What a travesty!

Bush Commutes Libby Prison Sentence

Tuesday July 3, 2007 1:16 AM

By BEN FELLER

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby from a 2-year prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, delivering a political thunderbolt in a highly charged criminal case. Bush said the sentence was just too harsh. Bush's move came just five hours after a federal appeals panel ruled that Libby could not delay his prison term.

That meant Libby was likely to have to report soon, and it put new pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.

``I respect the jury's verdict,'' Bush said in a statement. ``But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.''

Bush's decision enraged Democrats and cheered conservatives - though some of the latter wished Bush had granted a full pardon.

``Libby's conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq war,'' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. ``Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone.''

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's decision showed the president ``condones criminal conduct.''

Unlike a pardon, which would have wiped away Libby's criminal record, Bush's commutation voided only the prison term.

The president left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for his conviction of lying and obstructing justice in a probe into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. The former operative, Valerie Plame, contends the White House was trying to discredit her husband, a critic of Bush's Iraq policy.

Bush said his action still ``leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby.''

Libby was convicted in March, the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.

Testimony in the case had revealed the extraordinary steps that Bush and Cheney were willing to take to discredit a critic of the Iraq war.

Libby's supporters celebrated the president's decision.

``President Bush did the right thing today in commuting the prison term for Scooter Libby,'' said House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri.

``That's fantastic. It's a great relief,'' said former Ambassador Richard Carlson, who helped raise millions for Libby's defense fund. ``Scooter Libby did not deserve to go to prison and I'm glad the president had the courage to do this.''

Already at record lows in the polls, Bush risked a political backlash with his decision. President Ford tumbled in the polls after his 1974 pardon of Richard M. Nixon, and the decision was a factor in Ford's loss in his bid for re-election.

White House officials said Bush knew he could take political heat and simply did what he thought was right. They would not say what advice Cheney might have given the president.

On the other hand, Bush's action could help Republican presidential candidates by letting them off the hook on the question of whether they would pardon Libby.

A message seeking comment from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office was not immediately returned.

Bush said Cheney's former aide was not getting off free.

``The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged,'' Bush said. ``His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting.''

A spokeswoman for Cheney said simply, ``The vice president supports the president's decision.''

The White House said Bush came to his decision in the past week or two and made it final Monday because of the ruling of the appeals panel, which meant Libby would be going to prison soon.

The president's announcement came just as prison seemed likely for Libby. He recently lost an appeals court fight that was his best chance to put the sentence on hold, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had already designated him inmate No. 28301-016.

Bush's statement made no mention of the term ``pardon,'' and he made clear that he was not willing to wipe away all penalties for Libby.

The president noted Libby supporters' argument that the punishment did not fit the crime for a ``first-time offender with years of exceptional public service.''

Yet, he added, ``Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable.''

Bush then stripped away the prison time.

The leak case has hung over the White House for years. After CIA operative Valerie Plame's name appeared in a 2003 syndicated newspaper column, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald questioned top administration officials, including Bush and Cheney, about their possible roles.

Nobody was ever charged with the leak, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage or White House political adviser Karl Rove, who provided the information for the original article. Prosecutors said Libby obstructed the investigation by lying about how he learned about Plame and whom he told.

Plame believes Libby and other White House officials conspired to leak her identity to reporters in 2003 as retribution against her husband, Joseph Wilson, who criticized what he said was the administration's misleading use of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Attorney William Jeffress said he had spoken to Libby briefly by phone and ``I'm happy at least that Scooter will be spared any prison time. ... The prison sentence was imminent but obviously the conviction itself is a heavy blow to Scooter.''

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March 7, 2007

Editorial

A Libby Verdict

There will be a great deal written and said in coming days about the frustrations of the Scooter Libby verdict — that it did not tell us whether someone deliberately blew Valerie Plame Wilson’s cover or erase serious concerns about the prosecutor’s abuse of the First Amendment. Let’s focus first on what the verdict does say.

One of the most senior officials in the White House, Lewis Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, was caught lying to the F.B.I. He appears to have been trying to cover up a smear campaign that was orchestrated by his boss against the first person to unmask one of the many untruths that President Bush used to justify invading Iraq. He was charged with those crimes, defended by the best lawyers he could get, tried in an open courtroom and convicted of serious felonies. Mr. Libby walked freely out of the court, had his say in public and will be allowed to appeal.

It was another reminder of how precious the American judicial system is, at a time when it is under serious attack from the same administration Mr. Libby served. That administration is systematically denying the right of counsel, the right to evidence and even the right to be tried to scores of prisoners who may have committed no crimes at all.

