Libby Verdict: Depriving America of Justice

This is a story of a man who had served his country well. It is about a man who was dedicated to his family and friends, and who believed in our liberties and our system of justice. This man was done no justice however, and now his future may be decided and his dreams shattered. The following is a history of events that lead to this tragic time in the life of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and in the lives of his family.

The Build Up

It was January 28, 2003, and President George W. Bush had just given his State of the Union speech in which he uttered the phrase, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” This sentence is infamously known as the 16 words. This bit of information is consistent with British intelligence and their findings according to the Butler report. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) concluded that they had also seen attempts to reconstitute a nuclear program in Iraq. However, there was a man who believed he in fact had evidence to the contrary.

In February of 2002, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger in an attempt to uncover any possible information about whether or not Iraq had indeed contacted the country with the intent to purchase uranium. What we know about this trip and how it came about, is very interesting and revealing. Wilson’s wife, who would later become known as Valerie Plame, put in a request to her superiors that her husband be sent to Africa. Ordinarily, this would not seem to be a strange request since Wilson was a former ambassador in Africa, but this is no ordinary CIA trip.

Why was Joseph Wilson sent? We know the U.S. Ambassador to Niger at the time said it was unnecessary and we know the Bush Administration did not ask for it. We also know that Wilson was not asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, only his expenses were paid for, not the trip itself, and his report upon returning was to be given orally. What was the reason for this? All three of these things leave a very small paper trail which would almost prevent the Administration from readily refuting his claims. This would become a very key part of the summer that followed.

After the 2003 State of the Union address, in which the “16 words” were uttered, Wilson began to speak out. He wrote a series of opinion-editorials in which he accused the president of misrepresenting intelligence in regards to the Iraqi government seeking to restore their nuclear program. On May 6, 2003, an article in The New York Times, written by Nicholas Kristof, accused the Administration of citing documents they knew to be forgeries to support their claims for war in Iraq. It also stated that the Administration had asked for a former ambassador to be sent to Niger to investigate the claims that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium. After gaining momentum for several weeks, it began to grab the attention of the White House. White House officials began asking questions about these stories and about Joseph Wilson.

Enter Lewis Libby

Lewis “Scooter” Libby was Chief of Staff to the Vice President at this time. Walter Pincus, a reporter for The Washington Post, began calling the White House for information in an upcoming article which would eventually be published on June 12th, 2003. Libby, who had been meeting with his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, was given three points to discuss with Pincus. The first was the fact that the Administration did not request this mission to Niger. The second point was that they had never seen (because it was oral, remember) or heard of Joseph Wilson’s report until after the State of the Union when they appeared in the op-eds. The third point to be made was that the President used the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which he thought to be more authoritative, for the basis of his speech in January.

During this conversation with Cheney, Libby learned that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. At this point, he did not know the names of either Joseph Wilson or Valerie Plame. In conversation, Wilson was referred to as the “former ambassador” making these claims, not as Joe Wilson. Later, in grand jury testimony, Libby explains.

Question: “Before we look at your actual notes, how certain are you from memory that the information from the wife working in the functional office at the CIA, the wife of this former ambassador, was information that Vice President Cheney imparted to you as opposed to information that you imparted to Vice President Cheney?”

Libby: “Oh, I’m pretty certain of that.”

Q: “And what makes you certain?”

Libby: “I sort of remember him saying it, you know, in an off sort of curiosity of fashion. That’s my recollection of it anyway…And also since I wrote it down like that, it would indicate to me it was something I was taking down as he was speaking. Sometimes I make my notes as he speaks.” - Official transcripts, Lewis Libby Grand Jury testimony, March 4, 2004

At this point, the Administration was engaged in a sort of counter-attack against Wilson and the media that hyped his stories and spawned slogans such as, “Bush lied, people died.” Wilson was embraced by the Democrat Party and the media because of his early charges against the Administration. He was one of the first to come out publicly and accuse Bush of purposely misleading the country and going to war for no good reason. He gained fame and popularity among the left, who began to look at him much like a spokesman. Meanwhile, the Offices of the President and of the Vice President were trying to find information about him and his trip, like who had actually sent him and why. Some of this information was relayed to Libby from Dick Cheney and other officials.

