nice big media build-up.

Again, it took a jury here in Illinois 8 days to find George Ryan guilty on a more complicated case. For all of us who've followed the live blogging, I sense we'll have some good news coming from the jury very, very soon.

Our patience will be rewarded.

:bounce:

:toast:

[Catherine Vincent]

52. He's back already.

:)

[goclark]

55. Verdict yet?

Please,please,please,please

Make him go to jail and take Cheney with him

[KharmaTrain]

56. We'll Know It's Really Good, If Cheney's Next Destination Is...

Paraguay.

:rofl:

:bounce:

:rofl:

[myrna minx]

57. OK, I just sprayed my coffee.

:spray:

[goclark]

58. How sweet that would be ~ he could play Uncle

to the Bush little darlings at the Bar.

[Stinky The Clown]

50. Nothing on Libby, but Anna Nicole is on her way to the Bahamas

Give me strength ...........

[Rosa Luxemburg]

62. What is going to be headline news when Libby is found guilty?

I'm sure the Bush administration will have something planned. Are Bush and Cheney going to be out of the country?

[cureautismnow]

60. The Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaiting is the hardest part ...

With apologies to Mr. Petty. :argh:

[H2O Man]

66. Is Scooter

standing on a step ladder?

[cureautismnow]

67. Perhaps, he's standing next to an I.Q. chart?

:)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

63. FDL has an update

jury gone home

[myrna minx]

64. Thanks. At least one more day to wait. n/t

[GeorgeGist]

65. no sh*t