Lets say I have been on another planet for a few years. Please explain what the scooter libby scandal is all about, how its started, what libby did, what was the charge brought against him etc.
2007-03-16 09:23:42 · 9 answers · asked by danzahn 5 in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
Scooter Libby has four felony's for obstruction of justice and lying under oath. This was over yellow cake and WMD's that were never located in Iraq.
2007-03-16 09:28:29 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
George Bush used forged documents to justify his war. George Wilson was sent by the CIA to verify the documents. He couldn't. Bush and Co were so outraged that someone told the truth about them, that they decided to bring Joe Wilson down by destroying his wife's career. This was a warning to all other administration critics. Now, you can't just declare to the world that a covert agent is a covert agent, so the admin, libby, armitage, and others, called reporters they knew and told them.
The CIA said they didn't like their covert agents being outed - and this one was helping collect loose nukes in the world (another story, visitor, end of cold war.) So, the CIA asked for an investigation. Bush, altho he approved it, said he'd fire anyone he leaked the info. Special Prosecutor appointed to investigate. Libby lies to the FBI in the course of this investigation.
Lying is an attempt to obstruct justice, so he was charged with lying, perjury, and attempting to obstruct justice. Now, the administration is trying to balance pardoning him so he doesn't placate his very angry wife by turning on the people who threw him to the wolves with not outraging the american people.
2007-03-16 16:30:10 · answer #2 · answered by cassandra 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Here is the whole story.
9/11 happened.
Bush and Cheney immediately wanted to blame it on Iraq, but intelligence told them Iraq had nothting to do with it.
Bush decided to go to war with Iraq and instead of blaming 9/11 on them, he decided to blame it on WMD. He needed evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Italian intelligence came up with a document indicating that Saddam had tried to purchase a large amount of uranium from Niger.
Rove put a 16 word statement in the 2003 State of the Union Address stating that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger.
The CIA, while vetting the speech, told the White House that that bit of intelligence was very unreliable and the Niger document was forged.
Bush kept the statement in teh SOTU address anyway.
We went to war.
The CIA decided to investigate the claim about the uranium sales. They chose Joe Wilson, who was a former ambassador with a lot of government contacts in Africa, to go over to Niger and ask around about these uranium sales.
Wilson found no such evidence. Nobody knows what happened to his report – did anyone in the White House ever see it?
Joe Wilson wrote an op-ed piece in the NY Times challenging the SOTU address and saying he found no evidence of attempted uranium purchases by Saddam.
Dick Cheney got pissed off at Wilson and wanted to discredit his story. He told his chief of staff, I Louis "Scooter" Libby that Wilson’s wife was in the CIA and she might have been responsible for sending her husband on the trip. This information was either seen as somehow discrediting Wilson, or was meant to ruin her career as a covert agent, but nobody knows for sure if Cheney knew she was a covert agent, even though she had a cover story that she worked for some other consulting firm and nobody every publicly knew she worked for the CIA
Libby started calling news people all over the place telling them that Libby wife worked at the CIA.
Robert Novak wrote a column in which he stated that Wilson’s wife, Valery Plame, was a CIA operative.
The shoot hit the fan.
An investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA agent was undertaken.
A NY times reporter went to jail for contempt for several months because she would not testify.
Libby testified that he heard the information from Tim Russert at NBC news.
Russert testified that he heard it from Libby.
Several others testified that they heard the news from Libby before he claimed he heard it from Russert.
Libby was charged with perjury.
He was tried and convicted.
Ta da!
2007-03-16 16:44:57 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Scooter Libby was approached during a federal investigation, and asked certain questions. Some of those were asked under oath. Scooter apparently lied, including lying under oath,
Scooter was charged with violation of 18 USC 1001 (perjury before congress, two counts), 18 USC 1503 (interfering with an official investigation, aka obstruction of justice), and 18 USC 1623 (perjury before a grand jury, two counts).
He was convicted of obstruction, both counts of perjury before congress, and one of the two counts of perjury before a grand jury.
The specific target of the investigation and whether any underlying crimes were committed are irrelevant to his charges, which refer only to his conduct during the investigation.
2007-03-16 16:28:55 · answer #4 · answered by coragryph 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
He lied to the Grand Jury about who told him the name of a covert CIA agent. Therefor the person that violated their security clearance (need-to-know basis) in telling Libby her name went free.
2007-03-16 16:32:08 · answer #5 · answered by Chi Guy 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Several high ranking democrats found out that he was a member of the republican party. In their opinion, that is enough to prosecute anyone.
2007-03-16 16:28:34 · answer #6 · answered by merlins_new_apprentice 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
He would have been better off to put $90,000 in the freezer
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5423211&ft=1&f=1003
2007-03-16 16:30:00 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Who cares. The left says one thing and the right says something else.
2007-03-16 16:27:24 · answer #8 · answered by az 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Its really quite boring
2007-03-16 16:26:06 · answer #9 · answered by Samantha 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