Through conversations with reporters, an appearance on Meet the Press with Andrea Mitchell, and in his op-ed article in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, Joseph Wilson claimed that he had evidence debunking the reports of Iraq seeking uranium from Niger; he suggested that Dick Cheney had sent him to Niger, and that his report was known throughout the highest levels of the Administration. The White House was now receiving a great amount of pressure from the media and the Democrats in Congress about these claims, so they did what any reasonable people would do: Look for evidence to refute them.

The “Leak”

By this point, many people had already known that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, both in the Administration and the media. Her name may not have been known, but the fact that she worked there was. As calls came in to Libby’s office about the claims by Wilson, the White House was in the process of getting the NIE declassified. Frustration grew as days passed and the documents had not been released. Calls continued to be made to reporters and they made calls to the White House in return. Libby was given a set of talking points which he could relay to reporters, but they did not include divulging information about Wilson’s wife working at the CIA.

On July 10 or 11, 2003, Libby made a phone call to Tim Russert of NBC News. The purpose of this phone call was to address the content of Chris Matthews’ nightly show on MSNBC. He was apparently reporting that what Joe Wilson had been saying was true, even though it was public record that these claims by Wilson were being denied by Administration officials. Matthews claimed that the Vice President and also Libby himself knew about the circumstances in which Wilson had gone to Niger and that it was by Cheney’s request. Libby called Mary Matalin, who used to work for him and Cheney to ask her what he could do about Matthews. She told him to call Russert.

During this phone call to Tim Russert which was allegedly off-the-record, Libby told him what the concerns of the White House were in regards to this faulty reporting by Chris Matthews. Russert told Libby that there wasn’t much he could do and that they should try to call the producer of Matthews’ show. Then, Russert apparently asked Libby if he knew that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA? Libby, thinking he was hearing this for the first time, was “taken aback” by this question. He had not remembered, at this point, his conversation with Cheney the month before. He told Russert that he hadn’t heard that about Wilson’s wife because in his mind, he didn’t think he had. Russert claims to have no recollection of this part of the phone call.

In the meantime, as we later discovered, Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage had contact with Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, and columnist Robert Novak. During conversations with them, he had given Valerie Plame’s name and her association with the CIA, and of course being Joe Wilson’s wife. Now, Armitage was considered to be a fierce bureaucratic opponent of the office of the Vice President and the Administration in general, but this revelation of Plame’s identity was found to be an innocent disclosure with no intent to do harm. So, in Robert Novak’s July 14, 2003 column, Mission to Niger, it is revealed to the public that Valerie Plame, an operative in the CIA, is the wife of Joe Wilson and she may be the person who suggested sending him to Niger. Now, the firestorm had begun.

Joe Wilson and his wife began filing complaints about the unethical release of her identity. They made claims that it was a smear campaign to punish Joe Wilson for speaking out against the Administration. There were claims that Mrs. Plame was a covert agent and that laws designed to protect her identity were broken. The media and Democrat politicians discovered a new way to attack the White House and other republicans about the pre-war intelligence, their “unethical” practices, and the war in Iraq. They joined Joe Wilson and his wife in condemning the Bush Administration.

The Truth of Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson

Valerie Plame’s involvement in all of this is critical. She was the central figure that all of the controversy surrounded at the beginning. Who was she? Was she the wife of Joseph Wilson? Did she work in the CIA? Did she in fact recommend her husband for the trip to Niger? Was she a covert agent? Was she undercover at the time she was exposed? Did the revealing of her identity put her or her family in danger? Was the disclosure of her identity a national security risk?

Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, that’s no secret. Was she a non-official covered agent (NOC)? Let’s look at the facts.

In the early 1990’s, she was working in Athens, Greece in the U.S. Embassy. According to retired CIA agents, a NOC agent would never work out of an embassy, as they are provided with diplomatic cover which would immediately tip off friendly and non-friendly intelligence agencies alike. Furthermore, Mrs. Plame used the embassy in Athens as her listed address, also a practice unacceptable to NOC agents. In the mid-90’s, Plame transferred back to CIA Headquarters, another hint that she was not in deep cover. NOC agents do not enter official agency facilities, or even bring their personal vehicles to the sites. There are also reports that Aldrich Ames, a double-agent, may have given up Plame’s identity on a list he had given to the Russians in 1994, and another disclosure possibly took place in a CIA transfer of confidential documents to the Swiss Embassy in Havana.

