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Former vice presidential adviser I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is among more than 1,000 felons whose voting rights were restored in the past year by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, according to a report to the General Assembly. Libby’s name is listed in the Feb. 23 report on pardons, commutations, reprieves and other forms of clemency the Republican governor is required to submit annually. Without elaboration, the report says Libby’s civil rights were restored Nov. 1, 2012. … In Virginia, only the governor can restore felons’ civil rights. McDonnell has streamlined the process and, consequently, has restored the rights of more than...

Al-Qaeda terrorist's son an Obama fundraiser Here's another 'associate' that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama may want to throw under the bus. This is a Debbie Schlussel exclusive. Al Churbaji is a Syrian national currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from where he is fighting the Department of Homeland Security's endeavors to deport him. If successful, this will be the second deportation for Al-Churbaji, after a return to the U.S. that violated federal immigration and deportation policies. More on that later. But even if Al-Churbaji is deported, at least two of his six children, a son and a daughter,...

It was gutsy for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein to come out against Washington's recent rash of dangerous intelligence leaks last week; she made criticism of the leaks bipartisan. Flanked by the House Intelligence Committee's ranking Democrat, Dutch Ruppersberger, and GOP committee leaders, Feinstein declared: "This has to stop. When people say they don't want to work with the United States, because they can't trust us to keep a secret, that's serious." A week later, Feinstein is more than halfway through New York Times reporter David E. Sanger's book "Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of...

VIDEO HERE.

"...The EPA experts thought it unbelievable that an environmental accident could destroy so many in one tiny town and they didn't know about it. For the most part, the townsfolk themselves had no idea of the scope of the disease that had been killing them for years... Public health and occupational medicine researchers determined that the Libby asbestos may be more carcinogenic than any other type and that it brought on illness more rapidly. While most asbestos has a latency period -- the time from the inhalation of fibers to the onset of disease -- of 20 to 40 years,...

*snip* Memory can be unreliable, and misstatements can happen despite pure intentions. It's only fair game to point this out. So say Valerie Plame Wilson, former CIA case manager and Vanity Fair cover girl, and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, former ambassador to Gabon and extravagant self-promoter. Too bad the Wilsons, a power-mad federal prosecutor, an officious federal judge, a confused jury and a badly misled president wouldn't apply those same common-sense considerations to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, wrongly convicted of perjury in the case stemming from State Department official Richard Armitage's public identification of Mrs. Wilson as a...

"Could [I] have misspoken? Yes, I am male, I'm over 50. By definition, I can misspeak." - Ambassador Joe Wilson, in a July 18, 2004, interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer."Given the incredible pace and scope of my work during that [relevant] period and the subsequent passage of time, I simply did not recall the sequence of events. ... I had completely forgotten [who had suggested a key idea]. I had forgotten [who received a call from whom]. ... I had answered all the questions truthfully, and to the best of my ability. Still, a little voice in my head was...

When Hollywood decides a former White House aide is fair game for attack, facts don't come into play. History, however, cannot be so cavalier about the truth. The new movie "Fair Game" - based on the outing of CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson during political battles concerning the war in Iraq - is anything but fair or honest. In depicting former vice-presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby as a sinister point man in a broad effort to destroy Mrs. Wilson's career while concocting a fraudulent case for the war, the movie perpetuates myths that improperly damage U.S. credibility....

Valerie Plame says in her memoir that she read the report that the CIA wrote immediately after debriefing Wilson on his trip and also read his column before it was published. She added that she thought the column was accurate. She said the report was only a few pages long. No one, let alone a professional intelligence officer, could have missed the part about Iraq trying to buy yellowcake. She had to know the column was wrong, but evidently said nothing. So she was anything but an innocent bystander as her husband created a political firestorm. In a question and...

... the title is drawn from how Karl Rove told Matthews that the CIA agent Valerie Plame was fair game for critics of her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson, you’ll recall, was dispatched by the CIA in 2002 at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to investigate whether Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson came back with the answer no, and he was outraged when President Bush nevertheless stuck with the claim in his 2003 State of the Union address, which made the case for war with Iraq. Just three...

