CIA Leak Case Watch: Libby Pleads NOT Guilty
Former chief of staff and national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby, arrives at Federal Court in Washington, D.C., November 3, 2005. Vice President Dick Cheney’s former top aide, Lewis Libby, was expected to plead not guilty on Thursday to charges in the CIA leak probe, raising the specter of a trial that could keep the spotlight on the administration’s case for war in Iraq. Libby resigned last week as Cheney’s longtime chief of staff after he was indicted for obstructing justice, perjury and lying in the two-year probe into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.
The ASSociated Press has Libby Pleads Not Guilty in CIA Leak Case
Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff pleaded not guilty Thursday in the
CIA leak scandal, marking the start of what could be a long road to a trial in which Cheney and other top Bush administration officials could be summoned to testify.Libby entered the plea in front of U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, a former prosecutor who has spent two decades as a judge in the nation’s capital.
Once the charges were read and the judge asked for his response, Libby said: “With respect, your honor, I plead not guilty.”
Fitzpatrick will spend more millions in a trial for these foolish charges.
Victoria Toensing, Washington lawyer, former chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration has a piece in the Op-Ed section of the Wall Street Journal today, Investigate the CIA ($).
Perhaps the CIA should be on TRIAL.
9 Comments
Tyler
These are not foolish charges – this is the first indictment of a White House official in 130 years, and it is regarding perjury on issues of national security (as opposed to the still serious but not harmful perjury on issues of sexual impropriety for Clinton).
And it’s not done. Rove is directly implicated and Cheney is feeling the heat too. Bush admitted today that the investigation into Rove is still very much underway. This is all from a special prosecutor appointed by the Republicans whose integrity is beyond reproach.
Regarding the “millions” spent, Patrick Fitzgerald has only spent $700,000 in two years, where Ken Starr spent over $40 million in failing to indict anyone involved with Whitewater or Monica.
This is denial, flap – why are you putting your party before the country?
Flap
Where is the underlying crime here?
Remember Bill Clinton was impeached and later disbarred because of perjury.
No denial here – this is simply no crime.
And has Karl Rove been indicted? Uhhhh NO.
Tyler
Hey Flap –
To answer your question regarding the underlying crime, which I assume was not rhetorical, the following is from the press release announcing the indictment of Libby. He lied to FBI agents and he lied to a grand jury, in an attempt to cover up the fact that he leaked classified information about a covert operative who was neck-deep in WMD proliferation operations.
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http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html
Senior White House official I. Lewis Libby was indicted today on obstruction of justice, false statement and perjury charges for allegedly lying about how and when in 2003 he learned and subsequently disclosed to reporters then-classified information concerning the employment of Valerie Wilson by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The charges allege that Libby lied to FBI agents who interviewed him on October 14 and November 26, 2003; committed perjury while testifying under oath before the grand jury on March 5 and March 24, 2004; and engaged in obstruction of justice by impeding the grand jury’s investigation into the unauthorized disclosure – or “leaking†– of Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA to various reporters in the spring of 2003.
“When citizens testify before grand juries they are required to tell the truth,†Mr. Fitzgerald said. “Without the truth, our criminal justice system cannot serve our nation or its citizens. The requirement to tell the truth applies equally to all citizens, including persons who hold high positions in government. In an investigation concerning the compromise of a CIA officer’s identity, it is especially important that grand jurors learn what really happened. The indictment returned today alleges that the efforts of the grand jury to investigate such a leak were obstructed when Mr. Libby lied about how and when he learned and subsequently disclosed classified information about Valerie Wilson,†he added.
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Regarding Bill Clinton, he screwed himself by perjuring himself, and deserved to be disbarred for that. Perjury is BAD. He was impeached in a partisan attempt to push him out of office. But it was all over an embarrassing personal indiscretion that was not illegal – it was not part and parcel of a series of efforts to fix intelligence to lead us into a war that has killed over 2,000 Americans. To equate what the Administration now faces with what Clinton did is apples and oranges.
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Regarding Rove, Fitzgerald isn’t done. This from the NY Times, which hints at a perjury indictment for Rove:
The prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case has narrowed his investigation of Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to whether he tried to conceal from the grand jury a conversation with a Time magazine reporter in the week before an intelligence officer’s identity was made public more than two years ago, lawyers in the case said Thursday.
The special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has centered on what are believed to be his final inquiries in the matter as to whether Mr. Rove was fully forthcoming about the belated discovery of an internal e-mail message that confirmed his conversation with the Time reporter, Matthew Cooper, to whom Mr. Rove had mentioned the C.I.A. officer.
