Things are heating up in the Scooter Libby sentencing. The Judge today ordered "that the media and, to the extent they have position on the issue, the parties shall submit to the Court by 5:00 p.m. on May 30, 2007, their legal views regarding what right, if any, the media has to access the sentencing letters prior to the June 5, 2007 imposition of the defendant's sentence."

Jane Hamsher and Marcy Wheeler, as credentialed bloggers for Firedoglake and Daily Kos, have submitted their letter. More from Jane here and Marcy here.

My view on the letters is here.

The Judge also ordered Team Libby reply to the government's sentencing memoranda (here and here, pdf) by 5:00 p.m. on May 31, 2007.

Update: Here is Team Libby's response.

Marcy (Empty Wheel) argues that the sentencing letters written on behalf of Scooter Libby should be made available to the public.

Team Libby disagrees (brief here), asserting that the letters are not judicial records because they haven't been filed with the Court (they were submitted in camera through the Probation Department) and aren't subject to the First Amendment, and because the privacy interests of the authors outweigh the interest of the public's right to know. Also, Libby argues, since courts have discouraged or prohibited the disclosure of such letters in the past, a change in this case might have a chilling effect and deter supporters of defendants in future cases from writing candid letters of support.

Team Libby is particularly concerned about bloggers:

Given the extraordinary media scrutiny here, if any case presents the possibility that these letters, once released, would be published on the internet and their authors discussed, even mocked, by bloggers, it is this case.

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Earlier I wrote about the Government's sentencing memorandum for Scooter Libby, and noted that it would be filing an explanation of how it calculated Libby's guidelines at 30 to 37 months. I've uploaded the newly filed calculations here, and I have to say, I disagree with them. As does the Probation Department.

It's a very complicated calculation because instead of just using the perjury, obstruction and false statement guidelines, it asks the Court to cross-reference those guidelines with the higher guidelines for violations of the IIPA and Espionage Act.

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The Government filed an 18 page sentencing memorandum for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby today. You can read it here. In the memorandum, the Government says Libby's guidelines are 30 to 37 months and asks the Court to follow the guidelines. The Government said it will follow-up with a filing explaining how it arrived at the guideline range later today. As of now, it has not been filed.

My initial calculation of the guidelines, with links to the specific provisions, is here. Christy at Firedoglake provides her take and Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun reported today. (Both were written before the Government's memorandum was filed.)

Points of interest. The Government did not say it agreed with the Probation Department's calculations of the Guidelines, it said it believed the guideline range to be 30 to 37 months. It may be that the Probation Department calculated the guidelines to be lower than that.

Also, Libby has not filed a Sentencing Memorandum, at least as yet. There are a few explanations for this.

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I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby filed court documents today saying he will not be requesting a new trial in the trial court. He's going to make his arguments in the Court of Appeals.

His sentencing is set for June 5, 2007.

I read Max Frankel's 7,800 word article on the Scooter Libby trial last night. It left a bad taste, and I didn't write about it. Marcy Wheeler has a terrific analysis of the article and what's wrong with it at Firedoglake.

However, my problem with the article was not so much Frankel's embrace of Judith Miller, but his implication that no real crime was committed and Fitzgerald should not have compelled the journalists to testify.

This wasn't a case of whistle-blowing. This was a case of Administration officials using the media to discredit a war critic by outing his CIA agent wife through allegations that his trip to Africa was the result of nepotism and therefore his findings on that trip were not worthy of belief.

Since when are perjury and obstruction of justice not really crimes?

Max Frankel disappoints with this article.

I have an op-ed today in the Rocky Mountain News, Scooter Libby Takes One for the Team. It's about why I was rooting for both sides in different ways, and why, although I think the verdict was correct, I feel cheated. Hope you'll read it.

David Corn has a new article in The Nation, "Cheney on Trial."

Using testimony from the Scooter Libby trial, Corn shows:

....beyond resolving whether Libby had mounted a criminal cover-up to hide his--and perhaps Cheney's--involvement in the leak episode, the trial exposed the inner world of Cheney's crew. The proceedings also proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Bush White House was neck-deep in the Valerie Wilson leak (even if Novak's original source was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) and that the White House lied when it claimed otherwise.

While Cheney wasn't on trial, he was often front and center.

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Robert Novak, the columnist whose July 14, 2003 article outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA operative, has a new pro-Scooter Libby column.

Among his disclosures:

Actually, in my first interview with Fitzgerald after he was named special prosecutor, he indicated that he knew Armitage was my leaker. I assumed that was the product of detective work by the FBI. In fact, Armitage had turned himself in to the Justice Department three months before Fitzgerald entered the case, without notifying the White House or releasing me from my requirement of confidentiality.

Novak also complains that while Valerie Wilson's status wasn't an issue at trial,

....in his closing argument, Fitzgerald referred to Mrs. Wilson's secret status, and in answer to a reporter's question after the verdict, he said she was "classified."

Ted Wells, though, in closing argument, brought the subject up (from the transcript, not available online):

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Wonders never cease. A juror in the Scooter Libby trial recommends he be spared jail and receive a pardon from President Bush.

“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.

Crooks and Liars has the video.

A "ton of fun?" He sat silent at counsel table for five weeks. What seemed fun about him?

Meanwhile, the White House is trying to tone down the pardon speculation. Tony Snow talked about the long legal road ahead for Libby.

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Crooks and Liars has the video of faux right wing pundit Stephen Colbert's take last night on the Scooter Libby trial. Pretty funny.

Libby Juror #9, Denis Collins, a journalist and author, made the rounds of every network yesterday. On Larry King Live, he said he'd be writing about his experiences but hadn't yet decided in what form.

Today, his 7 page online account of what happened inside the jury room appears exclusively at Huffington Post.

Update: Also check out Technorati's Buzz TV with a cutie named Aaron. He highlights juror #9 Denis Collins first hand account at HuffPo and this TalkLeft post. I really like the fast moving video at the beginning, the images flash as as fast as this one.