As you might guess, more than a few things bother me about the commuting of Scooter Libby's sentence.

It's hard to believe the President's rationale for commuting his sentence because he thought it was too harsh. As Judge Walton explained, Libby was sentenced under the United States Sentencing Guidelines of the President who appointed him - G. W ( Read more... )

Scooter Libby was found guilty of 4 of 5 charges today. That's a surprise to me: I was expecting a hung jury or at least a lot fewer charges given the amount of deliberation and the questions that were being asked by the jury last week. According to the jury:

• Libby "did knowingly and corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due ( Read more... )

In the comments on my Richard Armitage / Valerie Plame post earlier this week darwinx0r pointed out something to me that wasn't exactly hidden information, but which I didn't actually realize.

Feb 2002 : Wilson goes to Niger.
October 2, 2002 : United States Congress passes "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq ( Read more... )

darwinx0r recently pointed me to a new development in the Valerie Plame leak case.

The next day, a team of FBI agents and Justice prosecutors investigating the leak questioned the deputy secretary. Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson's wife worked on weapons-of- ( Read more... )

Former CIA Officer Sues Cheney Over LeakWASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career ( Read more... )

In October 2005 I made a bet with darwinx0r that someone (Rove, Scooter, Cheney, Bush) would be charged with "something other than obstruction of justice or the like". This morning I heard that Karl Rove wouldn't be charged in the Plame leak investigation, which I believe is Fitzgerald's only open investigation. While it's possible that more people could ( Read more... )

Hey, guess what? Bush didn't authorize anyone to leak anything secret. Bret Hume and Fox News say so, citing absolutely nothing including the text below their talking heads. Huzzah!

(I'm sure there's a much more rational explanation for why they'd just deny objective reality, but this short out-of-context clip is still completely hilarious.)

I've seen a few people say "Bush authorized the leaking of Valerie Plame's name". This is not correct.

Today Scooter Libby revealed that George Bush authorized the leak of classified portions of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Scooter also leaked Valerie Plame's covert identity, but that is not the leak that Scooter said that Bush ( Read more... )

As I understand it there are two kinds of CIA agents. Regular CIA Employees wear "CIA" nametags and drive to Langley every morning. Undercover agents operate "under cover" - they tell their families and friends that they work for agencies other than the CIA. Valerie Plame was under the cover of the Brewster Jennings companyUndercover agents can ( Read more... )

Last week Scooter Libby said he had orders to leak Valerie Plame's covert identity directly from the Vice President. Today Cheney responded to the accusation by announcing that he has the power to declassify sensitive government information based on an executive order ( Read more... )