UNITED STATES V. LIBBY
- + Add to Faves
- + Translate
- + Share
العربية
ä¸å›½
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिनà¥à¤¦à¥€
Italiano
日本語
Português
РуÑÑкий
Español
'''United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby"''' (USA v. LIBBY, Case No. 1:2005-cr-00394-RBW) is the federal trial of former high-ranking George W. Bush administration official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on five felony counts of making false statements to federal investigators, perjury for lying to a federal grand jury, and obstruction of justice for impeding the course of a federal grand jury investigation concerned with the possibly-illegal leaking by government officials of the classified identity of a covert agent of the CIA, Valerie E. Wilson (also known as "Valerie Plame"), the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had criticized the Bush administration's rationale for the Iraq War in a ''New York Times'' op-ed entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa".Joseph C. Wilson IV, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," ''New York Times'', July 6, 2003, accessed September 17, 2006. Libby served as assistant to President George W. Bush, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and assistant to the Vice President for national security affairs from 2001–2005. He resigned from his government positions hours after his indictment on October 28 2005. The trial began on January 16, 2007. Pursuant to the grand jury leak investigation, Libby was convicted on March 6, 2007, on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements, and he was acquitted of one count of making false statements. Initially, his lawyers announced that they would be seeking a new trial but that, if they were not to get one, they would appeal Libby's conviction.[1]Paul Courson, Brianna Keilar, Jeffrey Toobin, and Brian Todd, "Libby Found Guilty of Perjury, Obstruction", ''CNN Newsroom'', 6 March, 2007, accessed 6 March, 2007."Libby Lawyer Demands New Trial After Conviction", ''CNN Newsroom'' 6 March, 2007, accessed 6 march, 2007. Later they decided not to seek a new trial, but they still plan to appeal Libby's conviction.Mel Sembler, "Message from the Chairman", ''Libby Legal Defense Trust'', 1 June, 2007, accessed 7 June, 2007. On June 5, 2007, Judge Reggie Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in federal prison, a fine of $250,000, and two years of supervised release, including 400 hours of community service.Paul Courson, Brianna Keilar, Brian Todd, Jeffrey Toobin, and the Associated Press, "Libby Sentenced to 30 months in Prison", ''CNN.com'', 5 June, 2007, accessed 5 June, 2007.Matt Apuzzo and Pete Yost (Associated Press), "Libby Sentenced to 2 1/2 Years in Prison", ''boston.com'', 5 June, 2007, accessed 5 July, 2007.See qualification in Jeralyn Merritt, "Scooter Libby: 30 Months in Prison, $250k Fine", ''TalkLeft'' (accredited press blog), 5 June, 2007, accessed 5 June, 2007: "Note: CNN [in its television broadcasts and some online reports] erroneously reported that Libby's sentence included 2 years probation. In fact, it was supervised release, which is similar but different from probation, and replaced parole in the federal system in 1987."Jeralyn Merritt, "Libby: Life on Supervised Release", ''TalkLeft'' (accredited press blog), 5 July, 2007, accessed 8 July, 2007. (Provides link to PDF of Judge Walton's "Judgment in a Criminal Case" in United States v. Libby, filed 22 June, 2007, accessed 8 July, 2007.) Libby appealed Judge Walton's subsequent order that he report to prison pending the appeal of his conviction. Two weeks later he lost that appeal.Cary O'Reilly, "Libby, Ex-Cheney Aide, Must Go to Jail During Appeal (Update2)", ''Bloomberg.com'', 2 July, 2007, accessed 2 July, 2007. According to O'Reilly, "The appeals court case is U.S. v. Libby, 07-3068, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (Washington)."Cf. Matt Apuzzo (Associated Press), "Court to Libby: Go Directly to Jail", ''The Globe and Mail'', 2 July, 2007, accessed 2 July, 2007. ["The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has not yet assigned Mr. Libby a prison or given him a date to surrender, but last week it designated him as federal inmate No. 28301-016."]See also the updated account in Matt Apuzzo, "Court Won't Delay Libby Prison Sentence", ''Associated Press'', 2 July, 2007, 4:03 p.m. EDT, accessed 2 July, 2007. Within hours, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence, eliminating the prison term while not changing the other parts and their conditions.Edwin Chen, "Bush Commutes Libby's Prison Term in CIA Leak Case (Update 2)", ''Bloomberg.com'', 2 July, 2007, accessed 2 July, 2007.George W. Bush, "Grant of Executive Clemency: A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America", ''The White House'', 2 July, 2007, accessed 2 July, 2007. Judge Walton has queried aspects of that presidential commutation, which will also be the subject of U.S. Congressional hearings.Neil Lewis and Jim Rutenberg, ""Libby Pays Fine; Judge Poses Probation Query", ''The New York Times'', 6 July, 2007, accessed 6 July, 2007.Anderson Cooper, "Breaking News", ''Anderson Cooper 360°'', broadcast on CNN, 3 July, 2007, 10 p.m.-12 a.m. EDT, accessed July 3 2007; cf. "Political Bulletin: Bush Bashed Over Libby Commutation: Furious Democrats Will Hold Hearings", ''US News and World Reports'', Washington News, July 3 2007, accessed July 3 2007.