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Researchers have embarked on an ambitious study to track the health of thousands of high school graduates over a half century in a Montana town where a toxic mine has killed hundreds of people and made it the deadliest Superfund site in the nation. People who attended Libby High between 1950 and 1999 and then moved away are being asked to submit to tests to help determine the extent of contamination caused by asbestos mining and processing in the northwestern Montana town. Researchers will track down many of the 13,000-plus graduates with the help of the...

WASHINGTON--A federal judge said the Federal Bureau of Investigation must publicly reveal much of its interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative. The FBI interviewed Mr. Cheney in June 2004 as it was investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's identity after her husband criticized the Bush administration. Both the Bush and Obama administrations said they wanted to keep the interview confidential because future vice presidents may not cooperate with criminal investigations if it became public.

A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to release notes and summaries of former Vice President Dick Cheney's 2004 interview with Special Prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald in the CIA leak case, but is allowing the deletion of what may be some of the most interesting details in the documents. In a ruling issued Thursday morning, Judge Emmet Sullivan flatly rejected claims by both Bush and Obama appointees at DOJ that the entirety of the records should be withheld because their disclosure could discourage White House officials from cooperating in future investigations. The judge said the prospect of such inquiries was...

Cheney — code-named Angler by the Secret Service — is a lot like fishing in dark water; there’s a lot going on underneath, but you’d never know it from staring at the surface… “I think it’s fair to argue,” said Cheney, “that we’re not going to have the same safeguards we’ve had for the last eight years.” ... It’s a good thing we had Dick Cheney in the Vice President’s office in the days following the 9/11 attacks. Cheney was the right man at the right time in history and was instrumental in launching the counter-attack against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan...

Time magazine devotes a feature of more than 4,700 words to the dispute between George W. Bush and Dick Cheney over the former’s refusal to pardon Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice presidential aide convicted of obstructing an investigation into the leaking of a CIA officer’s identity

The Supreme Court announced Monday it will not give further consideration to a lawsuit brought by a fired CIA agent and her husband against high ranking Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney. The decision is a victory for Cheney and his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. They and nine unnamed co-defendants were sued by Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband Joseph after her CIA cover was leaked to reporters.

(CNN) — Mary Matalin, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, sharply criticized former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage Sunday for his comments about the CIA's Bush-era interrogation techniques. In an interview with the English language service of Qatar-based network Al Jazeera last week, Armitage said: “I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would’ve had the courage to resign. But I don’t know. It’s in hindsight now.” In response, Matalin told CNN's John King on State of The Union: "If Richard Armitage, as the number two guy in the State Department,...

WASHINGTON - In the waning days of the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney launched a last-ditch campaign to persuade his boss to pardon Lewis (Scooter) Libby - and was furious when President George W. Bush wouldn't budge. Sources close to Cheney told the Daily News the former vice president repeatedly pressed Bush to pardon Libby, arguing his ex-chief of staff and longtime alter ego deserved a full exoneration - even though Bush had already kept Libby out of jail by commuting his 30-month prison sentence. "He tried to make it happen right up until the very end," one Cheney...

Ex-VP Dick Cheney outraged President Bush didn't grant 'Scooter' Libby full pardon BY THOMAS M. DEFRANK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF Updated Tuesday, February 17th 2009, 8:36 AM WASHINGTON - In the waning days of the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney launched a last-ditch campaign to persuade his boss to pardon Lewis (Scooter) Libby - and was furious when President George W. Bush wouldn't budge. Sources close to Cheney told the Daily News the former vice president repeatedly pressed Bush to pardon Libby, arguing his ex-chief of staff and longtime alter ego deserved a full exoneration - even though...

I just can't seem to get off this topic. The question is, what could possibly possess Bush to refuse to pardon Libby? The more I think about it, the more I come up with bad or even unethical motives by Bush. I will not indulge them here, at least not now, because it is speculation of this sort that leads the nut-roots on the left to make all sorts of baseless allegations. But do let it be said that many reports now are that a number of influential people did try to convince Bush to make the pardon -- and...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney disagreed publicly with his boss just four times in the eight years they served together. Yesterday, however, on the first day after the official end of the Bush administration, Cheney disagreed with George W. Bush once more. Cheney told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, whom he described as a "victim of a serious miscarriage of justice," deserved a presidential pardon. Asked for his reaction to Bush's decision Cheney said: "Scooter Libby is one of the most capable and honorable men I've ever known. He's been an outstanding...

