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Appeals court upholds CIA leak lawsuit dismissal Tue Aug 12, 2008 12:01pm EDT By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (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.

In an astonishing stroke of irony, the New York Times has outed the name of the CIA operative who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, over the objections of CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and a lawyer representing the operative. Agency officials and legal counsel told the Times that publishing the agent's name would "invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency." In an Editor's Note linked from the story on KSM's interrogation, the Times defended its decision by stating that "other government employees" had been "named publicly in...

And having read the book, I have to hand it to McClellan. In a genre as routinely and justly derided as the Washington memoir, it takes a special talent to produce a specimen that even by those standards is this flaming-dirigible bad. It’s usually the sign of a weak reviewer that he feels the need to extrapolate some sort of psychoanalysis from the text, but in McClellan case it’s unavoidable. In fact, once I began reading McClellan’s book, I had to seek outside counsel to confirm my suspicions about his precarious mental state. Political consultant Mary Matalin — no stranger...

The former Bush administration pitchman making explosive election-year charges about how the White House handled the Valerie Plame case and built the case for invading Iraq said Thursday that he went to Washington to change it and became “disillusioned” when he realized he was just a pawn in the never-ending political game.

A Democrat campaigning for the White House must feel like a soldier advancing through a mine field. At any moment, he or she is one step away from being blown out of the contest. And the poor wretch is surrounded by a ravenous mob of media hounds, each of whom is eager to set off the fatal charge. Gotcha! Still worse, almost all the media volleys are fired toward the port side. If a Republican or (so-called) “conservative” makes a gaffe, as they do almost daily, their “misspeak” is usually politely ignored. Or if it is simply too awful to...

WASHINGTON - Former CIA operative Valerie Plame is trying to resurrect a lawsuit against those in the Bush administration she says illegally disclosed her identity. A federal judge dismissed Plame's lawsuit last year, saying there was no basis to bring a case. Plame's lawyers asked a federal appeals court Friday to send the case back before the judge and force him to consider its merits. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sued Vice President Dick Cheney; his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; former White House political adviser Karl Rove and former Deputy Secretary of State...

oseph C. Wilson IV SANTA FE, N.M. - In recent weeks Americans have been subjected to a litany of outrageous statements from Sen. Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. While Obama was finally compelled to distance himself from his radical preacher, the relationship raises legitimate questions about Obama's judgment and naivete. Obama, after all, wants to be president of the United States, and in that quest has proposed unconditional summit meetings with some of our country's most determined enemies, including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Obama's campaign has been built upon his supposed transcendent qualities and intuitive judgment....

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...

Everyone else in the media is pounding Hillary Clinton for her tale, now shown to be fanciful, of dodging bullets on a Bosnian tarmac as first lady. But if you're looking for the best recent example of the lengths Mrs. Clinton will go to win the Democratic Presidential nod, consider that last week in Philadelphia she used Joe and Valerie Wilson as campaign props. Was George Galloway not available? Mr. Wilson and his wife are darlings of the antiwar crowd for their roles as self-styled martyrs in the CIA "leak" fiasco. The former ambassador is still cashing in on his...

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton used City Hall yesterday as the backdrop to renew her call to change tactics and withdraw troops from Iraq, saying money spent on the war could be better used to help the national mortgage crisis and this week's shutdown of part of Interstate 95 here. Clinton, D-N.Y., was joined by former CIA agent Valerie Plame and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Plame's undercover identity was leaked to reporters by Bush administration staffers after her husband criticized the war in Iraq. Clinton's speech, coming a day before the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, was designed...

"Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., left, applauds former CIA officer Valerie Plame, right, as she speaks, prior to Clinton speaking about Iraq, Tuesday, March 18, 2008, in Philadelphia."

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...

Seated at the Washington Gridiron dinner March 31, I was interrupted by a man crouching at my feet who was dressed Air Force formal with the four stars of a full general. It was CIA Director Michael Hayden, who complained to me profanely that my column had misrepresented him in the Valerie Plame Wilson case. Denying he favors Democrats, Gen. Hayden indicated to me he had not authorized Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman to say Mrs. Wilson had been a "covert" CIA employee, as he claimed Hayden did, but only that she was "undercover." Keeping busy at a Gridiron evening supposedly...

