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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...