United States v. Libby

United States v. Libby
CourtUnited States District Court for the District of Columbia
Full case name United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter" Libby
DefendantScooter Libby
ProsecutionPatrick Fitzgerald
CitationDocket no. 1:2005-cr-00394-RBW
Court membership
Judge sittingReggie Walton

United States v. Libby was the federal trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former high-ranking official in the George W. Bush administration, for interfering with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's criminal investigation of the Plame affair.

Libby served as Assistant to the President under George W. Bush and Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States and Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs under Dick Cheney from 2001 to 2005. Libby resigned from his government positions hours after his indictment on October 28, 2005.

Libby was indicted by a federal grand jury on five felony counts of making false statements to federal investigators, perjury for lying to a federal grand jury, and obstruction of justice for impeding the course of a federal grand jury investigation concerned with the possibly illegal leaking by government officials of the classified identity of a covert agent of the CIA, Valerie Plame Wilson, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Pursuant to the grand jury leak investigation, Libby was convicted on March 6, 2007, on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. He was acquitted of one count of making false statements.

Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000. The sentence was commuted in June 2007 by President Bush, voiding the prison term. The convictions no longer stand on the record because Libby was pardoned by President Trump on April 13, 2018.[1]

On April 3, 2007, the District of Columbia Bar suspended his license to practice law in Washington, D.C., and recommended his disbarment pending his appeal of his conviction.[2] On March 20, 2008, after he dropped his appeal, he was disbarred by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, in Washington, D.C., at least until 2012.[3] He delayed reinstatement until June 2016, when he successfully petitioned the court for reinstatement. He was readmitted to the D.C. bar on November 3, 2016.[4]

In the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Disciplinary Counsel's Report reinstating Libby's law license, the Counsel noted that Libby had continued to assert his innocence. As a result, the Counsel had to "undertake a more complex evaluation of a Petition for reinstatement" than when a petitioner admits guilt. But the Counsel found that "Libby has presented credible evidence in support of his version of events and it appears that one key prosecution witness [sic], Judith Miller, has changed her recollection of the events in question."[5] The reference to Judith Miller, a former New York Times reporter, involved her memoir, The Story, A Reporter's Journey. In the book, Miller said she read Plame's memoir and discovered that Plame's cover was at the State Department, a fact Miller said the prosecution had withheld from her. In rereading what she called her "elliptical" notes (meaning hard to decipher), she realized they were about Plame's cover, not her job at the CIA. She concluded that her testimony that Libby had told her Plame worked at the CIA was wrong. "Had I helped convict an innocent man?" she asked.[6] Miller went on to note that John Rizzo, a former CIA general counsel, had said in his memoir that there was no evidence that the outing of Plame had caused any damage to CIA operations or agents, including Plame.[7] That statement rebuts the prosecution's closing argument that as a result of the disclosure of Plame's identity, a CIA operative could be "arrested, tortured, or killed."[8][9]

Plame affair
Timeline
People
Criminal investigation
Context
  1. ^ Nina Totenberg (April 13, 2018). "President Trump Pardons 'Scooter' Libby, Former Cheney Chief Of Staff". NPR.org. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
  2. ^ The D.C. Bar revised its "Professional Rules of Conduct" on February 1, 2007, according to its "Bar News" section of its website; accessed June 5, 2007. On April 3, 2007, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals filed an "Order" ("In the Matter of I. Lewis Libby, Jr. ... Bar Registration No. 950758"), suspending Libby "immediately from the practice of law in the District of Columbia pending resolution of this matter [in United States v. Libby]", which the Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) received on April 4, 2007, directing it to "inform the Court if the matter is resolved without the necessity of further court action." In that order, "the Board directed the Bar Counsel to file a brief addressing whether [Libby's] crimes inherently involve moral turpitude." In its brief, filed on April 24, 2007, entitled "Statement of Bar Counsel", the D.C. Bar stated that his crimes amounted to "moral turpitude" and recommended to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility that Libby "be disbarred pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)", which reads (in pertinent part): "When a member of the bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals is convicted of an offense involving moral turpitude ... the court shall, pending final determination of an appeal from the conviction, suspend the member of the bar from practice ... If a final judgment of conviction is certified to the court, the name of the member of the bar so convicted shall be struck from the roll of the members of the bar and such person shall thereafter cease to be a member." Pursuant to the policy on "Moral Turpitude" contained therein, it is also noted (n. 4) that Libby's "disbarment should be deemed to commence, for reinstatement purposes, on April 11, 2007, the date that [he] filed an affidavit in compliance with D.C. Bar R. XI, § 14(g)." The brief lists Libby's admission to practice law in that jurisdiction as May 19, 1978. At that time Libby's lawyers filed notification of his intention to appeal his conviction within ten days after his sentencing with the D.C. Bar, an appeal that he subsequently decided to drop (Cf. Apuzzo's account of December 10, 2007, op cit)
  3. ^ Carol D. Leonnig, "Court Disbars Cheney Ex-Aide: Libby Loses Right To Practice Law", The Washington Post, p. A2, March 21, 2008
  4. ^ "Lewis Libby". nndb.com. Retrieved January 28, 2015
  5. ^ Disciplinary Counsel's Report regarding Petitioner's Petition for Reinstatement. Bar Docket No. 2016-D182. p. 5
  6. ^ Miller, Judith. The Story, A Reporter's Journey. Simon and Schuster 2015. pp. 307-310.
  7. ^ Miller, p. 312
  8. ^ Transcript of oral argument at p. 130, In re I. Lewis Libby, No. 1:2005-CR-00394-RBW
  9. ^ Conflict of interest disclosure: The author of this update worked briefly for Libby's defense team about a decade ago and has known Libby for decades. This relationship in no way distorts the validity of the information from the sources cited.