It's hard to imagine that Scott McClellan's allegations that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were involved in the false exoneration of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame case will be treated as anything but another footnote in the truth-challenged history of the Bush administration. It will be the spring of 2008 before McClellan's book is published -- deep into a presidential race -- and we'll eat the paper this isn't printed on if either Democrats in Congress or Michael Mukasey will be willing to go to the wall then in a serious investigation of what really...

WASHINGTON — Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan is lashing out at the Bush administration's handling of the CIA leak case in his new book over what he said was intentional misinformation given to him by the administration and claiming the president was "involved" in the media run-around. The Politico reported Tuesday on its Web site that the publisher of "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong With Washington" released a three-paragraph excerpt of the book highlighting the contentious period. [snip] "I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of...

WASHINGTON - Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Sunday he was foolish to have revealed Valerie Plame's CIA identity. Armitage's acknowledgment came in response to comments by Plame, who said the former Bush administration official had no right to talk to a reporter about where she worked. A year ago, Armitage publicly apologized to Plame and her husband. The former No. 2 State Department official remains the only principal in the leak to have done so. At least three one-time administration officials in addition to Armitage discussed Plame's CIA status with reporters. They are former White House political...

If Valerie Plame's memoir was intended to lay to rest the conflicting accounts of how she came to be outed as a covert CIA agent, it fails. Instead, she paints herself as a naïve, whinging victim of circumstance married to an angry, obstreperous egotist who volunteered to involve himself in a vicious battle between the White House and the CIA over how President Bush came to make untrue statements in a State of the Union speech. Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House (Simon and Schuster, $26) shows how mistaken her husband's judgment was....

To flip through the first third of Valerie Plame Wilson's "Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House" is to confront an optical maze of gray stripes interrupting juicy anecdotes and methodical musings. CIA censors blacked out 10 percent of the text in her memoir, leaving its narrative disjointed and sometimes hard to follow. "I believe the vast majority of what is blacked out in the book has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with diminishing me and Joe," she said. Agency censors also wouldn't allow Plame Wilson to acknowledge working...

Still spreading the lies and stumping for dollars for Democrats: From: "Ambassador Joe Wilson" {dccc@dccc.org}Subject: Why It MattersDate: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:15:49 -0400 Dear Lew, In 2003 when I spoke out against the lies in George Bush's State of the Union address justifying his disastrous and irresponsible war in Iraq, I never imagined the White House would take revenge against me by compromising the national security of the country, not to mention the safety of my family by outing my wife's identity as a covert CIA officer. Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove knew they could get away...

Is Plame to Blame? by: Bethany Stotts, August 16, 2007 The Valerie Plame Affair, which resulted in the conviction of White House aide Louis “Scooter” Libby, serves as rallying point for many opponents of the Bush Administration. However, some conservatives remain skeptical of Plame’s alleged victim status. While her job description was listed on the CIA rolls as an agent with “no official cover” (NOC), Plame had in reality had been performing administrative duties at Langley for at least five years. She remains willing to pose for the cameras as a starlet ex-agent, and continues participating in high-level lawsuits. Rowan...

Reporting on the resignation of presidential political adviser Karl Rove, ABC's World News on Monday night absurdly blamed Karl Rove for the ads from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and featured John Kerry's condemnation of Rove as all three broadcast network evening shows castigated Rove for his criticism of how Democrats want to coddle terrorists and highlighted his “leaking” of Valerie Plame's name.

Democrats have to be worried that when Karl Rive exits the White House in August, he'll take a month off and end up at the virtual elbow of Mayor Giuliani, Governor Romney, or Senator Thompson. They should be worried. Of course that's what he (and Ken Mehlman) will be doing. All-stars whose franchise can't play for the title often show up in the heat of the hunt. Politics is like sports in many ways. And Rove is the Tiger Woods of politics. (That would almost make Bob Shrum Greg Norman, but Norman won two majors. I need a better analogy...

Rod Lurie will next direct his script "Nothing but the Truth," a drama about a D.C.-based female newspaper reporter who outs a CIA agent and is imprisoned for refusing to reveal her source. Cast is mobilizing for an October production start. Talks are under way for Kate Beckinsale to play the journalist, Matt Dillon the prosecutor, Vera Farmiga the CIA agent, Edie Falco (in her first role since "The Sopranos") the editor of the newspaper that published the story and Alan Alda the attorney who tries to free the reporter from jail. Marc Frydman will produce and the Yari Film...

