Lewis Libby

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I. Lewis Libby
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I. Lewis Libby
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I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. (born August 22, 1950, Irving Lewis Liebowitz) is the former Chief of Staff and assistant for National Security Affairs to US Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential advisor. 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:

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.

Libby 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.

Contents

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.

After graduating Columbia Law School, Libby practiced law in Philadelphia. His most famous client was Marc Rich, the fugitive financier accused of tax evasion, racketeering and breaking the US trade embargo on Iran. Rich was pardoned by President Clinton during the last hours of his administration. Libby represented Rich from 1985 until 2000. 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.

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]

From 1985 to 2000, Libby represented billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who would later receive a controversial pardon for his conviction for tax evasion from the Clinton Administration. Libby's firm received more than $2 million from Rich for representing him in that matter. At a Congressional hearing investigating the controversial pardons, Libby denied that Rich had violated any tax laws. [5]

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 Harriet Grant, a former staff lawyer for the Senate Judiciary Committee when the committee was chaired by Democratic senator Joe Biden. Libby and Grant have two school-age children. [6][7] The couple lives in McLean, Virginia, a Washington suburb, and Libby is a member of Temple Rodef Shalom, a Reform Jewish congregation in nearby Falls Church.

Plame affair

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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.

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 September 30.

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 indicated that he considered the charges grave, as they represented a fundamental attack on the legal system.

Libby has not been charged with the crime of revealing the identity of a covert CIA officer; rather, all charges to date are for allegedly lying to investigators and to the grand jury and for obstructing justice. Supporters have pointed to the lack of indictments on the underlying matter as vindication that no laws relating to the "outing" of a CIA agent were broken. Detractors have pointed out that Fitzgerald made clear at his press conference that he felt that Libby had kicked sand in the umpire's eyes - making it impossible for the umpire to determine if there was evidence of such a crime having been committed in the first place.

Libby told investigators that he first heard of Plame's CIA employment as a rumor from journalist Tim Russert; or, alternatively, that he mistakenly thought Russert was his first source because he had forgotten a single prior notification; that he did not know whether this rumor was true; and that he told other reporters he did not know whether it was true. The indictments charge that these statements were false in that Libby had numerous conversations about Plame's CIA employment prior to speaking to Russert; Russert did not tell Libby about Plame's CIA employment; Libby knew for a certainty that Plame was employed by the CIA; and Libby told reporters that Plame worked for the CIA without any disclaimer that he did not know whether this was true or not. The 'false statements' charges stem from making these claims to the FBI, the 'perjury' charges from repeating them to the grand jury, and the 'obstruction' charge from the view that Libby made these statements in an effort to prevent the investigation from uncovering the truth.

Libby has retained attorney Ted Wells of the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to represent him in the case. Wells is known for successfully defending Clinton Agriculture Secretary Ron Espy against a 30 count indictment, and participating in the successful defense of former labor secretary Raymond Donovan.

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, LexisNexis archives found two references to Libby's father, whose first name is also Irve. However, Brian Williams and Al Franken have recently stated that his name is Irving on the late-night talk show circuit.

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]

Libby sustained an apparent foot injury during the final days of the grand jury investigation, and has employed the use of crutches as of October 26th. [9]

After his indictment, a novel Libby wrote in 1996, The Apprentice, (ISBN 1555972454), which tells the story of a group of travellers stranded in Japan's Northern Honshu province in the winter of 1903 during a smallpox epidemic, gained new attention. A New Yorker columnist reprinted passages describing pedophilia, bestiality, rape and incest. [10]. An autographed copy of the book went on sale at Amazon.com for $2400, and unsigned hardcover copies went on sale for $1000.

References

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Preceded by:
Charles Burson
Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States
20012005
Succeeded by:
David Addington
Preceded by:
Leon Fuerth
Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs
20012005
Succeeded by:
John Hannah
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