Will Cheney be charged?

[Milo 0]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1600934

{emphasis is mine}

Cheney authorized aide to leak in CIA case: report
Reuters
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney directed his aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby to use classified material to discredit a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq war effort, the National Journal reported on Thursday.

Court papers released last week show that Libby was authorized to disclose classified information to news reporters by "his superiors," in an effort to counteract diplomat Joe Wilson's charge that the Bush administration twisted intelligence on Iraq's nuclear weapons to justify the 2003 invasion.

The National Journal, a U.S. weekly magazine, citing attorneys familiar with the matter, reported that Cheney was among those superiors referred to in a letter from prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to Libby's lawyers.

A lawyer for Cheney had no immediate comment.

Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, faces perjury and other charges in the leak of the identity of Wilson's wife Valerie Plame, a move that effectively ended her career at the

CIA.

Libby has pleaded not guilty to five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice.

Cheney's name has surfaced in other court documents as well. According to an appeals-court decision made public last Friday, "the vice-president informed Libby 'in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion"' that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA one month before her identity was made public.

Both documents cite testimony Libby made to a grand jury.

Lawyers for Libby could not be reached for comment.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Cheney's efforts to discredit Wilson could have risked national security.

"The Vice President's vindictiveness in defending the misguided war in Iraq is obvious. If he used classified information to defend it, he should be prepared to take full responsibility," Kennedy said in a statement.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to comment.

"Our policy is we're not going to discuss this while there's an ongoing legal proceeding," McClellan told reporters.

[kallend 2,148]

I expect the Attorney General will come up with some theory as to why it's all perfectly legal and necessary, just as he has every other time this administration did something shady.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[cloudseeker2001 0]

I sure hope so..........

"Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance,
others mean and rueful of the western dream"

[TheAnvil 0]

Perhaps he will. If he directed classified information to be compromised, then he most assuredly should be. If there is evidence for an indictment currently in existence, one wonders why he has not been charged.

Mentioning to a staffer a fact that was apparently commonly known to several reporters in the DC area is not in and of itself a crime, so one wonders why such a thing was even mentioned without expounding upon it. I guess the author didn't care too much for the vice president.

TeddyK on national security...lemme see here...no TeddyK comments on Mr. Berger's conviction...no TeddyK comments on finding the sonofabitch who leaked NSA information recently...no TeddyK comments on Leahy getting kicked off the Intel Committee for compromising classified info...no TeddyK comments on Johnny Huang...hot damn, but does that man have credibility or what?

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[Channman 2]

> but does that man have credibility or what?

Credibility, NO...but he does have a great set of lungs, can hold his breath better than most women.

[racer42 0]

I thought he had to be charged every night.

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[SkyDekker 1,465]

Quote

I thought he had to be charged every night.

Now, THAT is funny....

[jdhill 0]

Quote

I expect the Attorney General will come up with some theory as to why it's all perfectly legal and necessary, just as he has every other time this administration did something shady.

Let me fix this for you...

I expect the Attorney General will come up with some theory as to why it's all perfectly legal and necessary, just as he has every other time this administration all of them seem to do when their administration did something shady.

And just a reminder, Libby is not charged with leaking classified information (since it was apparently not classified), he is charged with lying about it, al la Martha Stewart... So if Cheney authorized Libby to confirm the information, was there even a crime on Cheney's part?

How do you "out" and agent who is already "out" by her own doing?

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[Andy9o8 2]

Quote

Let me fix this for you...

I expect the Attorney General will come up with some theory as to why it's all perfectly legal and necessary, just as he has every other time this administration all of them seem to do when their administration did something shady.

Not all of them.
October, 1973: During the height of Watergate, Nixon wanted to (continue to) obstruct justice by having Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox fired when he was getting too close to The Real Truth; but only the Attorney General had the legal authority to do that. So, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliott Richardson to do it. Richardson resigned rather than comply. The task then fell to his successor, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who also resigned rather than comply.

Now that’s integrity, folks.

By the way, Ruckelshaus’s successor missed the opportunity to do the morally and ethically right thing; he obeyed Nixon’s order, fired Cox, and kept his job as the newly-succeeded acting Attorney General. It has gone down in history as “The Saturday Night Massacre”.

That successor, by the way, was Robert Bork, who was later nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court by Reagan; although his confirmation was defeated. Reagan then appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals.