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Libby's fallout

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published March 8, 2007

The conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA-leak case was justified by ample evidence. The former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney was just one of many players in the White House's attempts to discredit a critic of the administration's reasons for taking the nation to war against Iraq. But Libby will be the only one to be held accountable.

After deliberating for nearly 10 days, the jury found Libby guilty of four felony counts of obstructing justice and lying to the FBI and a grand jury about what he knew and when he knew it. That is, by any standard, reprehensible conduct on the part of a senior White House official.

Unfortunately, this case has tarnished nearly everyone it touched, including some of Washington's most prominent journalists who seemed all too willing to be used by senior White House officials and then allowed a special prosecutor to bully them into revealing their sources. It's going to be harder in the future for reporters to win the confidence of government whistle-blowers and other anonymous sources who are vital to holding government accountable. We can expect prosecutors to force more journalists to disclose confidential sources, and that could be the real harm of this case.

Cheney was the most pivotal figure at the trial who failed to make a courtroom appearance. According to the evidence, Cheney was almost obsessed with discrediting former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who wrote an op-ed column in the New York Times disputing the administration's claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger in 1999 for the development of nuclear weapons. The CIA had sent Wilson to check out the claim.

According to testimony at trial, Cheney was furious, scribbling on a copy of the column, "Did his wife send him on a junket?" The vice president authorized Libby to leak to reporters that Wilson was sent to Niger at the request of his wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, and not by the vice president's office.

Actually, the first leak of Plame's connection came not from the White House but from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a critic of the Bush-Cheney policy in Iraq who told columnist Robert Novak. White House aide Karl Rove and Libby subsequently leaked the information to several reporters.

The disclosure of an undercover agent's name and occupation is a crime, if done knowingly. This is what prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was initially charged with investigating. Ultimately, no one was charged with the underlying crime. Instead, it was Libby's attempts to mislead and obstruct Fitzgerald's investigation by denying that he was a source of the leaks that got him in trouble. After the verdict, some jurors said they thought Libby was the "fall guy" and wondered why Karl Rove got a pass.

The Libby trial opened a window on how Washington officials and journalists use and try to manipulate each other for their own purposes. It also reminded us of how power can corrupt a White House that doesn't brook dissent and aggressively tries to discredit its critics. After Watergate, Iran-Contra and other Washington scandals, did Scooter Libby really think he could get away with lying to the FBI and a grand jury?

[Last modified March 7, 2007, 22:54:26]