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Subscribe to Politics UpdatesLibby Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison
June 05, 2007 10:47 AM
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findingDulcinea Staff
A harsher punishment than expected for the vice president’s former chief of staff: two and a half years and a $250,000 fine.
30 Second Summary
Presiding Judge Reggie Walton said that the sentence was based on “overwhelming evidence” of guilt on four counts: obstruction of justice, giving false statements, and two counts of perjury.
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s punishment is sterner than the sentences suggested by federal guidelines. But it is toward the lower end of the range recommended by the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald.
Responding to calls from Libby’s supporters for a presidential pardon, a White House spokesperson said that President Bush would decide on the case only at the conclusion of the appeal process.
Libby was convicted of obstructing the investigation into the alleged White House leak that outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent in 2003.
White House critics claimed a leak had been arranged to punish Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson. A former U.S. ambassador, Wilson became a vocal critic of the administration in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Should Libby not win his appeal or gain a presidential pardon, he will be the most senior White House official to serve jail time since the Watergate scandal of 1974.
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s punishment is sterner than the sentences suggested by federal guidelines. But it is toward the lower end of the range recommended by the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald.
Responding to calls from Libby’s supporters for a presidential pardon, a White House spokesperson said that President Bush would decide on the case only at the conclusion of the appeal process.
Libby was convicted of obstructing the investigation into the alleged White House leak that outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent in 2003.
White House critics claimed a leak had been arranged to punish Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson. A former U.S. ambassador, Wilson became a vocal critic of the administration in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Should Libby not win his appeal or gain a presidential pardon, he will be the most senior White House official to serve jail time since the Watergate scandal of 1974.
Headline
Libby’s chief lawyer, Theodore Wells, protested that his client had already been punished enough. Wells said Libby had been “publicly humiliated,” is likely to lose his law license, and may become a “poster child” for everything his critics deem to have gone wrong in Iraq.
Source: The International Herald Tribune
The Christian Science Monitor states that Libby “expressed no remorse about his actions––indeed, he did not refer to the actual case at all … Libby has also insisted that he is innocent and undoubtedly will appeal his conviction.”
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Reactions
Libby’s former boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, issued a statement in response to his former aide’s sentencing. As well as commending Libby’s “intellect, judgment and personal integrity,” Cheney said, “On a personal level Lynne [Mrs. Cheney] and I remain deeply saddened by this tragedy and its effect on his wife, Harriet, and their young children.” As to the coming appeal, Cheney expressed the hope that “our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man.”
Source: The White House
“As Americans, both Valerie and I are grateful that justice has been served,” Joseph Wilson said when asked to comment on Libby’s sentence. Wilson is the husband of CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose outing as an agent launched the investigation in which Libby perjured himself.
Source: USA Today
CNN reports on how Libby’s sentence and the possibility of a pardon has split opinion among the GOP’s presidential candidates. Speaking at a New Hampshire debate, Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo said they would pardon Libby. Jim Gilmore and Ron Paul disagreed. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani would wait for the appeals process to end before deciding whether to offer a pardon, but felt that the sentence imposed was “way out of line.”
Source: CNN
Opinion (pro)
According to this editorial from the New York Times, Libby’s sentence is wholly appropriate and a necessary response to his crime. “Although Mr. Libby plans to appeal,” the Times writes, “as he has every legal right to, the judge ought to send him to jail now as a lesson that such efforts to frustrate justice will not be tolerated.”
Source: The New York Times
The Financial Times acknowledges that Libby was found guilty of covering up a crime that may not have been committed, but states he had perverted the course of justice nonetheless: “That is a serious blot on the already sullied reputation of an unpopular presidency.” Even more significantly, “Libby’s cavalier approach to the truth betrays an attitude that pervades the White House to this day: an arrogance of power.”
Source: The Financial Times
Opinion (con)
According to this article in Time magazine, the tough sentence meted out to Libby reflects “one of the most troubling aspects of federal sentencing laws––allowing harsher sentences for a crime that was never actually proven.” Reynolds Holding argues that it was never established in court that Plame’s identify as a CIA agent was classified information. So Libby is paying the price for an offense that may never have happened.