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Rove hasn’t been indicted yet, because Fitzgerald takes his time and makes sure its an airtight case. When Fitz indicted Gov. George Ryan, “Ryan became the 66th person charged in the investigation; 59 people and his campaign committee have been convicted so far.” (Chicago Tribune, 12/17/03)
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Looking forward to your reply about Fitz spending “millions” and foolish charges. PS – do you think that the perjury charges against Clinton were foolish? And how could an actual indictment against Libby on national security matters be any less foolish?
Cheers,
Tyler
Flap
No indictment of Libby on any underlying crime. No conviction yet either.
No indictment of Rove.
Clinton was impeached. Clinton was disciplined by the Arkansas Bar and the U.S. Supreme Court because of perjury – LIES. Here are a couple of links for you:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/LAW/10/01/scotus.clinton/
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/usd.htm#Ex-President%20Clinton%20Resigns%20Bar
And here is a link for the costs of Fitzpatrick’s investigation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102802306_pf.html
$723,000 for the first 15 months…..it has been now almost 23 months….so into the millions depending how the accounting is done and who does it. I have read the figure of tens of millions now but will settle for a wasteful few millions. A waste in any case because Libby will not be convicted of one charge.
Tyler
Hi Flap –
I’m not quite following – you posit that Clinton’s actions and (BAD) perjurous statements resulted in disciplinary actions and impeachment. So you’re saying that what he did was serious, despite the fact that with Clinton there WAS NO underlying crime. He committed a sexual indiscretion and then lied about it.
But then, you defend Libby, in that he SO FAR has not be charged with any “underlying crime”. Anyway, let’s let Patrick Fitzgerald explain why perjury and obstruction of justice are not “underlying” and just as serious as the the leak allegations. This is from the press conference announcing the indictments:
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And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He’s trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.
As you sit here now, if you’re asking me what his motives were, I can’t tell you; we haven’t charged it.
So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.
I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.
This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.I will say this: Mr. Libby is presumed innocent. He would not be guilty unless and until a jury of 12 people came back and returned a verdict saying so.
But if what we allege in the indictment is true, then what is charged is a very, very serious crime that will vindicate the public interest in finding out what happened here.
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As to whether Valerie Plame was undercover or not, a common right-wing talking point, here’s Fitzgerald again on whether or not she was (she was):
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Before I talk about those charges and what the indictment alleges, I’d like to put the investigation into a little context.
Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.
Valerie Wilson’s friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.
The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It’s important that a CIA officer’s identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation’s security.
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Regarding Rove, wait and see, Flap. Rove is clearly on the verge of going down. Trent Lott threw him to the wolves last week, and other Republicans are saying similar things. He’s an albatross, a beacon unwittingly shining light on the underbelly of the administration. Bush’s poll numbers on integrity, trust and strength are at all time lows in part because of the actions of key members of the administration including Rove.
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Regarding the cost of the investigation, if the crimes are as serious as the allegations, it’s money very well spent, in the name of national security. And it pales in comparison to the $40 million Ken Starr witchhunt that uncovered nothing illegal, but resulted in Clinton perjuring himself over a personal matter.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/01/starr.costs/
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We wouldn’t be seeing obstruction of justice, perjury and lies if the administration were not covering up something deadly serious. And that is the manipulation and manufacturing of intelligence that led us into a war that we should not be in.
A final thought on the seriousness of the charges from your conservative pal William F. Buckley. He thinks it is deadly serious:
. . . [The focus should be on] the root cause of the disturbance. This had to do with revealing that Valerie Plame Wilson was secretly in the employ of the Central Intelligence Agency, using a cover employer to disguise her affiliation. We have noticed that Valerie Plame Wilson has lived in Washington since 1997. Where she was before that is not disclosed by research facilities at my disposal.
But even if she was safe in Washington when the identity of her employer was given out, it does not mean that her outing was without consequence. We do not know what dealings she might have been engaging in which are now interrupted or even made impossible. We do not know whether the countries in which she worked before 1997 could accost her, if she were to visit any of them, confronting her with signed papers that gave untruthful reasons for her previous stay — that she was there only as tourist, or working for a fictitious U.S. company. In my case, it was 15 years after reentry into the secular world before my secret career in Mexico was blown, harming no one except perhaps some who might have been put off by my deception.
The importance of the law against revealing the true professional identity of an agent is advertised by the draconian punishment, under the federal code, for violating it. In the swirl of the Libby affair, one loses sight of the real offense, and it becomes almost inapprehensible what it is that Cheney/Libby/Rove got themselves into. But the sacredness of the law against betraying a clandestine soldier of the republic cannot be slighted.
Flap
Libby has not been indicted for any underlying crime. No one has in the CIA Leak Case.
Libby has NOT been convicted of anything and has pleaded NOT GUILTY.