Background
The CIA leak grand jury investigation concerning the Plame affair began on October 31, 2003. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation due to conflicts of interest.
On December 30, 2003, Patrick J. Fitzgerald was named Special Counsel by Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey and charged with conducting the investigation into the Plame affair.James B. Comey, (letter to Patrick J. Fitzgerald), 30 December 2003, accessed 18 March 2006. Fitzgerald was granted the full plenary power of the Attorney General in the Libby case, as clarified by Comey in letters of February 6 2004, and August 12 2005.James B. Comey, to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, 6 February, 2004, accessed 17 July, 2007.James B. Comey, (letters to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, related memoranda, and transcripts), 30 December, 2003 to 17 March, 2006, accessed 17 July, 2007.
On October 28, 2005, after twenty-two months of the investigation, Special Counsel Fitzgerald indicted Libby in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. On November 3 2005, Libby appeared at his arraignment before Judge Reggie B. Walton and pled not guilty., ''United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby'', United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 28 October 2005, accessed 10 February 2007.
The text of the filed indictment includes: one count of obstruction of justice (Title 18, United States Code, section 1503) for impeding the grand jury's investigation; two counts of perjury (18 USC §1623) for lying under oath before the grand jury on March 5 and March 24 2005; and two counts of making false statements (18 USC §1001(a)(2)) and in connection with for making "materially false and intentionally misleading statements" to FBI agents who interviewed him on October 14 and November 26 2004.
On November 16, 2005, ''The Washington Post'' senior editor Bob Woodward, who helped uncover the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, revealed that he had just given testimony that another senior Bush administration official had given out information about Valerie Plame prior to and in addition to Mr. Libby. Fitzgerald had called Libby the first "known" official to do so - thus Woodward's revelation does not counter Fitzgerald's specific and carefully-worded characterization at that time.
David Corn speculated that Libby is using Graymail as a defense tactic, based on the large amount of classified material that has been requested by his defense and the addition of the graymail expert John D. Cline to his defense team.David Corn, [1], ''Capital Games'' (blog), ''The Nation''.Murray Waas, "Administration: Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information", ''The National Journal'', 9 February, 2006, accessed 13 March, 2006.
On February 2, 2006, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton set Libby's trial date to January 8 2007.John King, "Ex-Cheney Aide Gets Trial Date: Libby Faces Charges Stemming from Leak of CIA Operative's Name", CNN 3 February, 2006, accessed 26 February, 2007.
On February 3, 2006, Walton set a trial date of January 8 2007.John King, "Ex-Cheney Aide Gets Trial Date: Libby Faces Charges Stemming from Leak of CIA Operative's Name", CNN, 3 February 2006, accessed 26 February 2007.
On February 3,2006, the defense subpoenaed ''The New York Times'', its former reporter Judith Miller (who was in jail for 85 days after refusing to tell the grand jury about conversations she had with Libby), ''Time'' magazine and its reporter Matt Cooper, and Tim Russert of NBC News for documents related to the Plame affair. According to Pete Yost of the Associated Press, the subpoenaed reporters and organizations would have until April 7 to turn over the material or challenge the subpoenas:
The subpoena to Miller seeks her notes and other materials, including documents concerning Plame prepared by Miller and ''Times'' columnist Nicholas D. Kristof.
