Obama Justice Department Sides with Cheney in Valerie Plame Case

Friday, May 22, 2009
Valerie Plame (photo: Hunter Kahn)

One day before President Barack Obama and former Vice-President Dick Cheney gave dueling speeches criticizing each other’s national security policies, the Obama administration supported Cheney in a lawsuit filed against him by former CIA agent Valerie Plame. Plame was caught up in the criticism that was directed at the Bush administration by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who publicly questioned the U.S. grounds for attacking Iraq in 2003. Plame’s identity, kept secret as part of her intelligence work, was leaked to conservative columnist Robert Novak—in an attempt to get back at Wilson, Plame has contended in a lawsuit first filed in 2006. The suit is directed at those whom Plame claims were behind her outing to Novak: Cheney; former White House senior adviser Karl Rove; former Chief of Staff to the Vice President I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr.; and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage.

 
Plame’s lawsuit has been dismissed twice by lower courts, forcing her to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Justice Department under President Barack Obama asked the high court on Wednesday not to consider Plame’s appeal, saying “further review is unwarranted.”
 
Libby was eventually convicted on charges of lying to a grand jury investigating the leak of Plame’s identity,al though he served no time in jail because President George W. Bush commuted his prison sentence.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Administration Opposes Plame Appeal (by Ben Conery, Washington Times)

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