Could it be that there is NO CRIME there? Yep.
Rove has not been indicted for anything and probably will NOT be. If you think he will, then it is pure speculation.
Clinton was disciplined/disbarred because it was PROVEN (convicted so to speak since Clinton rather than face a disciplinary hearing settled/capitualated/stipulated)that he LIED UNDER OATH IN A LEGAL PROCEEDING as those links that I mentioned before recalls.
Tyler
Hi Flap –
You’re absolutely right that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. But the reason the “underlying crime” has not been charged yet is because Libby is stonewalling to protect himself, the President and Dick Cheney. And that stonewalling, which includes LYING to the grand jury and the FBI is absolutely a CRIME. The fact that Libby has done that is incredibly well documented in the indictment. Lawyers and analysts from both sides of the fence concur – Fitzgerald has put together a near-airtight case. Not that Libby has not hired two of the best trial lawyers in DC. In fact, you’ve said it yourself regarding Clinton – the same thing applies to Libby at the minimum – he has LIED UNDER OATH IN A LEGAL PROCEEDING.
I just don’t understand why you don’t think that what is going on in the White House is incredibly serious. You have not said that if in fact the charges leveled in the indictment are true, then this is very serious, and people should be fired, etc. Nope, you just defend the Administration at any cost, trying to minimize what Libby and others have done – compromise national security in a very serious way.
Anyway, if you don’t think perjury is as serious as other crimes, let’s look at what some Republicans said about President Clinton, below. Not one of these folks have commented on how serious perjury would be in THIS White House.
Sam Brownback (R-Kansas)
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.statements/brownback.html
“Perjury and obstruction of justice are crimes against the state. Perjury goes directly against the truth-finding function of the judicial branch of government.”
Larry Craig (R-Idaho)
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.statements/craig.html
“There is no question in my mind that perjury and obstruction of justice are the kind of public crimes that the Founders had in mind, and the House managers have demonstrated these crimes were committed by the president. As for the excuses being desperately sought by some to allow President Clinton to escape accountability, it seems to me that creating such loopholes would require tearing holes in the Constitution-something that cannot be justified to protect this president, or any president.”
Mike DeWine (R-Ohio)
http://www.australianpolitics.com/usa/clinton/trial/statements/dewine.shtml
Perjury is also a very serious crime. The Constitution gives every defendant a choice: Testify truthfully, or remain silent. No one can be forced to testify in a manner that involves self-incrimination. But a decision to place one’s hand on the Bible and invoke God’s witness–and then lie–threatens the judiciary. The judiciary is designed to be a mechanism for finding the truth–so that justice can be done. Perjury perverts the judiciary, turning it into a mechanism that accepts lies–so that injustice may prevail.
Bill Frist (R-Tenn), Senate Majority Leader
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.statements/frist.html
There is no serious question that perjury and obstruction of justice are high crimes and misdemeanors. Blackstone’s famous Commentaries–widely read by the framers of the Constitution–put perjury on equal footing with bribery as a crime against the state. Perjury was understood to be as serious as bribery, which is specifically mentioned in the Constitution as a ground for impeachment. Today, we punish perjury and obstruction of justice at least as severely as we punish bribery. Apparently, the seriousness of perjury and obstruction of justice has not diminished over time. Indeed, our own Senate precedent establishes that perjury is a high crime and misdemeanor. The Senate has removed seven federal judges from office.
Phil Gramm (R-Texas)
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/politics/021399impeach-text.html
In an impeachment process steeped in partisanship, I have tried to screen out my own strong partisan sentiments by asking a simple question: Would I vote to convict President Ronald Reagan or President George Bush if they had committed the acts that President Clinton has committed? The answer is a sad but firm yes.
Jon Kyl (R-Arizona)
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.statements/kyl.html
“…there can be no doubt that perjurious, false, and misleading statements made under oath in federal court proceedings are indeed impeachable offenses…John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, said `there is no crime more extensively pernicious to society’ than perjury, precisely because it `discolors and poisons the streams of justice.'”
Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.statements/mcconnell.html
“I am completely and utterly perplexed by those who argue that perjury and obstruction of justice are not high crimes and misdemeanors…Perjury and obstruction hammer away at the twin pillars of our legal system: truth and justice.”
Flap
Of course perjury is a serious crime.
But, Libby has not been convicted of anything.
Bill Clinton WAS.
A MAJOR difference.
Tyler
Flip, your original post called these “foolish charges”. My first sentence in my first post began with “These are not foolish charges”. I engaged in conversation because I feel it is important to our democracy and national security that these charges be taken very seriously. That’s all. Thanks very much for enabling comments on your blog and engaging in a lively conversation. Swing by ojaiblog.com sometime. Cheers, Tyler