Source: Time Magazine
Libby’s only crime, says the Wall Street Journal, was to defend the Bush administration’s prewar intelligence and cooperate thoroughly with the leak investigation. “If Mr. Libby had not tried so hard to reconstruct passing conversations with several journalists months after the fact,” writes the Journal, “it’s hard to imagine he would be in his current position.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Background
Libby was found guilty of trying to block an investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent. No one was ever tried in connection with that leak, but the prosecution said that Libby's evidence muddied the waters to the degree that the investigation couldn't continue effectively. The BBC offers a concise summary of Libby's trial.
Source: The BBC
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union Address. That claim triggered a chain of events that led to Libby’s conviction in March 2007.
Source: State of the Union Address, '03
In July 2003, Joseph Wilson published an op-ed in the New York Times to debunk the Bush Administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy uranium in Africa. Wilson, an ex-U.S. ambassador, had been sent to Niger to investigate that assertion in 2002. He found no evidence of a yellowcake deal with Iraq, and reported as much to the White House. In his Times article, he concluded that “some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”
Source: The New York Times
On July 14, 2003, Bob Novak made the following statement in his Washington Post column: “Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.” It was this public revelation that suggested to investigators that Plame’s identity had been leaked to punish her husband’s opposition to the Iraq war.
Source: The Washington Post
On October 5, 2003 Joseph Wilson appeared on Meet the Press. He claimed that his wife’s identity as a CIA agent had been leaked to the press by White House officials to punish him for speaking out against the Iraq war.
Source: MSNBC
Influential figures wrote to Judge Walton to plead for leniency. Among them were former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz. However, Walton appeared more inclined to listen to his other petitioners, who argued that a light sentence would “send a message that powerful and connected people received special treatment in the courts.” The LA Times anticipates the coming moves to influence Walton now that Libby has been sentenced.
Source: LA Times
Key Players
A detailed biography of Cheney’s former chief of staff is available from the International Relations Center, a Democrat-leaning think-tank. Among the sources referred to is Bob Woodward’s recent book State of Denial, which describes the working relationship between Libby and the Vice President: “Cheney was lost without Libby, many of the vice president’s close associates felt … He had been almost part of Cheney’s brain.”
Source: The International Relations Center: Libby Biography
The New York Times offers a summary of all its articles on I. Lewis Libby.
Source: The New York Times: Libby Pages
The U.S. court for the District of Columbia details the Judge Reggie B. Walton’s career on its Web site.
Source: U.S. Courts Web Site: Judge Walton
“If you’re not zealous, you shouldn’t have the job,” says U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in an interview with the Washington Post. In the 1990s, Fitzgerald composed the first indictment against Osama bin Laden, at a time when the al-Qaeda leader had yet to reach his current level of infamy. This biographical piece places emphasis on Fitzgerald’s drive and sense of purpose.
Source: The Washington Post: U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald
Valerie Plame joined the CIA at the age of 22, after graduating from Pennsylvania State University. In 2005, when this biographical article in the Washington Post was written, she had been with the agency for 19 years. The Post considers her prospects now that her cover has been blown, an event which, according to this source, effectively ended her career with the CIA.
Source: The Washington Post: Valerie Plame
Joseph Wilson was the last U.S. ambassador to meet with Saddam Hussein, an encounter that took place in 1991. Also, he once defied the dictator by harboring 100 U.S. citizens at the American embassy in Iraq at a time when Saddam was threatening to kill anyone who sheltered a foreigner.
Source: The BBC: Joseph Wilson
Reference Material
“United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby”––the indictment against Libby, charging him with obstruction of justice, making false statements, and perjury.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
It was claimed that Saddam tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger. Yellowcake is milled uranium oxide, and though it is one stage in the process of creating enriched uranium, it is still some distance from being weapons-grade material.
Source: Slate––What Is Yellowcake Uranium?
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