Guilty on count 1 - Obstruction
Guilty on count 2 - False Statement, Russert/>
Not Guilty on count 3 - False Statement, Cooper
Guilty on Count 4 - Perjury
Guilty on Count 5 - Perjury

Update: The transcript of my Washington Post live-chat on the verdict is here. I've also done a bunch of radio interviews today. I'm about to start one with Michael Signorile on Sirius and at 6:30 ET with Air America (Rachel Maddow) and after that, KTSA in San Antonio with Jack Riccardi. (Thanks to CBS radio Los Angeles for having me on twice today and also Denver's Caplis and Silverman on KHOW radio.)

Update: Dennis Collins, juror. "I am not excited to be here," but because he was a reporter for years, he felt he should speak. Will talk about the evidence. The primary thing that convinced us on most counts was the alleged conversation with Russert. It was either false, or if it did happen, Mr. Libby saying he was surprised to hear about Mrs. Wilson didn't add up. We had lots of post-it notes, we took a week just to get these building blocks, and we came up with that Mr. Libby was told about Mrs. Wilson 9 times. Mr. Hannah's testimony was contradictory on Libby's memory. References Marc Grossman's testimony and Vice-President Cheney's notes.

Partial video of juror's news conference is here.

More below the fold:

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has an excellent idea:

... automatically restoring voting rights to felons who complete their sentences. In a recent speech, Mr. Crist pledged to lead the movement for the restoration of voting and civil rights for ex-offenders in Florida and hinted that he might do so by issuing an executive order.

Why is it such a good idea?

It would take the restoration issue out of the hands of a sluggish bureaucracy that has clearly failed to do its job and vault Florida to the forefront of a national movement that aims to extend democracy to ex-offenders. It would also help put an end to one of the most shameful episodes in American electoral history.

This editorial explains why disenfranchisement of ex-offenders is shameful.

Why did Thomas DiBiagio resign as the U.S. Attorney in Maryland? He explained to the NY Times that "he was forced out in early 2005 because of political pressure stemming from public corruption investigations involving associates of the state’s governor, a Republican." DiBaggio says he experienced "direct pressure not to pursue these investigations."

“The practical impact was to intimidate my office and shut down the investigations.”

While DiBiagio was being pressured to ignore Republican corruption, former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was being pressured to pursue corruption charges against a Democrat.

More on the political mess the Bush administration has made of the Justice Department here and here and here.

Marcy at Firedoglake is back in court at the Libby Trial. These are the questions the jurors submitted yesterday afternoon:

Is the prosecution alleging that Mr. Libby did not make the statement to Cooper as presented to us in the Indictment OR is the allegation that Libby did know Mrs. Wilson worked for the CIA when he spoke to the FBI on 10/14/03 or 11/26/03?

Is the prosecution's allegation in Count 3 that Mr. Libby DID know that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the CIA when he made statements to the FBI on 10/14/03 OR 11/26/03? (Page 74/75 …"that Mr. Libby did not know if this was true.")

In determining Count 3, are we allowed to consider Mr. Libby's grand jury testimony?

Both sides have agreed on how the judge should respond and the Judge has so advised the jury. The judge's written response is here.(pdf)

More....

Matt Yglesias writes:

Joe Klein names a few characteristics of right-wing extremists, including:

*believes that homosexuals are condemned to hell. *believes that there are inferior religions.

. . . I don't really think it's fair to condemn people for holding them. To me the belief that gay sex acts are immoral is false and hard-to-justify. It's not, however, politically objectionable unless the believer goes on to believe that government policy should be aimed at criminalizing gay sex acts or discriminating against gays or lesbians. After all, there are tons of religious prohibitions (Muslims don't drink alcohol, Hindus don't eat beef, Jews don't eat pigs, Pentacostalists don't dance) that I don't agree with, but that I also don't have a problem with unless the believers want to turn them into legal prohibitions.