Sean Hannity shows you the secret CIA documents that reveal the truth about Joe and Valerie Wilso. Sunday, August 12 at 9 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney thinks his former chief of staff shouldn't have been convicted in the CIA leak case and that President Bush did right by commuting the jail sentence instead of issuing a pardon. "I thought the president handled it right," Cheney said in an interview Monday with Mark Knoller of CBS Radio. "I supported his decision." However, asked if he disagreed with the guilty verdict for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney said, "I did." Libby was convicted of lying and obstructing justice in a probe into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. The former...

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...

<p>Judge dismisses Valerie Plame's lawsuit accusing members of the Bush administration of leaking her identity... Developing..</p>

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration in the CIA leak scandal.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Dissident U.S. intelligence officers angry at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped a European probe uncover details of secret CIA prisons in Europe, the top investigator said on Tuesday. Swiss Senator Dick Marty, author of a Council of Europe report on the jails, said senior CIA officials disapproved of Rumsfeld's methods in hunting down terrorist suspects, and had agreed to talk to him on condition of anonymity."There were huge conflicts between the CIA and Rumsfeld. Many leading figures in the CIA did not accept these methods at all," Marty told European Parliament committees, defending his work against...

From Aspen we get this report of a talk by Karl Rove and a comment from the audience by former Secretary of State Powell: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell stood up in the audience during the question-and-answer period to say that it was his deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, who sparked the CIA leak case. Powell said that Armitage responded to a question by Novak about Wilson, saying "I think she works for the CIA..." Powell said that Armitage later called him and told him he had been the one who had talked to Novak about Wilson. Powell...

"Look, I make no apologies," Rove said in response to a question from the audience about whether he felt personally responsible for the war. "It was the right thing to do. The world is better off with him gone," he said, referring to Saddam Hussein. "We all thought he had weapons of mass destruction. The whole world did. He didn't." Rove said that Hussein had the intent to develop new weapons, and he tied the war in Iraq to the administration's global "war on terror." "In the aftermath of the removal of the regime, al-Qaida decided to make its stand...

With supporters running away from him -- on his immigration policy, on Iraq -- with his popularity plummeting, as Republican politicians seek safe harbor, with critics sniping, there are qualities to admire about President Bush. Almost alone, stubbornly, he stands with our allies, including Israel, refusing to back down from Islamic terrorists working American public opinion in Iraq. He continues to pressure Iran on its pursuit of an Islamic theocratic nuclear nightmare in the Middle East. He stands for life, opposed to the popular drumbeat from those who would use some human lives to benefit other, more powerful lives through...

Prospective Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson and a few others on the extreme fringe of the lawless right have complained that George Bush was insufficiently generous to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby when the president commuted the 30-month prison sentence of the convicted felon who had served as his counselor and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Not to worry. Bush says he may have more favors in the works for Libby, whose deep involvement in the plotting to discredit former Ambassador Joe Wilson by outing his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as a CIA operative continues to make him a...

President Bush, a recent story in the Washington Post tells us, is obsessed with the question of how history will view him. He has done himself no favors on that count by commuting the prison term of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. In Bush's statement explaining his decision, he said he was sparing Libby from prison because the 30-month sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton was "excessive." In the president's view, the court-imposed fine of $250,000 and the damage to Libby's reputation are punishment enough for the crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice. If this were a...

IN COMMUTING the sentence of former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, President Bush sent the message that perjury and obstruction of justice in the service of the president of the United States are not serious crimes. Never mind the president's words about our system of justice relying on "people telling the truth" -- and that those who don't "must be held accountable." His bottom-line action speaks louder than all the platitudes and caveats in the president's statement. Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison after being convicted by a jury for his part in trying to stymie an...

When President Gerald Ford pardoned the disgraced former President Richard Nixon in 1976, the shock waves created a political tsunami that swamped the Republican's hopes of remaining in the White House. But Lewis "Scooter" Libby is no Richard Nixon, and President Bush's move to commute the 2 1/2-year prison sentence of the former White House aide famed for his role in the CIA leak case could turn out to be a mere ripple by comparison. With the war in Iraq, immigration and health care reform topping the list of Americans' most pressing concerns, Bush's decision Monday -- more than seven...

FReep This Poll! Here is the poll question in full form... Do you agree with President Bush's decision to commute former White House aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby's prison term? Yes No Not sure Link over to the North County Times/The Californian homepage. Scroll down a bit and look for the poll on the right hand side. Vote your choice.

