Appeals court upholds CIA leak lawsuit dismissal
Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:47am EDT
By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday dismissed former CIA analyst Valerie Plame's lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney and several former Bush administration officials for disclosing her identity to the public.

The Court of Appeals in Washington dealt another setback to the former spy, who has said her career was destroyed when officials blew her cover in 2003 to retaliate against her husband, Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.

Plame's outing led a lengthy criminal investigation, which resulted in the conviction of Cheney's top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for perjury and obstruction of justice.

White House Blocks Release of FBI Files - Privilege Is Cited in CIA Leak Case
By Dan Eggen Thursday, July 17, 2008; A04

The White House yesterday blocked a House committee's attempt to obtain internal FBI reports about the leak of a CIA officer's identity, asserting that notes from interviews of Vice President Cheney and other administration officials are protected by executive privilege.

The move further escalates the conflict between President Bush and the House Government Reform Committee, which had issued a subpoena to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in an attempt to get the records.

Cheney and other officials were interviewed as part of a probe by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald into the leak of the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. The investigation eventually resulted in the conviction of Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the panel's chairman, said yesterday that Bush's claim of executive privilege in the case is "ludicrous" and vowed to move ahead with a contempt citation against Mukasey.

Cafferty: White House Illegally Deleted Over TEN MILLION e-mails
Posted: 05 Dec 2007 08:10 PM CST

What was a serious problem for the White House has now doubled, and Jack Cafferty is all over it:

Cafferty: A government watchdog group now says more than 10 million White House emails are missing. Citizens for the Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) described this massive hole in White House email records last April. At that time they thought the number was 5 million - Now they say it is more than 10 million emails. In one of the great understatements of this here Christmas season, the group says that this revised estimate - quote - highlights that this is a very serious and systematic problem at the White House - unquote. Both CREW and another private group called the National Security archive are suing the Bush administration to try to get information about all these missing emails. The White House email problems first came to light during special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity...

Keith Olbermann gets it. With a not insignificant dose of irony he narrates the protesters being led off the stage at Alberto Gonzales' speech at UF. First, civil liberties were led off the stage w/o noticeable reaction from Gonzo. Second, Habeas Corpus was dragged away to the same lack of effect...

Plame Suit Dismissed by Controversial GOP Loyalist By Jason Leopold and Matt Renner Thursday 19 July 2007
A federal judge has dismissed the civil lawsuit filed against top Bush administration officials by former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. The judge, John Bates of the US District Court in Washington, DC is a Bush appointee who previously dismissed a lawsuit filed by the federal government against Vice President Dick Cheney. That suit sought access to Cheney's energy task force documents.

Since his tenure on the federal bench began six years ago, Bates's legal opinions and rulings supporting the administration's executive powers stand in stark contrast to his legal work as an assistant US attorney. He worked for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr prosecuting President Clinton's Whitewater investment deals...

Libby, Cheney, Rove civil suit dismissed - Judge cites jurisdictional grounds, makes no comments on arguments
Updated: 4:06 p.m. ET July 19, 2007
WASHINGTON - A federal judge dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration Thursday, eliminating one of the last courtroom remnants of the leak scandal...

Time to MOVE ON? I think not...

Commuting Libby's Sentence 'Fair,' Bush Says - For First Time, President Acknowledges Role of an Administration Official in Leak of CIA Operative By Michael Abramowitz Friday, July 13, 2007
President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that "somebody" in his administration leaked the name of an undercover intelligence officer but declined to say whether he was disappointed in such an action and contended that it is time to move on...

Libby judge 'perplexed' by clemency - His 30-month sentence was appropriate for the former Cheney aide, he writes in his first public comments on the issue.
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer July 13, 2007
WASHINGTON — In an unusual expression of frustration, the judge who sentenced former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to 30 months in jail, only to see the sentence commuted by President Bush, said he was "perplexed" by the act of clemency.

In his first public comments on the matter, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton took issue with Bush's statement that the prison sentence ordered for Libby last month was "excessive." Walton defended the sentence, saying that he followed established legal precedents as well as a strict interpretation of federal sentencing guidelines that has been supported by Bush's own administration.

"In light of these considerations … it is fair to say that the court is somewhat perplexed as to how its sentence could accurately be characterized as 'excessive,' " Walton wrote....

This better not be the only Congressional hearing on Bush's obstruction of justice!

Olbermann states it plain: RESIGN!

Buried deep (ten paragraphs) in the NYT's piece on the Judge's decision lies the nugget of Bush's Brownshirt's threatening the federal judge and his family...

..."For one thing, Judge Walton revealed that he had received threatening letters in recent weeks. At first he just discarded them, he said, but as they kept coming, he began collecting them and has turned them over to the authorities..."

..."Yesterday, Walton said that since that ruling, he had received a series of "angry, harassing" letters from citizens. Some threatened harm to the judge and his family. "Obviously, I find that very troubling," Walton told the prosecutor and Libby's attorneys. "Those types of things cannot and will not have an impact on my decision..."...

Libby Loses Bid to Stay Out of Jail For Appeal By Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein June 15, 2007; A01
A federal judge ordered Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff to surrender in six to eight weeks to begin serving his 30-month prison term, increasing the pressure for President Bush to decide soon whether he will pardon the only administration official prosecuted in a White House leak investigation.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said both the law and his own sense of fairness required that he reject I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's request to remain free while appealing his conviction for perjury and obstruction of the leak investigation, an approach that could have deferred the pardon question for years....

Fitzgerald wants Libby imprisoned now - Urges judge not to delay former White House aide's prison sentence By Joel Seidman June 12, 2007
WASHINGTON - Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, in a 43-page response to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's argument to the judge to remain free on bond pending the appeal of his conviction, said, "The government respectfully requests that this Court deny defendant's motion for release pending appeal."

Fitzgerald writes that Libby has only a remote chance for reversal of his conviction, "the chance of reversal by the Court of Appeals is, at best, remote — certainly not "substantial.">>

Scooter Libby Love Letters - Washington elite petition judge on behalf of convicted Cheney aide
JUNE 5--Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton top the list of individuals who wrote a federal judge on behalf of former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for lying to investigators and a federal grand jury examining the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. On the following 30 pages you'll find an assortment of letters from former colleagues and friends of Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. The letters, which do not include a missive from Cheney himself, were filed this morning in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Included in the correspondence is a letter on former Cheney aide Mary Matalin's stationery which is signed by her and husband James Carville, the Democratic strategist. Others writing on Libby's behalf included...