Title: Vice President Chief of Staff and Special Assistant to the President
Overview: At the time of his resignation, Scooter Libby was Vice President Cheney's right hand, serving as both chief of staff and national security advisor. He is embroiled in the leak of a CIA agent's name, part of an orchestrated attack on a political opponent.
Background and Education: Libby (22 Aug 1955) was a junior member of the "The Vulcans" - Bush's self-named core national security team which included Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Cheney, current Secretary of State Rice and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. While an undergrad at Yale, he studied political science with Wolfowitz. After Yale, he attended Columbia Law School and then practiced law in Philadelphia before joining the Reagan State Department.
Career : Libby went from the State Department to the George H.W. Bush Defense Department. In between, he served as legal advisor to the Cox Committee (House Committee on US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China). In 1992, while working for then-Defense Secretary Cheney, Libby co-wrote (with Wolfowitz) a draft document which argued for pre-emptive force; when leaked to the NYTimes, it was opposed by Administrationn moderates.
Controversy: Libby is the first active White House staff member to be indicted while in office since 1875, in the Grant Administration.
The controversy is laid out in a 22-page indictment issued on 28 October by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald alleges that Libby leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame to a series of reporters and then lied to the FBI and grand jury when questioned. The indictment indicates that Cheney told Libby that Plame was a classified CIA employee.
What The Charges Mean: Libby is charged with making false statements, obstruction of justice and perjury -- felonies with a combined maximum of 30 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines. At the time of his regignation, President Nixon was being investigated for obstruction of justice in the Watergate break-in. Recently, Martha Stewart was convicted of obstruction of justice, among other things. Obstruction of justice is any kind of interference in an investigation.
What Others Say : He did "for the vice president what the vice president does for the president. He's exceedingly analytical, detailed, strategic, bright; and he's discreet." -- Mary Matalin, friend and former Cheney counseler
"Scooter has worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people and sacrificed much in the service to this country." -- President Bush
"Scooter has worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people and sacrificed much in the service to this country." -- President Bush
Associations: Libby is a founding member of the Project for the New American Century, a group that advocated preemptive defense policies and war in Iraq long before 9-11-2001; other signatories include Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
