Plame Scandal Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Valerie Plame

Who did it involve?  Lewis “Scooter” Libby  Valerie Plame - Wilson  Joe Wilson

What?  Followed a series of events including of a ‘cover up’ of reason to start a war with Sadaam.  End of Gulf War  Accusations of “Yellow Cake” (Radioactive uranium)  An,d of course, the “Plame Scandal”

Let’s “break it down”  When the Bush Administration was preparing for war with Iraq a letter was released to the press that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. The letter was supposedly from the Iraqis seeking to purpose yellowcake (radioactive uranium) from Niger.

“Lucyy you got some splainin’ to do…  The State Department sent a career diplomat, Joe Wilson, to Niger to check out the story and he quickly determined the letter was a forgery.  Dick Cheney refused to listen to the report, insisting instead that war with Iraq was essential.  When he couldn't get anyone in the administration to understand they were preparing for the wrong war, Wilson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he laid out his case that the Iraq story about nuclear weapons was bogus.

Just keep - a - goin’  Furious, (with the op-ed) Cheney and his subordinates, including Lewis “Scooter” Libby, set out to discredit Wilson and destroy his career.  They dismissed his findings and suggested he had an agenda since his wife worked at the CIA. His wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert operative.  By revealing that she worked for the CIA, Cheney and his subordinates effectively ended her covert career and nearly put everyone she had ever worked with in danger.

Why did this have to happen?  Ridiulous but true… ~ To cover up the lie of reasons to go to war… Which was… yup… this stuff.  

Result:  Patrick Fitzgerald (Special Counselman - Prosecuter) indicted Libby on five counts:  ~ One count of obstruction of justice  ~ Two counts of making false statements when interviewed by agents of the FBI  ~ Two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury  (October 28, 2005)

Five counts… that’s rough… wha’d he get?  Libby pleaded “Not guilty” on all 5 accounts and was later (March 6, 2007) acquitted for on the second count of ‘making a false statement’. So in the end he was convicted of two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.  Libby could have served up to 25 years in federal prison and had to pay a fine of one million dollars but instead the judge, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to:

Sentence:  ~ 30 months in prison  ~ $250,000 fine  ~ 2 years probation after prison sentence expires  ~ 400 hours of community service

He knew some powerful people…  Cheney tried to get him a lesser sentence saying, according to CNN; "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."  In the end Bush made it so the fine was still in place, as well as the probation and community service but the jail sentence was taken off, saying: "...the Scooter Libby decision was, I thought, a fair and balanced decision."

Where was Plame in all this?  Plame filed a case against four Bush administration officials saying she felt like she’d been “Hit in the gut” – and according to NBC she said; "My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior government officials in both the White house and the State Department"

Where is Plame now?  Her cover details were not released or how badly she was exposed.  However she resigned from the CIA in December of 2005.