Kristof wrote the first account of the criticism that Plame's husband was leveling at the Bush administration. Referring to Plame's husband, though not by name, a May 6 2003, ''Times'' column by Kristof raised the possibility the Bush administration might have disregarded prewar intelligence suggesting Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
Three weeks after Kristof's column appeared, Libby started making inquiries at the State Department about the unnamed envoy in Kristof's column, according to the indictment.
The subpoena to the Times also calls for:
—
Documents of contacts between any Times employee and any of eight people, including then-CIA Director George Tenet and then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, regarding Joe Wilson.
—Documents concerning a recent ''Vanity Fair'' article in which Miller said she talked to many people in the government about Plame.
—Drafts of a personal account by Miller, published in the Times, about her grand jury testimony.
—Documents regarding Miller's interactions with a Times editor in which Miller may have been told to pursue a story about Joe Wilson and a trip he made to Niger on behalf of the CIA.Pete Yost (Associated Press), "Libby Lawyers Subpoena Times, Other News Organizations", ''Newsday'', 16 March, 2006. [Outdated URL].
On February 9, 2006, Murray Waas reported in ''The National Journal'' that Libby had testified to the grand jury that he had been authorized by his superiors to disclose classified information regarding intelligence estimates of Iraq's weapons programs. Waas identified Vice President Cheney as one such superior on the basis of unpublished statements of lawyers with knowledge of the situation and documents that Waas says were filed with the court.
On February 23, 2006, Libby's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against him. According to Toni Locy, reporting for the Associated Press, "The defense attorneys ... said Fitzgerald's appointment violated federal law because his investigation was not supervised by the attorney general."Toni Locy (Associated Press), "Ex-White House Aide Seeks Dismissal of Charges in Leak Case", ''boston.com'', 24 February, 2006, accessed 17 July, 2007. Libby's attorneys argued that only the U.S. Congress can approve such an arrangement," and that the appointment of Fitzgerald as Special Counsel by then-United States Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, himself acting as Attorney General in Ashcroft's place, violated the Appointments Clause (United States Constitution, Article II § 2)., ''United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby'', No. 05-314, United States District Court for the District of Columbia 23 February, 2006, accessed 17 March, 2006.Cf. "Libby's Guilty Verdict: Media Myths and Falsehoods to Watch for", ''Media Matters for America'', 6 March, 2007, accessed 8 June, 2007.
On April 5, 2006, court filings distributed widely in the press and news media the next day, revealed that Libby had testified during the grand jury investigation about information that Vice President Cheney and President Bush had authorized disclosing; reportedly, the original intent of the filing was to restrict Libby's access to further classified information in defense discovery.[2]
On April 13, 2006, Libby's lawyers indicated that neither Vice President Cheney nor President Bush ordered him to say anything about Valerie Plame. A court filing by Libby's defense team argues that Valerie Plame was not foremost on the minds of administration officials as they sought to rebut charges made by her husband, Joseph Wilson, that the White House manipulated intelligence to make a case for invasion.
The filing indicates that Libby's lawyers don't intend to say he was told to reveal Plame's identity.[3]
The court papers also state that "Mr. Libby plans to demonstrate that the indictment is wrong when it suggests that he and other government officials viewed Ms. Wilson's role in sending her husband to Africa as important" and that his lawyers also plan to call to the stand Karl Rove, who remained under investigation at that time.
On May 24, 2006, Fitzgerald filed a response to a motion by Libby's lawyers, offering summaries of Libby's grand jury testimony and excerpts from Libby's testimony of March 5 2004 and March 24 2004.[4][5]
On September 1, 2006, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer described Libby's life as "having been ruined" for no reason and called on President Bush to pardon him.
On September 22 2006, according to Matt Apuzzo for the Associated Press, Libby's attorney's reported that "Libby Plans to Testify in CIA Leak Trial" United States v. Libby in his own defense.Matt Apuzzo, "Libby Plans to Testify in CIA Leak Trial", ''The Washington Post'', 22 September, 2006, accessed 28 April, 2007.
