emptywheel Explains Again and Again and Again about Obstruction of Justice

Here’s my Guardian column explaining all the involvement of Cheney and Bush in the Plame outing–which explains why Bush didn’t want Libby to lose his ability to refuse to testify.

On June 9, 2003, just one day after his national security advisor,Condoleezza Rice, got beaten up on the Sunday shows for claiming no onein the administration knew that the Niger intelligence was bunk, GeorgeBush expressed concern about the allegations. Scooter Libby passed onthat concern to vice president Cheney. Bush’s concern set off a chainof events that ended up in the outing of a CIA spy, Valerie Plame, andthe indictment and conviction of Scooter Libby.

Yesterday, George Bush attempted to preventthat chain of events from continuing any further. He commuted ScooterLibby’s 30-month sentence. Rather than serving time in jail, Libby willremain free, with a fine and probation as the only remainingpunishments for lying and obstructing a criminal investigation. But thereal effect of Bush’s actions is to prevent Libby from revealing thetruth about Bush’s – and vice president Cheney’s – own actions in theleak. By commuting Libby’s sentence, Bush protected himself and hisvice president from potential criminal exposure for their actions inthe CIA Leak. As such, Libby’s commutation is nothing short of anotherobstruction of justice.

[snip]

There are many unanswered questions about the roles of the president,the vice president, and Libby in the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity.Did Bush really ask Libby to take the lead on all this? Did thepresident declassify Plame’s identity so Libby could leak it to thepress? Did Cheney learn – and tell Libby – that Plame was covert? Thosequestions all point squarely at Bush and Cheney personally. But becauseof Bush’s personal intervention, he has made sure that Scooter Libbywon’t be answering those questions anytime soon.

And here’s a link to my appearance on Democracy Now this morning.