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October 28, 2005 08:00 AM UTC

Scooter Libby Indicted

  • 27 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

From MSNBC:

Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Scooter Libby, was indicted Friday on five charges that include obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury in the investigation into the leak of a covert CIA agents name.

The indictment could trigger a shake-up at the White House, already on the defensive over the response to Hurricane Katrina, opposition to the Iraq war and the withdrawal of President Bushs nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Harriet Miers.

Details were to be outlined at 2 p.m. ET, when Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald will hold a press conference at the Justice Department. The grand jury that handed up the indictment had been hearing the case for nearly two years and its term expires Friday.

Fitzgerald and his investigators have been trying to determine whether Libby or any other administration officials knowingly revealed the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame or lied about their involvement to investigators. Her husband is diplomat Joseph Wilson, an opponent of the Iraq war who challenged Bushs assertion that Saddam Hussein was trying to secure nuclear materials.

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27 thoughts on “Scooter Libby Indicted”

  2. anybody else get the feeling that Washington DC is a whole other country?

    DC has some great things to see and do, but anybody who’d want to expand that cesspool ought to have their voting privledges revoked.

  4. There are still no details leaking from Fitzgerald’s office, but the following are widely reported today.  The Grand Jury is officially disbanded.  Fitzgerald confirmed to interested Congressmen that this Grand Jury is not a “special” jury, and so its term ends today with no more renewals possible.  It is rumored that a new Grand Jury has already been impaneled, and that Rove and that the investigation will continue.

    Apparently the charges against Libby note that his actions endangered national security.  We will have to wait until the 2pm EDT conference to learn more, but my guess is that this is just the first phase of an investigation that seems increasingly likely to wind up on Vice-President Cheney’s lap.

    Cheney’s counsel, David Addington, has supposedly been chosen to replace Libby.  Addington was a primary author of the torture memo that caused AG Gonzales so much trouble during his confirmation process, and is sure to be a controversial choice.

  5. Indictments are up here (PDF).  The indictment statement of facts is damning.  It implicates pretty much the entire office of the Vice-President along with then Under-Secretary of State John Bolton and his office (not by name), at least one unnamed CIA official, and unnamed White House officials in a conspiracy to discredit Ambassador Wilson.  It confirms that Valerie Plame Wilson was at the time a classified officer of the CIA.

    Potential Libby replacement David Addington is listed by title among the co-conspirators.

  6. The indictment is pretty damning of Libby.  It doesn’t directly implicate Cheney, but I don’t expect to see him in town for many more candidate lovefests.  Politically, the most important question now is probably:  does Libby try to work out a plea to avoid public testimony embarrassing to the administration, or does he fight?  If this is live until November of ’06, it could be a factor in every partisan election.

    Plumber – bought a six of Optimater last night.  Tasty.  Thanks for the tip.  If I may return the favor, find your self some Ommegang by the brewer of the same name (out of Cooperstown, NY).  Fantastic

  7. Just 2 observations after reading the indictment:  1, while Fitzgerald’s announcement talked about national security he did not charge Libby with criminally leaking the information (which is similar to the Martha Stewart case).  2, while the indictment appears pretty damning on the obstruction issues, is there any way out for him?  I mean, is it conceivable that between all the different conversations he presumably had with Rove and everyone at State and CIA to strategize, that he genuinely might have been mistaken in telling the Grand Jury exactly what he said to Cooper and Russert? 

    Otherwise, it seems to me that what he’s being charged with is a he said-she said that basically can only be proven or disproven by Cooper or Russert’s testimony.  If he says one thing and Cooper and Russert say another, is that enough to get him 30 years?

    Just asking.  I am not a big fan of lying to the press, but it’s only actually illegal to lie to the Grand Jury.

  8. By the way I don’t think a “conspiracy to discredit Ambassador Wilson” is illegal, and neither is lying to reporters.  It’s only illegal to lie to a Grand Jury about which lies you told the reporters.  A subtle but important distinction.  I really don’t think they are going to charge anyone with leaking Plame’s name because it doesn’t seem like her classified status was ever discussed by anyone.

  9. The indictment lays out the case that this is not just a he-said, she-said case of Libby vs. the Reporters.  It lays out specific facts that prove a repeated interest in Wilson and his wife by Libby, in discussions with other Administration and bureaucratic officials.  My read of the limited information in the indictment is that Libby “headed up” the investigation of Wilson; a defense of being confused during testimony isn’t likely to cut it.

    As to my conspiracy point, I was being euphemistic in referring to releasing classified information about Wilson’s wife.  The indictment makes several points that insinuate that Libby knew of Plame’s status as an undercover operative – he said releasing her name would cause disruptions at the CIA, Cheney told Libby she worked in the Counterproliferation Division (a division within the Directorate of Operations, not DI), and in mentioning Wilson’s wife to others said that the information was not widely known.

  11. Interesting.  What I got from the indictments was that it will get down to the testimony of Libby vs. the testimony of a few journalists on what was actually said between them.  And I actually think “confused during testimony” is more than enough to get Scooter into reasonable doubt at a trial based on the selected instances I saw, so I’m betting Fitzgerald has a bunch of other information he’s also planning to bring out.  He doesn’t have to show his hand now, and he’s an experienced prosecutor.

