Fitzgerald returned to Chicago and his full-time duties as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, where he cemented his reputation for tackling tough, politically charged cases. In 2008, he announced that a Chicago grand jury had indicted former Chicago police commander Jon Burge on three counts of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying about his role in widespread torture of suspects over an extended period dating from the 1970s. Allegations that Burge had used electric shock, burning, and Russian roulette to extract guilty pleas from suspects led Illinois to suspend the death penalty and evaluate the conviction of every inmate on death row, leading to thirteen being exonerated. Then-governor George Ryan commuted all death sentences before being convicted and going to jail himself, thanks to Fitzgerald’s investigation. The statute of limitations had expired for Burge’s alleged crimes, but Fitzgerald investigated him for perjury after he testified in a civil suit that he neither used torture nor knew about it. He was convicted of all counts in June 2010.
Fitzgerald has also overseen the investigation, wiretaps, and subsequent indictment of then–Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who was charged with soliciting bribery and mail and wire fraud for trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated when Barack Obama was elected president. A wiretap captured Blagojevich stating that a Senate seat “is a fucking valuable thing. You don’t just give it away for nothing,” a remark that prompted Fitzgerald to say that “Lincoln would roll over in his grave.” Fitzgerald had Blagojevich arrested on December 9, 2008, with the investigation still pending, to prevent the governor from further corrupting the selection process. Blagojevich was subsequently impeached and removed as governor.
After two weeks of deliberations, on August 17, 2010, a divided jury convicted Blagojevich on just one of twenty-four counts–making false statements to the FBI. The
Wall Street Journal
editorial page seized on the result to deliver a scathing critique of Fitzgerald:
The Fitzgerald method is to abuse the legal process to poison media and public opinion against high-profile, unsympathetic political targets. . . . Mr. Fitzgerald implied that Mr. Libby had obstructed his investigation into who leaked the former CIA analyst’s name, even though he knew from the start that the real “leaker” was Richard Armitage.
Somehow Fitzgerald found time to get engaged. He married Jennifer Letzkus, a Head Start teacher in Chicago, in June 2008.
R
ichard Armitage remains the head of Armitage International, the consulting firm he founded after leaving the State Department, focusing on international business development and strategic planning.
Fighting back tears as he appeared with President Bush on the White House lawn, Karl Rove announced his resignation from the White House on August 13, 2007. He later said he’d begun to think of leaving the day Fitzgerald told him he was cleared in the Plame investigation. He said he’d offered to resign in the summer of 2006, but that Bush had waved off the idea and told him they’d walk out together on January 20, 2009.
Despite Bush’s earlier insistence that he would fire anyone involved, the president never publicly rebuked Rove for his role or took any other action. He never again mentioned the phone call in which Rove had assured him the subject of Wilson’s wife hadn’t even come up in Novak’s call, and that he hadn’t been involved in leaking her identity. The president never responded to Fitzgerald’s letter laying out the evidence that had nearly led to his indictment.
After leaving the White House, Rove joined Fox News as a commentator and began writing a weekly column for the
Wall Street Journal
. His memoir,
Courage and Consequence
, was published in 2010. In it he recalls that at a formal dinner in 2007, Colin Powell said there was someone he wanted Rove to meet, and introduced Richard Armitage. “Powell laughed and grinned broadly as Armitage and I awkwardly shook hands and said hello.” These were Rove’s concluding words on the Plame affair:
On November 4, 2005, I cut from the newspaper a photo of Scooter Libby and his wife in the backseat of a car on the way to his arraignment. I put it in my home desk drawer. I have looked at it frequently in the years since so as not to forget that moment. But for the work of a brilliant lawyer in unraveling and ending the quixotic obsession of a special prosecutor, there went I.
