Scooter Libby

I. Lewis Libby

Irve Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr. (born August 22, 1950) is the former Chief of Staff and assistant for National Security Affairs to Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States and he also served as Assistant to the President. Republican strategist Mary Matalin, a former counselor to Cheney and a friend of Libby, describes him as someone who did "for the vice president what the vice president does for the president. He's exceedingly analytical, detailed, strategic, bright; and he's discreet."^[1]

On October 28, 2005, Libby resigned, hours after an indictment was returned by a grand jury charging him with:

• one count of obstruction of justice;
• two counts of perjury; and
• two counts of making false statements.

Each count carries a $250,000 fine, so, if convicted, up to $1.25 million in fines. The charges also carry a maximum prison term of thirty years.

Lewis is the first active White House staff member in 130 years to be indicted for acts in office. The last was Orville E. Babcock, who served as the private secretary for Ulysses S. Grant.^[2] Many other officials have been indicted since Babcock, but always after they had already resigned or had been dismissed.

Biography

Libby was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and raised in Florida. After graduating from Andover, an exclusive New England boarding school, Libby graduated from Yale University in 1972, where one of his professors was Paul Wolfowitz. Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia University Law School in 1975. In those days Libby was a Democrat and an anti-Vietnam War protester.

After graduating Columbia Law School, Libby practiced law in Philadelphia. His most famous client was Marc Rich, the fugitive financier and alleged tax evader who was pardoned by President Clinton during the last hours of his administration. Clinton's pardon, which at the time drew heavy criticism from Republicans, was largely the result of legal arguments Libby had been making for 15 years.

Libby started his government career in the State Department in 1981 under President Ronald Reagan. He has also, at various times in his career, held positions with the American Bar Association, on the board of the RAND Corporation, at the Department of Defense, and as a legal advisor with the United States House of Representatives. He has consulted for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman. He has also been active in the Defense Policy Board of the Pentagon while it was chaired by Richard Perle. (Reference [3])

Libby co-authored the draft of the "Defense Planning Guidance" with Wolfowitz for then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 1992.

He wrote a novel published in 1996 called The Apprentice (ISBN 1555972454).

Libby was a founding member of the Project for the New American Century. He joined Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and others in writing its 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century."[4]

On October 28 2005, Libby was indicted by a grand jury for perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice. He resigned from his position as Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff on the same day. Since then, he has claimed that he is completely innocent of the charges and that he will be exonerated. He has not passed public comment on the testimony of the four White House officials and three national reporters whose testimony directly contradicts his testimony.

Libby is married to lawyer Harriet Grant, the former general counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee when the committee was chaired by Democratic senator Joe Biden. Libby and Grant have two children. [5][6]

Plame affair

In 2003 and 2004, intense speculation about Libby centered on the possibility that he may have been the administration official who "outed" Valerie Plame, a CIA employee.

The independent counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, also avoided claiming Plame was covert when given an opportunity to do so in his news conference. [7]

QUESTION: Can you say whether or not you know whether Mr. Libby knew that Valerie Wilson's identity was covert and whether or not that was pivotal at all in your inability or your decision not to charge under the Intelligence Identity Protection Act?

FITZGERALD: Let me say two things. Number one, I am not speaking to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert. And anything I say is not intended to say anything beyond this: that she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward.

I will confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003. And all I'll say is that, look, we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent.

FITZGERALD: We have not charged that. And so I'm not making that assertion.

In July of 2005, Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper revealed that Libby and Karl Rove were the first to disclose Wilson's wife had sent Wilson on the mission to Niger and that she was a CIA officer without mentioning her name. The American Prospect magazine revealed in August 2005 that Libby had testified that he met with Judith Miller on July 8, 2003 and discussed Wilson's wife with her at that time. It was later learned Miller's notes indicated the name "Flame" rather than Plame.

Miller was jailed on 7 July 2005 for contempt of court after refusing to testify to the grand jury about this meeting despite a signed blanket waiver from Libby allowing journalists to discuss their conversations. Miller has argued that Libby's waiver to all journalists could have been coerced and that she would only testify if given an individual waiver, which Miller received after serving most of her sentence.

The waiver was offered "voluntarily and personally" by Libby, accompanied by a letter which has raised eyebrows because of his hinting as to what he expects from her testimony, and a poetic and cryptic ending which has been the subject of much speculation.

"As noted above, my lawyer confirmed my waiver to other reporters in just the way he did with your lawyer. Why? Because as I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call.

...

"You went to jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover -- Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats, bird flu and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work—-and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers.

 

"With admiration, Scooter Libby."

Miller was released on 29 September 2005 after agreeing to testify. She appeared in front of the grand jury on 30 September.

Indictment and resignation

On October 28, 2005, Libby resigned from his position in the White House. This followed immediately after he was indicted on five criminal felony charges including obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury. Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald made clear that the charges were grave as they represented a fundamental attack on the legal system.

The case is United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby.

Trivia

Libby's former office in the Old Executive Office Building was formerly the office of Theodore Roosevelt when he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

Libby is apparently unwilling to disclose what the "I" stands for in his name. NPR reported "Irve". This was discovered after looking through yearbooks at Libby's alma mater, Yale. Moreover, Lexus-Nexus archives found two references to Libby's father, whose first name is also Irve.

For unexplained reasons, Libby has offered differing accounts of how he acquired his nickname. On some occasions Libby has claimed that his nickname, "Scooter", was due to a childhood comparison to "the Scooter" Phil Rizzuto and on other occasions he has claimed that it was given to him by his father who, upon seeing him move quickly across his crib, apparently described him as "a scooter." [8]

References

• Copies of the indictments
  • OSC Indictment of Lewis Libby (in PDF format), October 28 2005 (Case index)
  • USDOJ OSC Federal indictment of Lewis Libby - Wikisource

• ^ A Rough Road For 'Scooter'?, from an October 2005 issue of U.S. News & World Report
• ^ Tim Russert interview by MSNBC

• Letter from Libby to Judith Miller, September 15 2005, from The New York Times website
• Larry King interview, February 16 2002, from the CNN website
• U.S. Department of State Biography
• The Apprentice on Amazon.com
• Who is Scooter Libby? The Guy Behind the Guy Behind the Guy
• CNN.com profile of Libby (October 28 2005)
• Notable Names Database entry