Drudge has the transcript from Chris Matthews’ interview with juror #10, Ann Redington:
MSNBC host Chris Matthews spoke with Libby juror Ann Redington on HARDBALL. Juror [#10] says she would support a Bush pardon for Libby.
Transcript:
Chris: You’re for a pardon out of sympathy for the defendant.
Ann: Yeah, I think in the big picture, um, it kind of bothers me that there was this whole big crime being investigated and he got caught up in the investigation as opposed to in the actual crime that was supposedly committed.
Chris: Which is the leaking of a CIA agents name.
Ann: Exactly.
End
Developing…
This is very interesting. It sounds like this juror didn’t appreciate Patrick Fitzgerald putting her in the situation where she had to judge Libby for something so unrelated to the crime being investigated. Now that one juror has asked President Bush to pardon Libby, I have a question: if other jurors come out in support of a Bush pardon for Libby will Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi support their requests the way they supported their verdict?
Update: Denis Collins, the juror and former reporter who spoke immediately after the verdict was read yesterday, gave a detailed account of what went on during jury deliberations. And guess where he published his account: The Huffington Post. Of course, the Huffington Post is the first choice that a completely unbiased member of the Lewis Libby jury would go to publish his thoughts on the jury deliberations. Naturally.
Update II: MSNBC has the story up now:
Saying “I don’t want him to go to jail,” a member of the jury that convicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case called Wednesday for President Bush to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.
The woman, Ann Redington, said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that she cried when the verdicts against Libby were read Tuesday. She said Libby seemed to be “a really nice guy.”
Redington said “it was very difficult — it was hard” to vote to convict Libby, who was found guilty of four of five felony counts accusing him of lying to a federal grand jury and the FBI. Prosecutors said he hoped to derail a special prosecutor’s investigation of the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative.
“He seemed like a ton of fun. … I didn’t want to see him and his wife and say he was guilty of a crime,” Redington told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. But she she said she had no choice given the evidence.
“I think he got caught in a difficult situation where he got caught in the initial lie, and it just snowballed,” she said.
Hot Air posted the video.
Captain Ed‘s comments are spot on:
The only crime committed, however, was the perjury and obstruction by Libby. Fitzgerald didn’t charge him with leaking Plame’s identity, and he’s not charging anyone else for that action, having determined (a) it wasn’t a crime, and (b) Richard Armitage is the one who did it. Armitage confessed to it over three years ago, before Fitzgerald even got the case, and he worked for Colin Powell and not Dick Cheney.
Fitzgerald should be hauled up in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee to justify to the American people why he spent tax payers’ money to interview people about the leak of Valerie Plame’s name when it was clear that he not only knew who leaked it, Richard Armitage, but also that doing so was not a crime. After all that time and money, he was only able to come up with a case against Lewis Libby for the crime of having a bad memory while speaking with federal investigators, something that could not have happened if Fitzgerald hadn’t gone on his fishing expedition. As I see it, it was nothing short of an abuse of his authority.
