Scooter Libby sentenced to 2 1/2 years in CIA leak case

WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Tuesday 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.\nI. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the highest-ranking White House official sentenced to prison since the Iran-Contra affair, asked for leniency, but a federal judge said he would not reward someone who hindered the investigation into the exposure of a CIA operative. The operative’s husband had accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war.\nNo date was set immediately for Libby to report to prison.\n“Mr. Libby failed to meet the bar. For whatever reason, he got off course,” said U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton.\nSpecial Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who spent years investigating the case, said, “We need to make the statement that the truth matters ever so much.” He had asked for a sentence of up to three years, while Libby had asked for probation and no time in prison.\nReaction from the White House was still supportive, but somber.\nPresident 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.\nCheney said he hoped his former top aide would prevail on appeal.\nLibby did not apologize and has maintained his innocence.\n“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.\nA 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.\nHe was convicted in March of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters about CIA official Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald questioned Bush and Cheney in a probe that became a symbol of the administration’s deepening problems. \n“Mr. Libby was the poster child for all that has gone wrong in this terrible war,” defense attorney Theodore Wells said. “He has fallen from public grace. It is a tragic fall, a tragic fall.”\nCheney, looking to Libby’s appeal, said, “Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man.”\nDefense attorneys sought to have the sentence delayed until appeals run out. A delay also would give Bush more time to consider calls from Libby’s allies to pardon the longtime aide.\nWalton said he saw no reason to put the sentence on hold but agreed to consider it. He scheduled a hearing for a week from Thursday.\nLibby and Fitzgerald left court without speaking to reporters.\nAmong Libby’s supporting letter writers were former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.\nLibby’s attorneys noted that Fitzgerald never charged anyone with leaking Plame’s identity, including former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage or White House political adviser Karl Rove, the original sources of the leak.