I. Lewis Scooter Libby

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I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr., Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney since 2001, resigned October 28, 2005, after being indicted on five counts which included obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury.

The indictments resulted from a grand jury investigation which began October 31, 2003, into the leaking of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name. Department of Justice Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald and FBI "investigators have been trying to determine whether Libby or any other administration officials knowingly revealed" Plame's identity or "about their involvement to investigators. Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, is a diplomat and an opponent of the Iraq war who challenged U.S. President George W. Bush’s assertion that Saddam Hussein was in possession of nuclear materials." [1][2]

First Appearances May Be Deceiving
Libby, who made his first court appearance on Thursday, November 3, 2005, before U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton "on criminal charges stemming from the CIA leak investigation," as expected, plead innocent.

Libby has "promised a vigorous defence. ... As part of his strategy, Libby is expected to argue that any incorrect information he provided to federal investigators or the grand jury was the result of lapses in memory, rather than intentional lies, according to Libby's lawyer and other attorneys involved in the case," Reuters' Adam Entous reported October 31, 2005. (emphasis added)

No Wiggle Room
"In the opening days of the CIA leak investigation in early October 2003, FBI agents working the case already had in their possession a wealth of valuable evidence," Washington Post writers Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei reported November 13, 2005.

Investigators had "White House phone and visitor logs, which clearly documented the administration's contacts with reporters," they reported, "something that law enforcement officials would later describe as their 'guidebook' for the opening phase of the investigation: the daily, diary-like notes compiled by I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, ... that chronicled crucial events within the White house in the weeks before the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame was publicly disclosed."

"Sad Day for America
"Today, however, is not the time to analyze or to debate. And it is certainly not a day to celebrate. Today is a sad day for America. When an indictment is delivered at the front door of the White House, the Office of the President is defiled. No citizen can take pleasure from that." --Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, PR Newswire, October 28, 2005.

Record Breaker
"'This is the first time in 130 years a White House official has been indicted,' NBC's Tim Russert said." [3]

The Paragraph That Started It All
On October 28, 2005, The New Republic Online reposted the June 19, 2003, article "The First Casualty" by John B. Judis & Spencer Ackerman. TNR commented: "In his indictment of Lewis Libby, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald cited this TNR piece. Here's the paragraph from the article that figured prominently in the indictment:

"One year earlier, Cheney's office had received from the British, via the Italians, documents purporting to show Iraq's purchase of uranium from Niger. Cheney had given the information to the CIA, which in turn asked a prominent diplomat, who had served as ambassador to three African countries, to investigate. He returned after a visit to Niger in February 2002 and reported to the State Department and the CIA that the documents were forgeries. The CIA circulated the ambassador's report to the vice president's office, the ambassador confirms to TNR. But, after a British dossier was released in September detailing the purported uranium purchase, administration officials began citing it anyway, culminating in its inclusion in the State of the Union. 'They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie,' the former ambassador tells TNR. 'They were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more persuasive.'"

Dick Cheney's "Dick Cheney"
"Sometimes called 'Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney,' Libby [served as] an important foreign policy adviser inside the White House and [was once] seen [as] a possible successor to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice." [4]

Libby's "lack-of-memory" Defense

Joseph Tate, Libby's lawyer, "is outlining a possible criminal defense that is a time-honored tradition in Washington scandals: A busy official immersed in important duties cannot reasonably be expected to remember details of long-ago conversations," the Associated Press's Pete Yost wrote October 29, 2005. "The lack-of-memory defense has worked with varying degrees of success in controversies from Iran-Contra to Whitewater."

"Tate referred to another possible line of defense," Yost wrote, "saying that 'for five years, through difficult times, Mr. Libby has done his best to serve our country.' That argument worked in the administration of President George H.W. Bush in 1992, though not in court."

Libby and Cheney Knew

Josh Marshall pointed out a "crucial piece of information" in his October 28, 2005, Talking Points. Stated on page 5 of the indictment (top of page, item #9) is found that Cheney told Libby

"Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division. Libby understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA."

Cheney and Libby, long experienced in national security matters, both knew that the Counterproliferation Division was within the CIA's Directorate of Operations, not from within the Directorate of Intelligence. Analysts, Marshall wrote, come from the Intelligence directorate; spies/operatives come from Operations.

Additionally, Judd from Think Progress points out the following from page 3 of the indictment, which states

"At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified. Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community."

Cooper Named Libby as "Source"

On the July 17, 2005, Meet the Press, reporter Matthew Cooper said that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was among the sources for a Time magazine reporter's story about the identity of a CIA officer ...

The "White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove were not involved in the leaks of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity." --Associated Press, July 17, 2005.

Profiles

Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby was born August 22, 1950 in Connecticut. He attended a private prep school in Massachusetts, Phillips Academy. In 1972, Libby received a BA from Yale University, graduating magna cum laude, and in 1975 received a JD from Columbia University. [5] [6]

Before joining the White House staff, "Scooter Libby was most recently managing partner of the Washington office of the international law firm of Dechert, Price & Rhoads. He also served as Legal Advisor to the House of Representatives' Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, commonly known as the Cox Committee. [7]

After graduating from law school, Libby "went to work as a lawyer in Philadelphia, then got a job offer from his old Yale political science professor, Paul D. Wolfowitz, now the deputy defense secretary. In 1981, Mr. Libby went to work for Mr. Wolfowitz at the State Department, then left in 1985 to go into private practice. Freed from his State Department duties, Mr. Libby was able to research 1903 Japan, which was the slice of time between the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War that he had decided should be the backdrop for his novel. By 1989 he was working again for Mr. Wolfowitz, this time at the Pentagon, and [his novel 'The Apprentice'] was set aside with few regrets.

"'Shortly after I got there, we had the breakup of the Soviet Union and war with Iraq,' Mr. Libby said. 'So it turned out to be the perfect job.'

"Mr. Libby left the Pentagon when Bill Clinton became president in 1993...." [8]

Libby has been identified as a...longtime lawyer for Marc Rich per antiwar.com, CNN and MSNBC.

Work Chronology

  • 2001-2005 - Assistant to the President, chief of staff to the Vice President and national security affairs adviser to the Vice President
  • 2000 - Adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney in the 2000 presidential campaign
  • 1995-2001 - Dechert, Price & Rhoads, Attorney
  • 1992-1995 - U.S. Department of Defense, deputy under secretary-policy
  • 1989-1992 - U.S. Department of Defense, deputy undersecretary-strategy and resources
  • 1985-1989 - Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin, attorney
  • 1982-1985 - US Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, special projects director
  • 1981-1982 - US Department of State, policy planning staff, member

Affiliations

SourceWatch Resources

External Links

Indictments

Websites

Profiles

2001

  • John L. Perry, "Time for 'Scooter' to Scoot," News Max, March 4, 2001: Perry identifies Libby as now "holding three high-level positions in the Bush-Cheney administration: not only chief of staff to the vice president, but also assistant to the vice president for national-security affairs and -- now of suddenly increased pertinency -- assistant to the president."

2002

  • Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., "Bush Must Say, 'No' To Israel Nuclear Blackmail," Executive Intelligence, September 27, 2002. The article contains LaRouche's perspective on both Libby and the "neo cons". Libby is identified as the protégé of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Dundes Wolfowitz.

2003

2004

2005

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