If the President hasn't already pardoned Lewis (Scooter) Libby, I beg him to reconsider and do so, for Libby is an innocent man. Most of what people believe about the Scooter Libby case was proven wrong at trial. Many wrongly believe: 1) Libby leaked the CIA employment of Valerie Plame; and 2) he then lied to cover his leaking.

Rarely can Presidents improve their legacy in an Administration's twilight days. But President Bush now has that opportunity, by undoing a measure of the injustice inflicted on I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. As the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney who suffered in a fiasco made worse by the White House, Mr. Libby deserves a full Presidential pardon. Mr. Bush commuted Mr. Libby's sentence in 2007, an action that kept him out of jail. But that doesn't expunge his conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice. As a felon, Mr. Libby is barred by law from voting or...

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney chose someone in his own likeness to be his new chief of staff. Like Cheney, David Addington shuns the limelight. And like Cheney, Addington already has made a large imprint on the Bush White House. At Cheney's side since the 1980s, Addington has been a behind-the-scenes player in one after another of the hot-button controversies the Bush administration has faced: _The CIA leak probe. _The fight to disclose which corporations advised the White House on energy policy. _The dispute over the treatment of suspected terrorists. _The White House disagreements with the Sept. 11 commission...

Former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told the FBI that it was "possible" that Vice President Cheney instructed him to disseminate information about CIA agent Valerie Plame to the press, according to a redacted FBI report recently examined by Congressional investigators. In part as a result of that revelation, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today reiterated its request for more Plame investigation documents -- including reports on the interviews investigators conducted with Cheney and President Bush. In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Committee Chairman Henry Waxman also writes that "[n]ew revelations by...

While Gov. Rick Perry was in Johnson Coliseum addressing SFA graduates, on the other side of campus a group of citizens were not so happy about his appearance in Nacogdoches. In the free-speech area of campus, near North Street and Vista Drive, many farmers, property owners and concerned citizens gathered for a Citizens Against the Trans-Texas Corridor Rally. Holding protest signs and using a tractor as a symbol of the farming community, those who gathered wanted to make their cause heard by the governor, as well as the community. Many vehicles traveling on North Street honked in support of the...

The Prime Minister of Niger reported to the U.S. State Department in early 2002 that Iraq tried to buy uranium "yellow cake" (ore) -- a June 2003 Memo reveals. A declassified court exhibit introduced in the 2007 trial of Scooter Libbey proved that Saddam Hussein tried to get uranium ore from Niger -- covertly and under the table. This is clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was actively developing nuclear weapons. Iraq already had stockpiles of uranium "yellow cake" that it was not using -- but that uranium was being watched by UN inspectors. Iraq could have no reason for wanting...

Former Cheney Aide Libby Disbarred Bush Commuted Libby's Prison Sentence Last Year POSTED: 10:41 am EDT March 20, 2008 UPDATED: 10:55 am EDT March 20, 2008 A Washington, D.C., radio station reports that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has been disbarred. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Court of Appeals stripped Libby of his ability to practice law after he was found guilty last year of obstructing the investigation in the CIA leak investigation, WTOP radio reported.

There's been a lot of talk about the new Trans-Texas Corridor — the next-generation "super-highway" — and opinions are varying. Now the debate is coming to Lufkin's doorstep. On Monday, the American Land Foundation, Stewards of the Range and TURF will hold a workshop at Lufkin's Pitser Garrison Civic Center on how to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor 69. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A portion of Texas citizens have voiced their opposition to the TTC-69 in public meetings held by the Texas Department of Transportation, but believing they are not being heard, four cities and their...

NACOGDOCHES — The rows of extra chairs brought into the The Fredonia's biggest meeting room Thursday night were not enough to accommodate more than 750 people who attended an open house and public hearing on the proposed TTC-69 highway. Texas Department of Transportation officials heard hours of public testimony that continued late into the night overwhelmingly opposed to the construction of new roadways through East Texas. Applause throughout the hours-long meeting never swelled as loudly as it did when the first speaker of the night, state Rep. Wayne Christian, told TxDOT representatives emphatically that "our answer is 'no' on the...