President Bush limited his deliberations over commuting the jail term of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to a few close aides, opting not to consult with the Justice Department and rebuffing efforts by close friends to lobby on Libby's behalf, administration officials and people close to Bush said yesterday. "We were all told to stay away from it," said an old Bush friend from Texas who is close to Libby and would not speak for attribution. "When we called over there, they said the president is well aware of the situation, so don't raise it. None of us lobbied him because...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court refused on Monday to step in and delay former White House aide I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby's prison sentence in the CIA leak case.

A federal appeals court refused on Monday to step in and delay former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence in the CIA leak case. The unanimous decision is a dramatic setback for Libby's legal case and puts pressure on President Bush, who has been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby faces 2 1/2 years in prison on his conviction of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. The former chief of staff to Cheney, he is the highest-ranking White...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court said Friday it would release some of the documents it reviewed when deciding to force journalists to testify in the CIA leak investigation. The ruling followed a request by The Associated Press and Dow Jones, which asked for the release of the sworn statements Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald gave to justify subpoenas for New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in 2005. Fitzgerald wanted the reporters' help in his investigation of the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to syndicated columnist Robert Novak. The news organizations argued...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- For years he was known as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and assistant to President Bush. On Wednesday, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby became federal inmate No. 28301-016. Libby, who was convicted in March of lying and obstructing an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity, faces 2 1/2 years in prison.

At the close of business today, Lewis Libby filed his response to the Fitzgerald response to his Application for Release Pending Appeal (and to the supplemental 30 page opinion Judge Walton entered after the bond hearing. It is short and and easy to read. Let me tempt you to do so by setting forth the first paragraph, something that should be a model to all legal writers for its succinct and persuasive presentation of this argument: "When a Special Counsel is directed to exercise the "plenary" authority of the Attorney General "independent of' anyone's "supervision or control"; is exempted from...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two of the three judges considering whether to delay former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence were Republican appointees. Libby's request was assigned to Judges David B. Sentelle, Karen Lecraft Henderson and David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Sentelle was put on the bench by President Reagan, Henderson by the first President Bush and Tatel by President Clinton. But judicial politics haven't helped Libby so far. He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, whom President Bush put...

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense attorneys have filed a formal motion asking the court to allow him to delay the start of his prison term, pending the appeal of his March conviction. A federal jury found Libby guilty March 6 on charges that he lied to the FBI and a grand jury, and obstructed justice in the investigation into the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame, a former covert CIA operative. Tuesday's 122-page filing mirrors the main arguments that the defense team addressed before federal Judge Reggie Walton last week, questions concerning special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's authority to bring...

WASHINGTON - Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald urged a federal judge Tuesday not to delay former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2 1/2-year prison sentence in the CIA leak case. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has argued that he has a good chance of winning an appeal and should be allowed to remain free until that challenge has run its course. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who sentenced Libby to prison for lying to authorities and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, has said he...

WASHINGTON - A federal judge said Thursday he will not delay a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the CIA leak case, a ruling that could send the former White House aide to prison within weeks. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton's decision will send Libby's attorneys rushing to an appeals court to block the sentence and could force President Bush to consider calls from Libby's supporters to pardon the former aide. No date was set for Libby to report to prison but it's expected to be within six to eight weeks. That will be left...

<p>Judge orders Libby to jail while case is appealed. Expected to surrender in 6 to 8 weeks per Fox news.</p>

It is understandable that many in the conservative media have called for President Bush to pardon Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, because of his conviction in the so-called CIA leak case. Libby should never have been put on trial; indeed, new evidence suggests that his alleged target, former CIA analyst Valerie Plame, is the one who should be investigated for allegedly lying under oath before Congress about her role in this affair. Plame's backers in the agency would have great reason to fear such a probe. It might shed light on who in the...

Last week Judge Reggie Walton sentenced Scooter Libby to 30 months in the federal penitentiary for allegedly lying about a crime that never occurred and didn't exist. While everything about the case qualifies as script material for The Twilight Zone, acknowledging plot contributions from both Kafka and Heller, the newer developments owe more to One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. *** What is newly very apparent is the personal animus that Judge Walton has displayed towards those who have sprung to Libby's defense. *** Judge Walton's order allowing the 12 to file their brief was short, formulaic, curt. It contained...