Washington – Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff was indicted Friday on charges that he lied to investigators about White House efforts to retaliate against a former U.S. ambassador who challenged the administration’s primary rationale for the Iraq war: Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.
Lewis “Scooter” Libby, 55, resigned as Cheney’s top aide after being charged by a federal grand jury with two counts of perjury, two counts of making false statements and one count of obstructing justice.
According to the charges, Libby “knowingly and corruptly” misled investigators and perjured himself when called to testify about the White House response to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife’s classified identity as a CIA officer was leaked after Wilson criticized the administration’s accounts of Iraq’s weaponry.
“The fact that Valerie (Plame) Wilson was a CIA officer was classified,” said Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who led the investigation. “It’s important that a CIA officer’s identity be protected … not just for the officer but for the nation’s security.”
Libby – who could face up to 30 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine if convicted – said he would fight the charges and was “confident that at the end of this process, I will be completely and totally exonerated.”
President Bush accepted Libby’s resignation, saying he was “saddened” by the news.
“He served the vice president and me through extraordinary times in our nation’s history,” Bush said, and he reminded Americans that defendants are presumed innocent.
According to the indictment, Libby learned from Cheney and CIA and other officials that Wilson’s wife was a U.S. intelligence officer. Libby then worked with half a dozen other administration officials to compile information on the Wilsons, which was leaked to reporters, the indictment says.
Libby tried to cover up his actions later by lying to investigators, the indictment says.
When questioned, Libby allegedly told FBI agents and the grand jury that he learned of Valerie Plame’s job from reporters.
But Fitzgerald’s investigators determined that Libby engaged in “at least seven discussions involving government officials prior to the day when Mr. Libby claims he learned this information.”
The grand jury did not charge Cheney or the other top White House aide caught up in the leak scandal – Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove – thus saving the Bush administration from a more grievous embarrassment, at least for now. But the investigation is “not over,” Fitzgerald said.
“We are confident that when the special counsel finishes his work, he will conclude that Mr. Rove has done nothing wrong,” said Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney.
“Scooter Libby is one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known,” Cheney said in a statement. “In our system of government, an accused person is presumed innocent until a contrary finding is made by a jury. … Mr. Libby is entitled to that opportunity.”
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said, “The criminal indictments of a top White House official mark a sad day for America and another chapter in the Republicans’ culture of corruption.
“At the heart of these indictments was the effort by the Bush administration to discredit critics of its Iraq policy with reckless disregard for national security and the public trust,” Pelosi said.
The Libby indictment was the first, and perhaps only, set of charges to be handed down in the two-year probe, which was spurred by an op-ed column that Joseph Wilson wrote in July 2003 after U.S. forces in Iraq failed to unearth the nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry that the Bush administration had cited as a cause for war.
Wilson’s column in The New York Times revealed that he had been sent to Africa on assignment for the CIA in 2002 to check out reports that Hussein had obtained uranium ore from the nation of Niger.
Wilson recounted how he concluded, and reported to the Bush administration, that these reports were false.
But the information about uranium was nevertheless included in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, on the eve of the invasion.
Eight days after Wilson’s piece appeared, conservative columnist Robert Novak, citing two senior administration sources, revealed in a column that Wilson’s wife was a CIA employee who had helped set up the Niger assignment for her husband.
It is against the law for a government official to purposefully disclose the identity of a covert U.S. intelligence agent.
“Valerie Wilson’s cover was blown,” Fitzgerald said. “Several … reporters were told.”
Attention focused on Rove and Libby, but the White House declared they had nothing to do with the leak. Bush told reporters, “I don’t know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information.”
Rove’s involvement in the investigation eventually forced then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, a former political client of Rove’s, to recuse himself.
Fitzgerald was named as a special counsel in December 2003, hauling White House aides before the grand jury and pressuring journalists to reveal their sources.
One journalist, The Times’ Judith Miller, served 85 days in jail on contempt charges before agreeing to discuss her conversations with Libby.
Libby told investigators “a compelling story (to) lead the FBI to go away,” Fitzgerald said. “It is not true.
“He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly,” Fitzgerald said.