    I don’t think Fitzgerald is actually going to go for charges on the leak itself, it’s unclear to me even now if there was a criminal leak, I think he pretty much admitted that train has left the station.  But, prosecutors do enjoy wielding the threat of significant jail time, and he’s probably thinking that he can force an indicted Libby into rolling over, and maybe he’s hoping that may give him the chance to somehow bring down a veep, maybe even on something that isn’t even within the scope of the current grand jury.  He doesn’t seem politically motivated, I actually think he’s probably not, but what prosecutor could resist infiltrating the White House just in case something bigger comes up.

  12. If Judy Miller had told the truth when she knew it, the election may well have gone to Kerry. Had the truth been known that some in the WH administration actually manipulated intelligence to provide the causus belli to go to war in Iraq, would enough of those who voted for Bush have voted for Kerry? We may never know, but it’s an interesting question. There’s still more news to come out of Ohio that there was rigging going on in the Diebold voting machines. Between the lies and the stealing, my bet is that Kerry would have been elected, instead of the “family value” cabal in the WH.

  13. Fitzgerald was very cagey when talking about the case today at his press conference.  He hinted that a grand jury “was available to him” if he needed to bring more charges, but dodged outright questions about the status of the investigation.  Karl Rove’s lawyer this afternoon stated that he was still a target of the investigation, so I’m assuming that Fitzgerald hasn’t closed up shop yet.  I agree that Fitzgerald is likely to seek a plea deal with Libby (as he reportedly did with Rove) to get Libby out of jail before he’s Really Old (he can get up to 30 years and a $1million+ fine from the current charges).  I disagree that Fitzgerald doesn’t have anything else to add: the documentation is pretty clear on Plame’s classified status, and reporters are not cleared for that info; we could yet see IIPA or Espionage Act charges filed (an acquaintance of Fitzgerald reports he is loathe to use the Espionage Act with broad strokes, so that charge may be a long time coming).

    If you want to see where I’m getting my feeling about the strength of the case Fitzgerald has built – not on reporters, but on Libby’s and Administration testimony only – see the transcript of his press conference.

  14. You people are funny. Plame posed on Vanity Fair, Wilson is a discredited hack, and no one will go down for anything serious, even if Libby did it.

    Ultimately, no one will get beat for outing Plame. Sorry Dems, another National Guard story, but this one isn’t going to “get Bush” like you want so badly!

    Someday Dems will have to get an agenda, and I don’t mean socialized health care or a nationwide gun ban. Or, actually I hope you DO try that agenda again.

  15. Goosechase: We’re laughing at you not with you on this one. Spin all you want. This administration is the real joke. Unfortunately, it’s cost 2000+ of our childrens lives with their lies. For christs sake, Valerie posed AFTER she was outed! Name ONE lie Wilson told, and I’ll match you with 15 Condoleeza Rice, Cheney, Libby and others in this WH, and their “hacks” told leading up to this war. We don’t want to “get Bu$h”, we want our country back. These guys are a disgrace, and I might add, so are you.

  16. Outing a CIA agent is indeed a treasonous act, and Libby deserves some hard time.  But frankly, Robin, I would take the left’s faux outrage more seriously if I could think of even one other time where you people supported our intelligence services.  Hell, your side is still furious that we overthrew Arbenz in Guatemala, and that was under Ike. And you’ll never get over the fact that we turned the tables on the Sandinistas. Selective outrage for political purposes leaves me cold.

  18. Thank you Voyageur for your civil response, but you haven’t known me that long, or that well, to have me nailed down on my personal views regarding Arbenz or the Sandinistas. Over time, I hope to demonstrate that any and all treasonous acts, from where ever originated, either side of this silly two-sided politic, will be met with equal outrage by all people of conscience who aspire to a more noble body politic than what we’ve seen of late.

  19. From Steve Soto:

    Fitzgerald is exactly what he appears: a hard-charging prosecutor who’s a bit of a boy scout. He isn’t going to go looking for larger cases to develop, Italian forgeries to expose, or political cabals to imprison. I think he sees his brief as simply this: to investigate whether any crimes were committed that led to the outing of Valerie Plame, prosecute the offender(s), and charge any perjuries or other obstructions that make that investigation tougher. Period.

    This is not necessarily reason for gloom, however. Think about the Chicago Seven (nee: Chicago Eight) trial. Think about the Benjamin Spock trial. Consider the Cantonsville Nine. None of these court cases helped to expose the war crimes of the Nixon administration. Perversely, what these trials did, instead, is suck the political energy out of the anti-war movement. The anti-war movement felt encouraged, falsely, to sit around debating rules of evidence and court procedures rather than what it should have been doing: getting off its collective ass and working twice as hard to resist the war and defeat Nixon in 1972.

    The big difference today, of course, is that there is not much of a visible anti-war movement. We have to find a way to change that. We can’t — and we shouldn’t — leave it up to a trial court prosecutor. Exposing and discrediting a really terrible president is not his job. It’s ours.

  26. All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest – never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.

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