Jun 14, 2007 2:58 pm US/Eastern
Judge Refuses To Delay Libby Sentence
WASHINGTON (CBS News) ―
A U.S. judge said Thursday he will not delay a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney in the CIA leak case, a ruling that could send I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to prison within weeks.
District Judge Reggie B. Walton's decision will send Libby's attorneys rushing to an appeals court to block the sentence and could force President Bush to consider calls from Libby's supporters to pardon him.
No date was set for Libby to report to prison but it is expected to be within six to eight weeks. That decision will be left up to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which will also select a facility.
"Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report," Walton said.
Libby's new appellate lawyer, Lawrence Robbins, focused his argument on whether there are close questions in this case which warrant appellate review, reports CBS News Justice Department producer Deirdre Hester. His argument focused primarily on the legitimacy of Fitzgerald's appointment as special prosecutor.
Walton's remarks signaled he was not sold on the defense's arguments, Hester says. He especially discounted the support Libby got last week from 12 constitutional law professors.
"The fact that law professors put this out there is not convincing to me," Walton said. He said he thought the sole reason this was filed was for the purpose of putting their names out there in connection with this case.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, is the highest ranking government official ordered to prison since the Iran Contra arms scandal in the 1980s. His monthlong trial offered a rare glimpse into the White House in the early days of the Iraq war.
Trial testimony showed that Cheney was eager to beat back criticism of prewar intelligence. One of the administration's most outspoken critics in mid-2003 was former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Amid a flurry of news coverage of that criticism, Bush administration officials leaked to reporters that fact that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked as an undercover analyst for CIA. That disclosure in a syndicated newspaper column touched off a leak investigation that brought senior White House officials, including the president and vice president, in for questioning.
As Walton ruled, Libby's wife, Harriet Grant, wiped tears away from her eyes but Libby was stoic.
Libby was convicted in March of lying to investigators and obstructing Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's inquiry into the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity.
The judge's ruling ups the pressure on President Bush to decide if he'll grant an early pardon to Libby, CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports. The last time Mr. Bush was asked about it, last week in Germany, he said the appeals process was under way and it wouldn't be appropriate for him to discuss it. But that's when it was thought Libby would not be jailed before an appeal was heard.
"Scooter Libby still has the right to appeal, and therefore the president will continue not to intervene in the judicial process," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said after Thursday's ruling. "The president feels terribly for Scooter, his wife and their young children, and all that they're going through."
Walton never appeared to waiver from his opinion that a delay was unwarranted. After 12 prominent law professors filed documents supporting Libby's request, the judge waived it off as "not something I would expect from a first-year (student) in law school."
He also said he received several "angry, harassing, mean-spirited" letters and phone calls following his sentencing but said they wouldn't factor into his decision.
Libby argued he had a good chance of persuading an appeals court that, when Attorney General John Ashcroft and other senior Justice Department officials recused themselves from the leak investigation, they gave Fitzgerald unconstitutional and unchecked authority.
Walton was skeptical, saying the alternative was to put someone with White House ties in charge of an investigation into the highest levels of the Bush administration.
"If that's going to be how we have to operate, our system is going to be in serious trouble with the average Joe on the street who thinks the system is unfair already," Walton said.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