And although we still do not know the answer to the original mystery, the case provided a look at the methodical way that Mr. Cheney, Mr. Libby, Karl Rove and others in the Bush inner circle set out to discredit Ms. Wilson’s husband, Joseph Wilson IV. Mr. Wilson, a career diplomat, was sent by the State Department in 2002 to check out a British intelligence report that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the government of Niger for a secret nuclear weapons program. In his 2003 State of the Union address, Mr. Bush said: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

In July 2003, Mr. Wilson wrote in an Op-Ed article in The Times that what he had found did not support that claim. The specter of a nuclear-armed Iraq was central to Mr. Bush’s case for rushing to war. So, the trial testimony showed, Mr. Cheney orchestrated an assault on Mr. Wilson’s credibility with the help of Mr. Libby and others. They whispered to journalists that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the C.I.A. and that nepotism was the reason he had been chosen for the trip.

That is what we know from the Libby trial, and it is some of the clearest evidence yet that this administration did not get duped by faulty intelligence; at the very least, it cherry-picked and hyped intelligence to justify the war. What Mr. Wilson found, and subsequent investigations confirmed, was that there was one trip in 1999 — not “recently,” but four years before Mr. Bush’s statement — by an Iraqi official to Niger and that during that trip, uranium was never discussed.

What we still do not know is whether a government official used Ms. Wilson’s name despite knowing that she worked undercover. That is a serious offense, which could have put her and all those who had worked with her in danger. We also do not understand why the federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, chose to wage war with the news media in assembling his case, going so far as to jail a Times reporter, Judith Miller, for refusing to reveal the name of a confidential source.

The potential damage from that decision remains of real concern. But it was still a breath of fresh air to see someone in this administration, which specializes in secrecy, prevarication and evading blame, finally called to account.

War Profiteers have no worries

Okay, here’s the situation. It’s clear from the Libby trial that the White House, most notably Dick Cheney, was in a full out effort to discredit Joe Wilson. Libby’s pathetic excuse that he learned of Wilson’s identity from Tim Russert has been torn to shreds today by Russert himself, as well as others. As an aside, it seems like the Libby defense has been to portray Libby as a scapegoat for the leak, blaming it on Karl Rove, and essentially seeking to discredit Judy Miller, who spent 85 days in jail protecting Libby. With friends like that ….

Libby has told prosecutors that he learned of Mrs. Wilson’s CIA status from the vice president, forgot that, and then remembered that he had heard it from the vice president after the heard it later from a reporter. (I can’t make this up.) It’s clear that Cheney and Libby were working with quite a bit of vigor to control the media’s take on Joe Wilson’s op-ed piece that essentially discredited what Bush had said in the state of the union address; that Iraq was not seeking nuclear material from Niger.

They are guilty, everyone knows it, but it won’t matter. They can nail Libby to the wall and Bush will pardon him. The trial is only a formality. In light of this it is easy to understand why Rumsfeld was not let go until after the election. When the democrats gained control of the Congress, Bush “fired” Rumsfeld, not because he thought it was time for a change, but because they knew the Democratic congress would begin holding hearings on Iraq. If Rumsfeld was no longer Secretary of Defense he wouldn’t have to testify before the committee. He won’t be held accountable. It’s all iron clad. They will toss out a few low level crooks like the Army officers that profited by steering contracts in Iraq, but the profligate war profiteers like KBR will never be called to account for a single nickel of ill gotten gains. The profiteers like Cheney, Rumsfeld and assorted other criminals will walk off far richer than they were when they came into office and they will never lose a wink of sleep over the people they sent off on a fools errand that never came home.

Russert Says He Didn't Tell Libby About CIA Officer

Journalist Says He Learned Plame's Role After Leak

By Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 8, 2007; A04

Tim Russert, the Washington bureau chief for NBC News, yesterday swiftly and firmly rejected I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's assertion that the journalist revealed the identity of an undercover CIA officer to him during a telephone call in the summer of 2003.

Testifying as the final, and perhaps most critical, prosecution witness in the perjury trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, Russert recounted their conversation that July and how a "very agitated" Libby called to complain about MSNBC's "Hardball." Russert said that the subject of the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, never came up and that he could not have told Libby anything about her.

"That would be impossible," Russert said, "because I didn't know who that person was until several days later."

Libby, who faces five felony counts of lying to investigators about his role in the leak of Plame's identity, has repeatedly testified that he shared information about Plame with other reporters only after hearing it from Russert during the telephone call. Libby has acknowledged that Cheney first told him about Plame's CIA job, in mid-June, but said that he had forgotten the information by the time he heard it from Russert.

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has argued that Libby fabricated the story about learning the information from Russert in the July 10, 2003, telephone call to protect himself from criminal charges. Passing along gossip from a reporter would not be a crime, but disclosing a CIA officer's classified status to reporters after learning it from the vice president could be.