Matt's objections seem limited to political ones. I think the bigger objection is Constitutional. The First Amendment and the Separation of Church and State, that much maligned phrase.

The She-Pundit with long blond hair was just on Hannity and Colmes. (Crooks and Liars has video.) She was pretty defensive, not surprisingly, but also very insistent that she was joking in calling John Edwards a "faggot", insisting she was talking about Gray's Anatomy co-star Isaiah Washington going to rehab for using the same word against a co-star.

She insisted she wasn't using the word in the "gay" sense, only in the "wuss, pansey" "schoolyard taunt" sense. She said everyone knows John Edwards, who is married with kids, isn't gay. She said this happens every six months that liberals attack her for something she said and every time it's supposed to be the end of her career and it never is.

She claimed every conservative news junkie knew about Isaiah Washington going to rehab for using the word. Really? They all watch Gray's anatomy?

Isaiah went to rehab for criticizing a gay member of the cast. He didn't use the word in the schoolyard sense. Her excuse doesn't make sense.

Politicans have to choose their words carefully these days. Check out the latest critism of Barack Obama's Selma, Al. speech yesterday where he credited the 1965 marchers with empowering his black father and white mother to marry.

Turns out he was born in 1961.

....he credited the "Bloody Sunday" civil rights marchers of 1965 with the fact that his parents -- a black African father and white Kansas mother -- were empowered to fall in love and got married.

"They looked at each other and they decided, 'We know that in the world, as it has been, it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child, but something is stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across the bridge.' And so they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Ala.!"

Obama was born in 1961; the Selma march was four years later. Obama said later that he meant to credit the entire civil rights movement with his parents' union, not just the Bloody Sunday marchers.

More...

The U.S. Supreme Court today refused to hear WorldCom former chief Bernie Ebbers' appeal. Ebbers, at 65, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Ebbers argued in court papers that the trial judge improperly allowed prosecutors to use testimony from witnesses who had been given immunity, but denied immunity to potential defense witnesses.

The judge also instructed jurors that they could find Ebbers guilty if they believed he suspected a crime was being committed but intentionally looked the other way.

It appears now he will die there.

More...

ABC News' blog reports:

Armed with fresh intelligence, the CIA is moving additional man power and equipment into Pakistan in the effort to find Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, U.S. officials tell ABC News.

Officials tell ABC the trail's not cold.

People familiar with the CIA operation say undercover officers with paramilitary training have been ordered into Pakistan and the area across the border with Afghanistan as part of the ramp-up.

...Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testified last week that current intelligence "to the best of our knowledge" puts both bin Laden and al Zawahri in Pakistan. It was the first time a high-ranking U.S. official publicly identified Pakistan as bin Laden's hiding place.

This may just be a yearly thing, as bin Laden changes locations every March when the mountain snow covers melt.

Via Marcy at Firedoglake, there's another jury note, Wells looks happy, Fitzgerald does not. They are discussing how to answer and will reconvene at 4:30 ET. I'll stay online to update.

Update: DOJ spokesperson Randall Samborn says "The parties have been asked to meet in Court at 4:05 p.m. today Monday March 5 to review a note with questions that the Court has received from the jury."

So, there's more than one question.

More....

Vice President Dick Cheney has been diagnosed with a blood clot in his calf. He will be on blood-thinners for several months. He returned to work immediately after the diagnosis.

I know most of us here don't approve of Cheney, but calling for his demise or ill-health is unacceptable. Any such comments will be deleted.

Via TPM Muckracker:

The department also said that Michael Battle — a senior Justice official who directed the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and who had personally informed the ousted U.S. attorneys of their removal — would leave his post March 16.

Battle, who has held his post since June 2005, notified U.S. attorneys of his decision in January and had informed the department last summer that he wished to pursue opportunities in the private sector, the department said. Battle was not involved in the actual decision-making that led to the prosecutors' ouster, the department said.

The Justice Department says the resignation is not related to the embroglio. I'm not buying it.