Scooter Libby/msnbc photo

By Clarice Feldman
American Thinker
If the President hasn’t already pardoned Lewis (Scooter) Libby, I beg him to reconsider and do so, for Libby is an innocent man.
Most of what people believe about the Scooter Libby case was proven wrong at trial. Many wrongly believe: 1) Libby leaked the CIA employment of Valerie Plame; and 2) he then lied to cover his leaking.
But Libby was acquitted of the only charge before the jury that he leaked her identity to reporters and lied about it. In fact, the evidence at trial showed Libby did not disclose Plame’s identity to reporters Robert Novak (Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and CIA spokesman Bill Harlow did that), or Bob Woodward (Armitage, again), Walter Pincus (White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer did) or Matt Cooper (Karl Rove did that one).
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Editor’s Note: Feldman, a D.C. attorney,  also wrote ticklethewire.com on Wednesday to dispute Scott Horton’s column below. She said: “Libby had nothing to do with Rich’s pardon. Years before he’d advised Rich on a tax matter. Period.”

Eric Holder

By Allan Lengel
Ticklethewire.com

You know Eric Holder Jr. would have really been in big trouble if the Boys & Girls Clubs of America had opposed his confirmation for Attorney general.
Though it’s hardly a big deal– it would have been if it opposed him — the club has written the Senate Judiciary and praised Holder’s nomination.
In a letter dated Jan. 12, the group’s president and chief executive Roxanne Spillett, wrote:
“It is with great pride that, on behalf of Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), I send this letter in support of Mr. Eric Holder on his nomination as Attorney General of the United States. Mr. Holder understands the value of working in the community as a tool to help prevent and reduce crime in some of the most distressed cities and neighborhoods in this country. He has a proven track record of doing so throughout his career, especially as it relates to his work with BGCA.Boys & Girls Clubs of America has enjoyed a strong partnership with Congress and the Department of Justice for a number of years. We provide programs and services for thousands of young people in some of the most distressed
communities.”
Now if he can only round up the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts.

Read Complete Letter

By Allan Lengel
Ticklethewire.com
A former State Department employee pleaded guilty Wednesday in Washington to illegally accessing passport applications of more than 150 celebrities, actors, musicians, comedians, models, politicians, athletes and media members out of “idle curiosity”, the Justice Department said.
Dwayne F. Cross, 41, of Upper Marlboro, Md., pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola to one count of unauthorized computer access, the Justice Department said. Sentencing is set for March 23. Last fall, another State Department employee pleaded guilty to the same offense.
Cross was an administrative Assistant in the Diplomatic Security Abduction Unit, Counter Intelligence at the State Department. In March 2008, he returned as a contract employee for the acquisition office.
According to plea agreement, Cross said he had access to State Department computer data bases including the Passport Information Electronic Records System (PIERS), which contains applications dating back to 1994, the Justice Department said.
The PIERS system includes a photograph of the passport applicant as well as certain personal information: the applicant’s full name, date and place of birth, current address, telephone numbers, parent information, spouse’s name and emergency contact information, the Justice Department said. The confidential files are protected by the Privacy Act of 1974, and are only available for official government business..
In pleading guilty, Cross admitted that between January 2002 and August 2007, he looked ” at passport applications of more than 150 celebrities, actors, musicians, comedians, models, politicians, athletes, members of the media, family members, friends, associates and others”, the Justice Department said.

Read Government’s Statement of Facts

You just know President Bush will pardon some big names just before he exits 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The question now is simply Who?

By Scott Horton
The American Lawyer
For George Washington there was an obvious time for potentially controversial pardons, and that was the day he left office. Washington pardoned the instigators of the Whiskey Rebellion as his last official act. He had good reason to keep a low profile. The Federalists hated the decision. They thought it would fuel uprisings by moonshine-swilling frontiersmen-and they were right.
The tradition of controversial pardons has continued ever since. Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon remains the benchmark, but George H.W. Bush’s pardon of 75 people caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal and Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive billionaire and presidential library supporter Marc Rich register high on the scale.
Ironically, the Rich pardon was engineered by two people very much in the news. One is Scooter Libby, who was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Dechert at the time. Libby, of course, was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury in the Valerie Plame affair. His sentence was commuted by President George W. Bush; he is now seeking an extension of that commutation to a full-blown pardon.
The other is Attorney General-designate Eric Holder Jr., who served as deputy attorney general in the last days of the Clinton presidency and pushed the Rich pardon. Holder antici­pates embarrassing questioning on the pardon issue when his nomination comes before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but at present it doesn’t look like a show-stopper.
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The big question will be whether Congress wants to explore some misdeeds of the past or move forward. With all the confusion in Washington and the economy in the dumps, it may be a little harder to get the American people behind them to go after the those misdeeds.

Rep. John Conyers

By Zachary Roth
TalkingPointsMemo
Over the weekend, President-Elect Obama said we should “look forward as opposed to looking backwards” on the question of prosecuting Bush administration officials for torture, illegal wiretapping, and other possible crimes committed in the name of national security.
But yesterday, the House Judiciary committee got behind a very different approach, releasing a nearly 500-page report that recommends establishing a blue-ribbon commission — along the lines of the 9/11 commission, but with subpoena power — to investigate whether crimes were committed. (Last week, as we reported over at Election Central, Judiciary chair John Conyers and nine other lawmakers introduced a bill to set up such a commission.)
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The full report

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• DOJ Kept on Voting Rights Chief After Racist Remark (TalkingPointsMemo)
• U.S. Official Says Detainee Was Tortured (Bob Woodward-Washington Post)
• Report Says Illegal Immigrants Not Likely to Leave U..S. Despite Economy (Washington Post)

The sad tale of ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson goes on. Here’s the latest twist.

Robert Levinson/photo helpboblevinson.com

By Fox News
A U.S. senator revealed Tuesday that he believes a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran nearly two years ago is being held in a secret prison there – much to the surprise of the ex-agent’s wife.
Sen. Bill Nelson’s comments on the disappearance of Robert Levinson came during Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s secretary of state confirmation hearing in Washington.
“I haven’t received any information about my husband,” Levinson’s wife, Christine, told The Associated Press.
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FBI Dir. Robert Mueller III

Historically, local law enforcement has complained about the FBI not sharing enough information. There may still be complaints after this, but it may help deflect some complaints.

By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – The FBI has launched a system to share tips about possible terror threats with local police agencies just in time for the presidential inauguration.
The program aims to get law enforcement at all levels sharing data quickly about suspicious activity and people, particularly in and around the nation’s capital in the week leading up to the historic ceremony.
Officials say they are getting as many as 1,000 tips a day from the public.
Called e-Guardian, the program had been delayed and underwent a smaller pilot project before launching New Year’s Eve as a system available to law enforcement agencies around the country.
Federal authorities hope the new system overcomes a drawback of another version, which lets police report their suspicions to the FBI but doesn’t allow officers to search the system for similar patterns in other jurisdictions.

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