Whereas President George W. Bush has failed to comply with his obligations under Executive Order 12958 concerning the protection of classified national security information in that the covert identity of Valerie Plame Wilson as a Central Intelligence Agency operative was revealed to members of the media, and in June 2003 Bush Administration officials discussed with various reporters the identity of Ms. Wilson as a covert Central Intelligence Agency operative;Can anyone explain why republican administrations break every big law under the sun and walk away without a scratch, yet a democratic president can be put all the way through the process of impeachment over testimony about something that isn't illegal? Although the rationales are many and range from brief and simple to lengthy and complex, after hearing all of them for years, I still don't get it.
Whereas on July 14, 2003, the name of Ms. Wilson and her status as a CIA operative was revealed publicly in a newspaper column by Robert Novak, and on September 16, 2003 the Central Intelligence Agency advised the Department of Justice that Ms. Wilson's status as a covert operative was classified information and requested a federal investigation;
Whereas knowingly leaking the identity of a covert agent is a criminal violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (P.L. 97-200);
Whereas Arthur Brown, former Asian Division chief of the CIA, stated that, "cover and tradecraft are the only forms of protection one has and to have that stripped away because of political scheming is the moral equivalent to exposing forward deployed military units";
Whereas Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, effectively stopped the investigation into this potentially grave national security crime by lying to FBI investigators, and Mr. Libby's perjury shielded the Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush from further inquiry;
Whereas on March 6, 2007, in U.S. District Court a jury found Mr. Libby guilty on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to FBI investigators regarding an investigation into the actions of the White House regarding leaking the identity of Ms. Wilson in retaliation for her husband's contention that the Bush administration twisted intelligence facts to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq;
Whereas on June 5, 2007, Mr. Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000;
Whereas President George W. Bush had appointed both the Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, and the US District Court Judge, Reggie Walton, who were involved in the trial of Mr. Libby;
Whereas in February 2004, President George W. Bush stated that if anyone in his Administration "has violated [the] law, that person will be taken care of";
Whereas on July 2, 2007, President Bush commuted the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison;
Whereas in commuting Mr. Libby's sentence, President Bush has finally and unalterably breached any remaining shred of trust that he had left with the American people and rewarded political loyalty while flouting the rule of law: Now, therefore let be it -
Resolved, That the United States Congress does hereby censure George W. Bush, President of the United States, and does condemn his decision to commute the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison, his unconscionable abuse of his authority with regard to the deceitful chain of events concerning the falsifying intelligence on Iraqi nuclear capabilities and the exaggeration of the threat posed by Iraq, his involvement in the clear political retaliation against former Ambassador and Ms. Wilson, and his decision to reward the perjury of Mr. Libby, which effectively protected President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other Administration officials from further scrutiny.
The solutions being suggested continue to evolve. Yesterday I saw impalement offered for the first time. How I wish I'd said that.
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Update I: Bob Geiger notes that of the 25 republican senators still in Congress who voted to impeach Bill Clinton, not one has issued a public statement about the commutation of Libby's sentence. His article rocks.
Update II: John Ponder lists Scootie-Pootie's "exceptional" career in public service:
The only thing truly exceptional about Scooter Libby is his intimate knowledge of questionable activities the president and vice president are desperate to keep secret. If this is true, then Pres. Bush pardoned Libby to buy his silence — and that is unquestionably an illegal act.AP: Libby's no stranger to executive clemency:
President Bush's commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence highlights some interesting connections between Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, a former fugitive from justice, an ex-president and two leading 2008 White House hopefuls.Ain't life stranger than fiction?
Before entering government, Libby was a private attorney who represented billionaire international commodities trader Marc Rich. Rich was indicted in 1983 by then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani on charges of tax evasion and illegal dealing with Iran during the American hostage crisis.
Rich fled to Switzerland. He also occupied a spot on the FBI's Most Wanted List.
Giuliani, former mayor of New York, is now a leading Republican presidential candidate. He endorsed Bush's decision to spare Libby jail time even though he'd tried to put Libby's client behind bars. [...]
Rich's fugitive days ended when President Clinton pardoned him in January 2001, a move that prompted a congratulatory call from Libby to Rich. The pardon raised questions about whether large donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Library by Rich's former wife, Denise, had anything to do with it.
