Libby sentenced to 30 months in prison

updated 9:46 p.m. ET June 5, 2007

WASHINGTON - Lawyers for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby wrapped their client in the flag Tuesday, but the tactic didn’t work.

In the end, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said Libby’s lies in the Valerie Plame affair outweighed his public service, from the Cold War to the Iraq war.

Walton sentenced Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff to 2½ years in prison for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation — the probe that showed a White House obsessed with criticism of its decision to go to war.

Libby, the highest-ranking White House official sentenced to prison since the Iran-Contra affair, asked for leniency. There were testimonial letters from officials dating back decades. Attorney Theodore Wells told Walton that recognizing exceptional service “is not to give someone a break.”

Walton was unpersuaded. Libby was Cheney’s national security adviser, he said, and had an obligation to make sure Plame’s CIA status was in the open before talking about it with reporters.

“He surely did not make any effort to find out” whether she was covert and “for whatever reason, he chose to reveal this person’s name to several reporters,” Walton said.

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of up to three years, while Libby had asked for probation and no time in prison.

Libby’s supporters noted that he wasn’t charged with the alleged crime Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald set out to investigate, disclosing Plame’s CIA identity.

'Simply irrational'
Walton, his voice rising, told Libby’s legal team that the CIA believed disclosure was a serious matter, the Justice Department opened an investigation, Libby lied to investigators “and you seem to be saying” none of that should apply at sentencing.

Said Libby attorney William Jeffress: “To have this sentenced as if there was an offense of murder is simply irrational.”

Walton’s verdict: “Mr. Libby failed to meet the bar. For whatever reason, he got off course.”

No date was set immediately for Libby to report to prison.

Reaction from the White House was still supportive of Libby — but somber.

President Bush, traveling in Europe, said through a spokesman that he “felt terrible for the family,” especially Libby’s wife and children. Libby and his wife, Harriet Grant, have two school-age children, a son and a daughter.

Cheney said he hoped his former top aide would prevail on appeal.

Libby did not apologize and has maintained his innocence.

“It is respectfully my hope that the court will consider, along with the jury verdict, my whole life,” he said in brief remarks in court before the sentencing, his first public statement about the case since his indictment in 2005.

A Republican stalwart, he drew more than 150 letters of support from military commanders and diplomats who praised his government service from the Cold War through the early days of the Iraq war.

He was convicted in March of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters about Plame. Fitzgerald questioned Bush and Cheney in a probe that became a symbol of the administration’s deepening problems.

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