In 1998, Mrs. Plame married Joseph Wilson, a well-known Washington diplomat. She was listed in Who's Who as Valerie Elise Plame from 1999 to 2005. If her “covert” status was not yet blown, this could surely do it. And, as if that wasn’t enough to bring her status into question, she gave birth to twins in 2000. The Wilson's also made donations in 1999 to Al Gore's Presidential campaign in which Joseph apparently signed his own wife's name (Valerie E. Wilson) as a Brewster-Jennings & Associates employee, a poorly fabricated “front” company out of Boston for her job in the CIA. None of these practices sound like a person who is concerned about revealing their deep cover status.

Mrs. Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson claims to be a non-partisan centrist with regards to his political stance. This however, is very doubtful. He wrote the following about the 2000 presidential election:

“In this case, the shameless lust for power, and the genuine hatred among the right wing for Bill Clinton, just overwhelmed the Democrats. I was appalled by the gutter tactics of the out-of-state rabble that bullied public servants and intimidated them into stopping the recount of ballots in Miami-Dade County.”

He has also supported the anti-war activist group, Win Without War, after the war in Iraq began (which would fall in line with his feelings about the Vietnam War), formally endorsed John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, becoming an advisor and speechwriter and donating $2000 to it, and has made other campaign contributions to Ted Kennedy and Charles Rangel, both partisan Democrats.

Now, when Italian intelligence and media outlets began reporting that the CIA was basing their claims about Iraqi interest of purchasing uranium on forged documents, the CIA wanted to send someone to Niger to investigate the situation. Mrs. Plame volunteered her husband, a seemingly innocent and legitimate move, since her husband had been a foreign diplomat in the past. But knowing the information we know now, mainly that both of them openly support democrats and that Wilson is not too fond of republicans, and that the mission was very secretive with little documentation to prove how and what had happened, the suggestion to send Joseph Wilson no longer seems that innocent.

The Leak Investigation

With all of the controversy and accusations building about an illegal disclosure of Plame’s identity, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began a criminal investigation on September 26, 2003. One week later, on October 3, 2003, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage came forward and confessed to the Department of Justice that he was the source for Robert Novak’s article. Case closed? Hardly. Eleven days later, Libby was interviewed for the first time by the FBI.

Knowing that Richard Armitage had confessed as Robert Novak’s source, the investigation should have been focused towards Armitage and Novak. If there was a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), Armitage and Novak would have become the primary suspects. We now know that they did not. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald must have known there was no crime committed, otherwise Armitage and Novak would have been indicted for violating the IIPA. There was also no apparent violation of United States Codes designed to protect information that could put our national security at risk.

Furthermore, Libby could not have been charged with the illegal disclosure of classified information. His actions were approved by the Vice President whose actions were in turn approved by the President. The President has authority, granted to him by Article II of our Constitution, over the executive branch. The CIA and all of its records are part of the executive branch, so the President has the power to declassify that information. According to General Counsel to the Office of the Vice President, David Addington, once the President begins talking about previously classified information, or once he tells someone else to talk about it, at that point it is declassified. In Libby’s grand jury testimony, he discussed this conversation he had with Addington and later discovered the name of a case which set a legal precedent for this, Navy v. Egan.

The CIA would not even release any documents that referred to Valerie Plame’s status in the agency. With all of these details being known by the prosecution, there was no possibility of indicting anyone for leaking Plame’s identity.

Knowing they could not get an indictment for a leak, the prosecution changed its focus to the Administration itself. Unbeknownst to the officials that would be called for questioning, they were now the targets for what is commonly known as a perjury trap. Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald knew who was responsible for disclosing Plame’s identity and also knew that it wasn’t a crime, but chose to continue the investigation. Why? Because of the public outcry from the media and politicians in Washington. He knew he could not escape without at least forcing the highest officials in our government to testify. This is what the investigation was all about from the beginning in the eyes of partisan politicians and their accomplices in the media. During the testimony, a slight lapse of memory or an insignificant detail forgotten would be enough for him to try for an indictment. This happened with Scooter Libby.

The five charges for which Libby was indicted on October 28, 2005, came about from a key conversation with Tim Russert of NBC News. There is an apparent dispute in testimony by Libby as to what was talked about in this phone call. What many people don’t know is that there was also inconsistent testimony by Russert. During the developmental stages of this case, Special Agent-In-Charge John C. Eckenrode had made a phone call to Russert. He had taken notes of Russert’s statements about the phone call between himself and Libby back on July 10 or 11, 2003. Mysteriously, these notes became lost before the trial began, but a summary of this phone call to Russert written by Eckenrode suggested that Russert wasn’t so sure that he hadn’t talked about Valerie Plame with Libby. Later on in the investigation, Russert said that it would have been “impossible” for that to have taken place.