ROBSTOWN, Tex. — Leon Little’s farm here near Corpus Christi would not be seized for Texas’s proposed $184-billion-plus superhighway project for 5 or 10 years, if ever. But Mr. Little was alarmed enough to show up Wednesday night with hundreds of his South Texas coastal neighbors to do what the Texas Department of Transportation has been urging: “Go ahead, don’t hold back.� Don’t worry. Texans have gotten the message, swamping hearings and town meetings across the state to grill and often excoriate agency officials about a colossal traffic makeover known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the...

Grimes County commissioners and County Judge Betty Shiflett made sure they attended a TTC/I-69 meeting at the Walker County Fairgrounds last week, as residents previously demanded they take a stronger stance against the proposed route through Grimes County. Shiflett received a roaring applause from audience members with her speech that ended with the question, “What part of “no� do you not understand?� Shiflett added that Grimes County was not given an option for having a town meeting, just the environmental meeting. “Representative Lois Kolkhorst stole the show as she announced loud and clear that she was against TTC I-69,� said...

Local residents who want to add their two cents about the proposed Interstate 69 construction won't have to fill their tanks to do it. TxDOT is coming to Longview. The Texas Department of Transportation is holding 46 public hearings this month in East and South Texas along the planned corridor, including Tuesday's meeting in Longview. The hearings will give Texans a chance to comment and ask questions about the proposed Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, a collection of passenger and freight roadways, utility and rail lines from Texarkana to the Rio Grande Valley. A draft environmental impact statement released in November suggests...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- President Bush granted pardons Tuesday to carjackers, drug dealers, a moonshiner and an election-laws violator but not to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his vice president's former top aide who was convicted in the case of the leaked identity of a CIA operative. In all, Bush pardoned 29 convicts and reduced the prison sentence of one more in the end-of-the-year presidential tradition. Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Bush has granted 142 pardons and commuted five sentences since taking office in 2001 — lagging far behind the pace set by most modern presidents. The list was issued with...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is no longer appealing his conviction in the CIA leak case, a tacit recognition that continuing his legal fight might only make things worse. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury and obstruction but President Bush commuted his 30-month prison sentence in July. As a convicted felon, Libby will lose his law license and, in some states, cannot vote. He might have had a chance to avoid those consequences had he won on appeal, but at a new trial his commutation...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is dropping his appeal in the CIA leak case, his attorney said Monday. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury and obstruction for lying about his conversations with reporters about outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. "We remain firmly convinced of Mr. Libby's innocence," attorney Theodore Wells said. "However, the realities were, that after five years of government service by Mr. Libby and several years of defending against this case, the burden on Mr. Libby and his young family of continuing to...

NBC News White House correspondent David Gregory, accused of being a partisan, made a false statement about the "Scooter" Libby case. In reporting former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s charge that the Bush administration fed false information, Gregory claimed Libby "went to jail for obstructing the leak investigation." Although Libby was sentenced to 30 months of prison, Libby never actually went to jail as Gregory claims. President Bush commuted Libby’s sentence, eliminating the prison term yet still upholding a hefty fine and probation. "Today," however, did not spend a lot of time on the McClellan charge, just a brief...

Six Reasons the Plame Episode is a Farce 2007-02-03 -- In a syndicated newspaper column by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003, Valerie Plame (aka Valerie E. Wilson) was identified as a CIA "operative on weapons of mass destruction." Plame was married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had worked briefly for the CIA and had written a scathing editorial a week earlier in the New York Times accusing the Bush administration of "twisting," "manipulating," and "exaggerating" intelligence about Iraqi weapons programs "to justify an invasion." Bush's adversaries quickly concluded that he or someone close to him had illegally...

Columnist Robert Novak said Saturday Ambassador Joe Wilson did not forcefully object to the naming of his CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, when Novak spoke to him prior to the publication of a column that sparked a federal investigation and sent White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to jail. “He was not terribly exercised about it,” Novak said. Instead, Wilson focused on not being portrayed as simply an opponent of the Iraq war. Wilson also stressed that his wife went by his last name, Wilson, rather than Plame, Novak said. Novak forcefully defended his handling of the column...

