Cheney Might Be Wishing for a Libby Pardon

by Jacob G. Hornberger

I wonder if Vice President Cheney is wishing that President Bush had pardoned Scooter Libby before Libby’s criminal trial started. Libby is charged with false statements and perjury as part of the federal investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent.

In a report on the trial last Friday, the New York Times reported:

“In an intriguing but unexplored exchange with a prosecutor, Peter Zeidenberg, Ms. Bond also said that Mr. Libby had acknowledged in one of the interviews that he might have talked to Mr. Cheney aboard Air Force Two about whether to tell the press about Ms. Wilson as part of the effort to rebut Mr. Wilson’s criticisms.”

Yet, the same article reports the following interesting tidbit:

“On Thursday jurors also saw videotape from July 2003 showing Scott McClellan, then the White House press secretary, telling reporters that Mr. Libby had no involvement in the leak of Ms. Wilson’s name. Mr. McClellan had initially declined to do so, but was ordered by Mr. Cheney to provide the same exculpatory comments he had given earlier for Mr. Rove.”

Well, well, well!

That means that if Cheney and Libby were in fact discussing whether to tell the press about Ms. Wilson (Valerie Plame), then Cheney had to know that Libby was in fact discussing Plame with the press. But if that’s the case, then if Cheney did in fact order Scott McClellan to say that Libby had no involvement in the leak of Plame’s name, as McClellan has testified, that means that Cheney was telling McClellan to lie to the press and the American people.

Imagine that: another sitting vice president of the United States lying. Keep that in mind as the U.S. bombs start falling on the Iranian people.

It seems to me given the overwhelming evidence at the trial showing that Libby did lie about how he acquired Plame’s identity and to whom he released it, Libby is going to have to take the witness stand to establish his “poor memory” defense. If so, there could be some very interesting revelations about Dick Cheney’s role in the Plame affair during cross-examination.

Moreover, the trial could get even more interesting if Libby follows through with his plan to summon the vice president to the witness stand, where he will have to testify under oath, under penalty of perjury, and be subjected to the rigors of cross examination.

Like I say, I wonder if Cheney is wishing that Bush had pardoned Libby a long time ago.

P.S. For an interesting analysis on Cheney’s discomfort over the Libby trial, see Frank Rich’s article in the Sunday New York Times (subscription required), “Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up,” in which Rich states, “Mr. Cheney, in other words, understands the danger this trial poses to the White House even as some of Washington remains oblivious.”

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.