Libby Verdict: Guilty 4/5 Counts (UNCoRRELATED)

Scooter Libby has been found guilty on four of five counts and could be sent to prison for 25 years.

[I expect to be revise this through most of the day...]

There is a cloud over the verdict since the jury was asking very basic questions even yesterday, which makes a very good argument for the fact that the jury was confused, even very confused. Further supporting that view is the inconsistency of the verdict--lying about his conversation with Tim Russert but not his conversation with Matt Cooper. The judge may in fact throw out some or all of the verdicts of guilt on the basis that the jury are morons.

In the event that the judge upholds the verdicts, Libby can appeal, but he'll have to spend at least a year in jail waiting for that process.

The left will be partying tonight for having destroyed the life of a Republican official. I suspect that the political war in this country has just been escalated. This is the politics of personal destruction writ large. It will now become standard procedure to try to send as many officials as possible to jail for the rest of their lives. Twenty-five years for not remembering!

'Land deal' Harry Reid has made a statement, urging President Bush NOT to pardon Libby. If Bush doesn't pardon Libby, he should just shoot himself.

UPDATE: Denis Colins, a juror is speaking to the press. He is a former reporter. The guy has just made an astonishing statement: Colins indicated that there was a lot of sympathy for Libby on the basis that they thought they should have been prosecuting Karl Rove!

Glad to see there were unbiased.

Colins states that jurors thought the trial was about who leaked Valerie Plame's identity.

Judith Miller "seemed nice" and the defense hurt their case by badgering her.

Libby seemed nice.

The bottom line, according to Colin, was that he was simply too erudite for them to believe that he could be forgetful. A hell of thing to lose your freedom on.

Byron York cuts through the clutter with his usual laser keen insight:

It's easy to criticize the jury — they can seem easily confused — but the problem here is not the jury. It is the charge. This is the entirety of Count 3 (and Count 5, as well): Libby testified that he told Cooper that reporters were telling him, Libby, that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, but that he, Libby, did not know if it was true. Cooper testified that Libby did not say that. There are no notes, no recordings, no records, no nothing to support either man's story. Just Libby's testimony versus Cooper's testimony. And prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has asked the jury to convict Libby of a felony, one that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, on that astonishingly flimsy allegation. No wonder the jury is confused.

Tom Maguire predicted conviction on at least some counts:

"Personally, I think the single most probable scenario is that Libby uhh, shaded his testimony to keep Cheney out of the story," Maguire says.

Media Matters is already spinning the verdict. Its a crock. I'll leave it to Maquire to debunk them.

I've investigated the Wilson-Plame affair--not the leak, the real crime--participation in a coup attempt against the legitimately elected government. Niger was conspiring with the Saddam Hussein regime to trade uranium oxide--its an unalterable fact confirmed by captured Iraqi documents. Wilson lied, lied knowingly and with the purpose of eliminating an elected administration. I don't give John Kerry credit for much, but even he knew that Wilson was a time bomb