Washington – Defense lawyers argued Thursday that Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff should serve no time in prison for lying about the leak of a covert agent’s identity, on the grounds that he is a selfless, apolitical public servant with an otherwise “exemplary” record.
Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s attorneys asserted in a court filing that a federal prosecutor’s proposal that their client spend 30 to 37 months in prison is “grossly disproportionate” to the crimes that provoked a jury’s guilty verdict in March.
Libby, who is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Washington on Tuesday, was convicted of four counts of committing perjury, lying to the FBI and obstructing a probe into the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s classified identity.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who spent 3 1/2 years investigating the Bush administration’s role in the leak and prosecuting Libby, this week recommended one of the longer prison sentences that federal guidelines offer for a first-time offender convicted of perjury.
Fitzgerald argued that Libby deserved an enhanced sentence because he “substantially interfered” with the probe of a serious violation of national-security laws, which reached into Cheney’s office in an effort to determine who might have orchestrated the leak.
