Scooter Libby was convicted on four counts this week. He will not be sentenced until June 5, 2007 four months now. In the meantime his attorneys will seek a new trial in the case, and conservative supporters are pushing to ask President Bush to pardon Scooter Libby.
An interesting question recently raised by the Wall Street Journal points out that Scooter Libby's primary mistake from the legal perspective may have centered around his failure to plead the fifth. Pleading the Fifth Amendment is a legitimate defense for anyone that's under suspicion of a crime. The Constitution provides that no one is obliged to incriminate themselves. Ari Fleischer in the former White House Press Secretary pleaded the fifth and was later brought back into testify against Scooter Libby.
It might have looked bad for the administration if Libby had pleaded the fifth. It might have looked bad for Scooter Libby, however at the end of the day he would not be a convicted felon now. The Fifth Amendment in politics is a strange beast. Politicians and those that serve politicians often worry themselves about the implications of taking the fifth amendment and what it looks like to the public. Politicians often fail to realize that their power is not absolute. And so they often just like a bad villain in and B rated comic book start dialoging with investigators. Often times they might even trying to lead investigators astray or provide a half-truth to misdirect them. This misdirected loyalyty may take the heat off of whoever they are trying to protect, however, it is illegal. They may have done nothing wrong originally, but when they start trying to act devious or tricky or sometimes even just cooperative, their words come back to haunt them. Then they end up going to jail.
As my grandfather might have said, they got to smart for their own good.
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