Another inconsistency lies within the ranks of the FBI. Agent Deborah Bond, who had interviewed Libby early in the investigation, “neglected to fully incorporate into her notes of the interview important portions of his testimony, most especially some matters that Libby’s counsel had specifically asked be included.” Agent Bond has also acknowledged that her notes are inaccurate and that her summary of a second interview does not match up with her supervisor, Eckenrode. Even still, Libby went back and corrected any of his discrepancies once he was able to review his notes and confirm times and events with other people. The one thing that remained constant in all of his interviews was the fact that he admitted to knowing about Wilson’s wife working at the CIA on or before June 12, 2003, a month before speaking with Russert. There was never a dispute of whether or not Libby first learned about Plame from Russert. He merely had forgotten at that point that he previously knew that information.

Does this sound like a man intentionally lying and obstructing justice?

The Trial

Despite a lack of clear evidence that there was intent to deceive interrogators or obstruct the investigation in any way, Libby was indicted for one count of obstruction of justice, two for perjury, and two for making false statements. On November 3, 2005, he resigned from his position on the Vice President’s staff, and on August 30, 2006, Lewis “Scooter” Libby entered a plea of “not guilty.” Even though there are disputes in testimony by almost everyone involved in the investigation, Libby is the only one brought to trial. Could it be because he was the highest ranking official working on the staff of the Vice President that was involved in this investigation?

There are a few points in this farce of a trial that need attention. First of all, if there was no crime for leaking Plame’s name, why was there such a deep probe into who talked about her with whom and when these conversations took place? It is not illegal to mention someone’s name. In addition to that, most of the evidence is based on the memory of what was said to one another, with some of it written in the form of notes. Furthermore, the FBI interviews were conducted without the use of audio or video tapes, so their evidence could be subject to discrepancies, something that had already taken place during this particular case. This trial is essentially based on little more than hearsay or one person's word over another's.

The judge in this trial, Reggie Walton, clearly lacked the capability to identify these problems and even took it a few steps further. After acknowledging that the status of Plame would not be revealed and that it wasn’t relevant to the trial, he also refused to allow the defense to call certain witnesses and present evidence of Russert’s fallibility. Judge Walton would not allow a renowned memory expert to testify in defense of Libby. He also denied the motion by the defense to call Andrea Mitchell of NBC as a witness, even though she may have been able to prove Russert’s testimony to be inaccurate. Remember, Russert’s claims during this investigation are the primary reason Libby was indicted.

Tim Russert has a proven, public history of forgetting things. According to Charles Krauthammer, “Russert once denied calling up a Buffalo News reporter to complain about a story. Russert later apologized for the error when he was shown the evidence of a call he had genuinely and completely forgotten.” So the fact that he doesn’t recall having a conversation with Libby doesn’t mean that it never happened. But there’s more. Krauthammer goes on to say:

“There is a second instance of Russert innocently misremembering. He stated under oath that he did not know that one may not be accompanied by a lawyer to a grand jury hearing. This fact, in and of itself, is irrelevant to the case, except that, as former prosecutor Victoria Toensing points out, the defense had tapes showing Russert saying on television three times that lawyers are barred from grand jury proceedings.”

The jury in this trial was never shown this evidence of Russert’s ability to forget. The key witness in condemning Libby was never allowed to be proven infallible by his own words and actions, nor was he allowed to be proven so by another witness, including his colleague, Andrea Mitchell. The Supreme Court refers to this as a “structural error” which commonly results in an automatic reversal of any convictions, as the right to call witnesses has been violated.

Another problem of this trial rests within the jury.

Immediately following the verdict, we learned of the identity of juror number nine. Denis Collins, a registered Democrat, was more than just your average juror. In fact, his connection to the media is astonishing. He has worked for and with Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, both witnesses in the trial. Tim Russert used to be a neighbor of his and Collins even recalls attending some of his barbecues. As a child, he was a classmate of, and is now friends with Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, and another Time’s reporter, John Tierney, attended his wedding.

Collins also had another interesting connection in this case. He had written a book on spying, which had very much to do with the CIA. At the conclusion of this trial, Collins became the chief jury spokesman and appeared on nightly cable television shows relating his intentions of writing a book about it. What better way is there to spike interest in a book than to have the conviction of a top Administration official in it? Is there any doubt that this man was capable of taking over the jury room?

