Not to pick nits, but January 8th is the day for jury selection (or was as of yesterday afternoon when I last checked the court website)

Jan 15th is the opening day of thetrial according to the court calendar.

Best reason not to pardon Libby?

If he is pardoned, he loses his 5th ammendment privledge and can be forced to tell all to any Congressional Committee waiving a subpeona. In fact, w/o that privledge ols Scooter would be looking at certain jail time for contempt.

Ken Starrheld held Susan McDougal for how long? Why? Because he gave her imuunity and she still refused to talk.

Nope, the pardon doesn’t help keep Scooter out of jail (only chnages the reason why) and exposes the W?H like nothing else can.

I really don’t think that the White House will consider the pardon to be an admission of anything.

They’ll come up with creative ways to justify a pardon. A peek into the justoneminute blogs will provide evidence of the creative thinking process.

Lawyer falls to death at hotel
RIP Paul Sanford
[EXCERPT]

…Mills said Sanford decided in recent years to add journalism to his many occupations.

Almost immediately, he caused a stir after he joined the White House Press Corps in 2005, making waves as the first reporter to ask then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan whether the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name might be considered an act of treason.

â€There has been a lot of speculation concerning the meaning of the underlying statute and the grand jury investigation concerning Mr. Rove,†Sanford asked. â€The question is, have the legal counsel to the White House or White House staff reviewed the statute in sufficient specificity to determine whether a violation of that statute would, in effect, constitute treason?â€

http://www.montereyherald.com/…..326502.htm
Lawyer falls to death at hotel
Seaside: Police suspect Paul Sanford committed suicide

It is going pretty much as expected. Libby’s lawyers have introduced all sorts of things that Walton has not allowed but that make for good appeal fodder. Likewise will be the trial a laundry list of possibilites besides the trial itself.

Along the way they will make an effort to discredit Mr Wilson (pay back for the funds made available to the defense, and indeed lay the blame for his wife’s outing on Mr Wilson himself along with his wife’s mixing up business (CIA) with her husband needing a job. If there is any conspiracy, it is there.

Of course the real benefit of all this as I see it is a thorough look into the way these investigative reporters do their investigating. Probabably more â€in between the sheets work†than any movie ever showed. A lot of expense account swilling as well.

Only an idiot would expect Bush to pardon Libby at anytime short of one week from the end of his term. But there are idiots in abundance.

I am looking forward to the trial like any good game presented for the public’s enjoyment.

I would say the line would show Libby and Co. are favored.
1. at the trial
2. on appeal
3. by pardon

obsessed

Walton has said, on several occasions, that he expects the trial will last 6 weeks.

The parties have estimated the trial at 4 weeks, but I don’t believe them. I think it will go longer. If Walton is estimating 6 weeks, it will probably go a bit beyond that.

Like closets, trials have a way of expandeing to take up all the time allotted to them, plau a wee bit more.

I have to sort out this start day stuff, got to book plane tickets

lhp

I asked Jeralyn about jury selection, and she mentioned that in McVeigh they started with thousands in the jury pool, then weeded down to hundreds before they got to the court room. Is something similar possible here? After all, if they need to find people who don’t hate Dick, they’re going to have to start with at least 72 people, given his approval ratings.

Well, if ever anyone needed proof of the complicity of the corporate media (in the form this time of the management of the Associated Press and the ownership of the Wall Street Journal) in this whole affair, they have it now:

â€Lawyers for the [two] news organizations said the public has the right to know why, despite that knowledge, Fitzgerald testified that he needed the testimony of reporters to continue the investigation. The only way to know that, the lawyers argued, is to unseal Fitzgerald’s affidavits and the court’s full legal opinion on the issue.â€

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp…..1003524857

[Those are two organizations apparently most perturbed that Libby’s graymail effort failed and the pardon is still in the offing… Most suspicious timing and motives lurk behind this week’s sudden court filing by these members of the â€press.â€]

The investigators had conflicting testimony, and only one way to verify or dispute said testimony: by questioning the two reporters who participated in, and were the sole eyewitnesses to, the Libby conversations at issue. Enough of one of the key affidavits is already public to make that pretty clear, as I recall. I am really feeling hostile about the AP’s coverage of this issue (just as the AP is hostile to the public’s right to know the truth about this case), and to the deceptive, slanted coverage, and lack of coverage, of same by our corporate censors. The fact that the AP seemingly withheld from the public the evidence they had obtained via the FOIAct about Armitage’s meeting with Bob Woodward for months after receipt, until someone else was about to break the story, really deserves further elucidation… No media source has yet published Armitage’s calendar of appointments for July 8, 2003 (I wonder if an AP reporter is caught up in this somehow?). [It is of course possible that that evidence has been withheld under one of the exemptions to the FOIAct, but it is stunning that no member of the media has bothered to ask or explain why that calendar has not been published by this time, as June 13’s has been.]

Let’s see how many of the AP’s â€friends†trumpet this disinformation, and knowingly deceptive argument, at face value in the days ahead…

P.S. My understanding of the trial start date is the same as cboldt’s, lhp – although Joel Seidman of NBC News was reporting the same information you have, last week. I can understand that they may want the courtroom reserved a day in advance for set-up – but it appears that the old January 8th (plus 1/15?) start date has simply not been updated on their website? [And now, of course, there is a status conference and motion to quash hearing scheduled for January 10th.] Tuesday, January 16, 2007, as far as I know, kicks things off.

pow wow

UGH. That is some really shitty shitty representation of the public interest. Sure seems like someone on Libby’s team is trying to use them as a shield to try to force this out, to guarantee the Armitage stuff gets out there.

ANd on the July 8 calendar, I’ll point out two details. First, there are still conflicting stories about when ROve first spoke to NOvak about this–but the NYT story on July 15 2005, which almost certainly was Luskin’s attempt to pre-empt Waas’ story–said they spoke on July 8. Further, if we had Armitage’s calendar and it became clear the Novak meeting took place after the outburst to Joe WIlson’s friend, it would be crystal clear that Armi was not the â€first†source.

Of course, until Novak and Libby start revealing more details about their subpoenaed conversation, we don’t even know that Armi is the right source.

I did some checking close to the source and Jan 16th is indeed the beginning of jury selection.
The court calendar is evidently wrong.
However, they do not anticiapte a long voir dire maybe only a couple days. So, Opening Statements maybe on 1/22 or possibly even earlier.

This uncertainty about the date of Opening makes it a little dicey for us out of towners to make travel plans.
Imagine the nerve, the criminal justice system is not trial tourist freindly! (snark alert)

LHP

I know what you mean, about this legal touristing. I’ve been invited to a very swank coffee on January 17. What is a legal tourist to do?!?!?!

Very interesting. There is something about the confluence of Ford’s death, those watergate memories, and a pardon that the republicans are spinning â€saved americaâ€. All it has done is remind me of how bitter I was that Nixon was pardoned. Keep the dialogue coming.

Thanks John Casper. Have to admit I had help with that one–a lot of it.

oops, I miscounted.
The subtitle alone is 16 words.

Subliminal still applies