Speculation about possible witnesses prior to the start of the trial
On December 19 2006, news organizations reported that Vice President Dick Cheney would be called to testify as a witness for the defense and that "former New York Times reporter Judith Miller and NBC News Washington bureau chief Tim Russert were expected to be prosecution witnesses" during Libby's trial, to begin in January 2007.James Vicini (Reuters), "Cheney To Be Called to Testify in CIA Leak Case", ''The Boston Globe'', 19 December, 2006, accessed 20 December 2006.Matt Apuzzo (Associated Press), "Cheney to Be Defense Witness in CIA Case", ''San Francisco Chronicle'', 19 December, 2006, accessed 20 December, 2006.
Vice President Cheney
In May 2006, the Associated Press had reported that Patrick Fitzgerald was considering calling Vice President Cheney as a witness for the prosecution.[6] In December 2006, at a pretrial hearing, defense lawyer Theodore Wells reportedly said: "'We're calling the vice president.'" If that had occurred, it would have marked the first time that a sitting Vice President was called to testify in a criminal trial.Kevin Bohn, "Libby Trial Watchers Wonder What May Have Been", ''CNN'', 22 February, 2007, accessed 2 March, 2007.
In a January 2007 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Cheney commented on the ongoing trial: "Now, Wolf, you knew when we set up the interview you can ask all the questions you want, I'm going to be a witness in that trial within a matter of weeks, I'm not going to discuss it. I haven't discussed with anybody in the press yet, I'm not going to discuss it with you today."[7]
Ultimately, Vice President Cheney was not called as a witness in the trial.[8]
The trial
The trial in the case of the ''United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby'' began on 16 January, 2007.Q&A: Lewis 'Scooter' Libby Trial.
On March 6, Libby was convicted of four out of the five counts against him. He was found guilty of two counts of perjury in testimony before a federal grand jury, one count of obstruction of justice in a federal grand jury investigation, and one of two counts of making false statements to federal investigators. He was acquitted on the second count of making false statements (indictment count three).
Press coverage of the trial
Blogs have played a prominent role in the press coverage of this trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder," published in ''The New York Times'' on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who observes that United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby is "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media."Scott Shane, "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", ''The New York Times'' 15 February, 2007 [appended correction].''The Scooter Libby Trial'', ''Media Bloggers Association'', 20 February, 2007–28 June, 2007 (updated periodically), accessed 30 June, 2007.
On January 3, 2007, the first team of bloggers to announce that they had been granted press credentials was ''Firedoglake'', a progressive blog founded by Jane Hamsher.[9] Less than a week later, on January 9, the Media Bloggers Association (MBA) announced that several of its affiliated bloggers had been granted press credentials too.[10]
Among those representing the traditional press media — what many bloggers term the "Mainstream media" (or "MSM") — reporter David Shuster began live blogging the trial for MSNBC on ''Hardblogger,'' an online feature linked at ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'', as well as reporting on camera in segments of variious MSNBC News programs.David Shuster, "Prosecutors Introduce First Evidence at Libby Trial", ''Hardblogger'' (accredited press blog), ''MSNBC'', 23 January, 2007, accessed 24 January, 2007. A transcript of Schuster's broadcast report on the first day of the trial, during which Schuster says that the prosecution summarized evidence to support its allegations that Vice President Dick Cheney was involved in Libby's actions relating to the Plame affair, is posted on several of these news blogs.Jeralyn Merritt,"The Scooter Libby Headline for Day One", ''TalkLeft'' (accredited press blog), 23 January, 2007, accessed 24 January, 2007:
The prosecutors said the evidence will make it clear that the very first government official who told Scooter Libby about Valerie Wilson, the wife of a critic and the fact that she was working at the CIA, the very first person who told him that was Vice President Cheney. The prosecutor said the evidence will also show Vice President Cheney himself directed Scooter Libby to essentially go around protocol and deal with the press and handle press himself, that Scooter Libby should be the one talking to the press to try to beat back the criticism of administration critic Joe Wilson.... Prosecutors also revealed today that Vice President Cheney himself wrote out for Scooter Libby what Scooter Libby should say in a conversation with ''Time Magazine'' reporter
This article provided by Wikipedia. To edit the contents of this article, click here for original source.
psst.. try this: add to faves