Columnist Robert Novak said Saturday Ambassador Joe Wilson did not forcefully object to the naming of his CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, when Novak spoke to him prior to the publication of a column that sparked a federal investigation and sent White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to jail. “He was not terribly exercised about it,” Novak said. Instead, Wilson focused on not being portrayed as simply an opponent of the Iraq war. Wilson also stressed that his wife went by his last name, Wilson, rather than Plame, Novak said. Novak forcefully defended his handling of the column...

The hypocritical braying that has greeted George W. Bush's commutation of White House aide "Scooter" Libby's (pictured) prison sentence continues. "The president's critics are contrasting his leniency for Libby with his overall advocacy of stiff sentences," writes the San Francisco Chronicle this week. I think the scandal isn't the President's lenience for Libby, but that Libby was prosecuted in the first place. Here are the facts. A former ambassador named Joseph Wilson wrote an article in 2003, suggesting that the President had played fast and loose with intelligence to justify his invasion of Iraq. The piece appeared in The New...

Excerpt - WASHINGTON - A brawl over presidential pardons punctured the normally courtly ambiance of the Senate on Thursday night, but Republicans and Democrats agreed to bury the hatchet and erase the evidence before the sun rose Friday. In the heat of a partisan spat, Democrats forced a vote on a nonbinding measure to instruct President Bush not to pardon former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But there's no record of the 47-49 vote in the daily record of congressional proceedings — or anywhere else. That's because senators agreed less than an hour later to undo their vote...

U. S. District Court Judge John D. Bates has dismissed the lawsuit that Valerie Plame Wilson filed against Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration, saying there was no legal basis for the suit. The judge commented that the act of rebutting public criticism—such as that levied by Joseph Wilson against the administration—by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of employment for members of the Executive branch.

Dishwasher and part-time landscaper Juan Sanchez called a press conference to officially confirm two years ago, he entered the US illegally.

The further redacted affidavits filed in the Miller case are now available online. Two interesting facts have struck Just One Minute commenters as we skim through this newly available material. First, Fitzgerald granted Ari Fleischer immunity without requiring him to provide waivers, so that Fitzgerald could not confirm Ari's story with reporters. This seems remarkable, and when you add to it that Fitzgerald claimed in court that he granted immunity to Fleischer without having any idea what he'd testify to, it is astonishing. It may explain why he believed for so long that Libby had been the source to Walter...

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson signed on with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign yesterday, saying "it's entirely possible" his ex-spy wife will hit the trail with her, too. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was outed as a covert CIA operations officer by President Bush's advisers in 2003 as they sought to discredit her Iraq war critic husband. She's writing a memoir due in the fall. "I would expect her to be engaged [politically] probably after the book tour," Wilson told the Daily News after Clinton announced his endorsement. Wilson said his wife shunned politics during her two decades as a covert spy. But...

Ten days after the President commuted the prison term of I. Lewis Libby, Judge Walton upheld the amended sentence in a new memorandum opinion, and displayed his pique at the executive interference and disputed the criticism of his sentencing process. But a review of the relevant facts suggests the President has the better argument.

Conrad Black found guilty on 3 charges CBC News Last Updated: Friday, July 13, 2007 | 11:35 AM ET Businessman Conrad Black has been found guilty on two mail fraud charges and one obstruction of justice charge, a Chicago courtroom was told Friday morning. On the other changes, Black was found not guilty. The jury's verdict came after 12 days of deliberation. There is no word of verdicts in the cases of three Hollinger executives who were being tried alongside the Canadian media baron. More to come.

Do you believe Democrats will be swept into control of the White House, the House, and the Senate next year on a wave of public outrage over the CIA leak affair? Neither do I. Democrats might indeed win it all in 2008, but Plamegate won’t be the reason. Nevertheless, some are still trying to wring the last drops of political benefit from the CIA leak saga, still acting as if the public is hungry for one more retelling of the story. The latest retelling came Wednesday, when House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) held a hearing entitled “The...