Prosecutors spent three years investigating whether senior Bush administration officials deliberately revealed Plame's status to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The CIA had sent him to Africa in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq had been trying to buy nuclear material there. Wilson found no evidence of the activity and in July 2003 accused the administration of twisting his findings to justify going to war. Eight days after he went public with his accusations, his wife's name and CIA role were revealed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak.

In 11 minutes of direct testimony, Russert offered a vivid description of his telephone call with Libby, and said it rapidly "evolved into a consumer complaint." Russert said Libby, who was then Cheney's chief of staff, was upset that "Hardball" host Chris Matthews had said in two broadcasts that the vice president was responsible for Wilson's mission to Niger for the CIA and had made negative remarks about Libby.

"What the hell is going on with 'Hardball'?" Russert quoted Libby as having asked him. "Damn it. I'm tired of hearing my name over and over again. What is being said is not true."

In addition to testifying that he had not mentioned Plame to Libby, Russert said that Libby did not bring her up, either.

Russert said he first learned about Plame and her CIA job from the Novak column on July 14, and said "Wow" when he read it. He testified that if Libby had mentioned to him during their phone call four days earlier that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, he would have pursued it, asking questions about how Plame's job might relate to Wilson's accusations against the White House.

"That would be a significant story," he said.

Under cross-examination, defense attorney Theodore V. Wells Jr. pressed Russert to say that he had, in fact, asked Libby about Wilson, because the former ambassador had become a major figure in the news. Russert said that he had not, and that he had been "in listening mode" during the call.

"What happened is exactly what I told you, sir," Russert said. "I did not know" about Plame. "I did not talk about it."

Jurors heard Russert's testimony on the same day they listened to Libby say in his own words that he had the utmost respect for Russert as a journalist. Libby's admiring description of Russert came in audiotapes of his March 2004 grand jury testimony, the last of which were played in court yesterday morning. Libby said it meant more to him to hear the information from a reporter he considered so credible.

"Tim Russert, in my view anyway, is one of the best of the newsmen, the most substantive," Libby testified. "It struck me that not only did he know this, and I didn't know it, but he also thought it was important."

In portions of the tapes played yesterday, Fitzgerald repeatedly pressed Libby to explain any role the vice president may have played in the leak. During Libby's two grand jury appearances in March 2004, the special counsel asked whether Cheney believed that Plame was the reason the CIA sent Wilson on the mission to Niger, and whether he considered Wilson unqualified or biased. Fitzgerald also pressed Libby on whether Cheney suggested or implied that he should tell journalists that Wilson is married to a CIA officer.

In response to each question, Libby can be heard on the tapes carefully choosing words that would not implicate Cheney, and saying he could not recollect whether the vice president suggested they make Plame's CIA role public.

In his grand jury testimony, Libby said that as the CIA leak investigation was beginning in September 2003, he knew the probe would look at more than just which administration official leaked the name to Novak. He said he was aware that the president had asked administration officials to come forward.

Libby said he privately went to the vice president twice to ask whether Cheney wanted to know all the details of his conversations with reporters about Wilson and Wilson's wife in late June and early July.

"I would have been happy to unburden myself of it," Libby testified. "He didn't want to hear it. . . . I have no problem telling him what happened."

But he said Cheney shook his head no. "You don't have to," Libby recalled his boss telling him.

Libby's attorneys have argued in the trial that Libby had no motive to lie because he believed the investigation was focused solely on identifying Novak's source.

Libby Trial

Ex-Cheney Aide Says She Told Libby Name of CIA Operative
By VOA News 26 January 2007

A former spokeswoman to Vice President Dick Cheney says she informed Cheney and his former chief-of-staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, about the identity of a CIA operative married to a Bush administration critic.

Cathie Martin testified Thursday during Libby's perjury trial. Prosecutors say Libby lied to investigators trying to determine who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to reporters in 2003. Plame is married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who accused the White House of falsifying intelligence to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Martin testified that she informed Cheney and Libby of Plame's identity after learning it from a CIA official. She also said Cheney personally directed efforts to discredit Wilson's allegations.

Libby says he learned of Plame's identity from a prominent television reporter, Tim Russert, host NBC-TV's weekly public affairs program Meet the Press.

Martin is the first person from the vice president's inner circle to testify about Libby's role in the leak. She now serves as a communications assistant to President Bush.

Wilson says he traveled to Niger on behalf of the CIA in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain uranium from the central African nation to build nuclear weapons. Wilson says although he found no evidence of any such transactions, President Bush still mentioned the attempted purchase in his State of the Union address in 2003, just before the invasion of Iraq.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.