Ann Redington, juror number ten, was invited to join Chris Matthews on his cable television show, Hardball. During the interview, Matthews asked her if she was in favor of a pardon out of sympathy for Libby. Redington says, “Yeah. In the big picture it kind of bothers me that, you know, there was this whole big crime being investigated, and he got caught up in the investigation as opposed to in the actual crime that was supposedly committed.” This is a great example of the incompetence of the jury. Collins made similar comments in the press conference following the verdict. So, not only was the jury aware that there was serious doubt that a crime had been committed in the first place, and even said as much during deliberation, but they also convicted Libby even though they thought he was a victim of circumstance and want him to be pardoned. Why convict someone if you believe they should be let off the hook?

Final Thoughts

As the days go by after the conclusion of the trial, we learn more and more about the people involved in the entire debacle, the connections they have to each other, and the injustice that has taken place. Here’s what we know.

Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame are not innocent bystanders in this affair. Wilson is a proven liar as pointed out by the Senate Intelligence Committee which had concluded that nearly every one of his claims, about who had sent him to Niger and what he had found, were false. Wilson and Plame had an agenda and they did everything in their power to carry it out. Former Senator Zell Miller sums it up best. Here’s what he says about the matter:

“It’s like a spy thriller. Institutional rivalries and political loyalties have fostered an intelligence officer’s resentment against the government. Suddenly, an opportunity appears for the agent to undercut that national leadership. A vital question of intelligence forms the core justification for controversial military actions by the current leaders. If this agent can get in the middle of that question, distort that information and make it public, the agent might foster regime change in the upcoming election. But the rules on the agents are clear. They can’t purposely distort gathered intelligence, go public with secret information or use their position or information to manipulate domestic elections or matters without risking their job or jail. But their spouse can!”

Apparently, this idea has already caught on in the movie industry. Warner Bros. has secured the screen rights to Mrs. Plame’s upcoming memoir about her career with the CIA. How fitting.

We also know that there were contradictions in testimony of other officials and reporters. Former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer testified that he never told Walter Pincus about Plame, but Pincus testified under oath that he certainly had. Is either one of them deliberately lying or are they just not able to remember definitively what happened during the course of that particular week? Neither one has been charged with a crime.

We know that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald kept the confession of Richard Armitage a secret for more than two years while he was supposedly conducting an investigation to find who had leaked. In addition, we know that Armitage will not be charged with any crime, meaning that the supposed leak was not illegal in the first place. Therefore, the investigation should have been over by the fall of 2003 with no charges being filed.

The jury in this trial, which was composed of citizens of the Washington D.C. area (in which a vast majority are registered Democrats), was prevented from hearing testimony that could have been crucial for the defense. Instead, they took Tim Russert’s word as true - the man that juror number nine, Denis Collins, was a friend of and former neighbor. Collins, the same man who was intricately involved with several witnesses in the trial and who also plans on writing a book about this experience.

This entire ordeal, from the time Valerie Plame volunteered her husband for the trip to Niger to the day the verdict was announced, has just been one disgrace after another. The guilt of the Administration was decided by partisan politicians and the partisan media long before any investigation ever began. Wilson’s lies have spawned tremendous amounts of criticism and hatred towards the President and his colleagues in the Republican Party, which had done nothing wrong except believe the intelligence reports that they had been given and pass that information on to the American citizens. The British still have not recanted what was reported by the Butler review to this day.

What is lost in the media frenzy surrounding the Libby verdict is the fact that an innocent man has been convicted of four felonies for trying to help with an investigation. He was asked by the President to give to the prosecution whatever they needed and he did so, even though he could easily have not complied and used the right guaranteed to him by the Fifth Amendment to our Constitution. He had no reason to believe he could be prosecuted because he had done nothing wrong. Libby committed no crime. He was dedicated to his work and devoted to his boss and now he and his family have to suffer for it.

Democrats and the media have made a preemptive strike to try to kill any notion that the President should use a pardon. If there was ever a time or a case in which the Presidential pardon should be used, it would be now. There should be no further delay. Fitzgerald’s investigation practices should be called into question. There should be an investigation into why Fitzgerald has obstructed justice and that inquiry should start immediately before more damage can be done.

The President has the power to dismiss the Special Prosecutor and he should do so right away and at the same time, Scooter Libby should be pardoned. Let the media and the partisan politicians argue, but let Libby and his family have their dignity back, before the last bit has been stripped away.