Libby now works for the Hudson Institute, which he joined in January 2006 as senior adviser, even before he went to trial. His lengthy Hudson Institute biography makes no mention of his trial or conviction. It does cite “Twilight of the Arabs: The Contest for Leadership in the Muslim World,” which Libby coauthored, and which appeared in the
Weekly Standard
in February 2010. The article contains renewed warnings of the dangers of weapons of mass destruction and the need for U.S. engagement with Arab nations.
T
he case of
United States v. I. Lewis Libby
was filled with ironies. Novak’s sources, Armitage and Rove, were never charged with any crime, although the FBI investigators were unanimous that they should have been. Fitzgerald, vocally criticized by Libby supporters as overzealous, could, if anything, be faulted for being overly cautious. He was scrupulously fair-minded, never disclosing anything about the evidence amassed on Rove and Armitage. In the end the only person involved who served any time in jail was not someone who leaked, but Judith Miller, a reporter. Perhaps the greatest irony is that Libby leaked Plame’s identity and mounted a sophisticated campaign to refute what he believed were falsehoods leveled by Joseph Wilson. Libby insisted that all he and the vice president ever wanted was to get the truth out. And then he himself lied, repeatedly and under oath. To combat what he thought was a lie, he leaked–and then repeatedly lied about it.
It is tempting to think that had Novak never written his column outing Plame none of this would have happened. But then Matt Cooper might have gotten his “double super secret background” scoop, and it might have run in
Time
magazine, not just the online edition. The same furor might well have ensued. The White House and State Department leaks may not have been an orchestrated campaign, but there were so many that eventually Plame’s identity was sure to have been exposed, which is presumably what Libby, Rove, Armitage, and Fleischer wanted.
Is it possible that Libby was innocent? There can be no doubt he leaked Plame’s identity in an effort to discredit Wilson. But could he have forgotten all those times that someone other than Tim Russert told him about Wilson’s wife? Is it possible Tim Russert did tell Libby about Plame and that “all the reporters” knew about her?
Libby continues to maintain his innocence, and Ted Wells, his lawyer, says he believes him. But Libby’s testimony was not about memory loss. In contrast to that of his boss, Vice President Cheney, or Rove or even Armitage, Libby had excellent recall of many events, even small details. He didn’t say he couldn’t remember whether he told any reporters about Wilson’s wife or he didn’t remember how he’d heard about her or even, when confronted at the very beginning with the fact that Russert didn’t back his story, that he might have simply gotten confused. Had he done so–even if he had simply taken the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer–he would never have been charged.
Instead, Libby created a parallel universe in which he professed he was certain about what had happened, a detailed narrative that conveniently absolved him from any responsibility for wrongdoing. In this he flagrantly violated the most fundamental rule of lying: stick as close to the truth as possible. Clumsy though they may have been, in this regard Martha Stewart and Peter Bacanovic were far more proficient. By inventing a fanciful conversation with Tim Russert–a conversation no one could corroborate–Libby left his defense lawyers a near-impossible task. In many ways Fitzgerald didn’t want to indict Libby, and Comey picked him in part because Fitzgerald had the independence and credibility not to file charges if none were warranted. But Libby’s lies were so flagrant he left the prosecutor with no choice short of dereliction of duty.
By contrast, both Rove and Armitage, whose leaks found their way into Novak’s column, narrowly escaped prosecution by withholding information and then claiming lack of memory. Did Armitage really forget his interview with Bob Woodward? And Rove his leak to Cooper? Did Rove forget what he told the president of the United States, or did he lie, as Bush’s testimony suggests? Without a trial of either, we’re left to draw our own conclusions. But the FBI agents most familiar with the case thought they had lied and should have been charged. Fitzgerald declined to do so because he felt he couldn’t meet the burden of proof, which is different from believing them to be innocent. His letter to President Bush made clear that he thought there should be consequences from their at best reckless disclosures and evasive testimony.
P
erhaps, at the time, saying he learned about Wilson’s wife from Tim Russert seemed like a small, even inconsequential lie. If so, it had vast consequences. It unleashed a chain of events that sent Judy Miller to jail and ended her career at the
Times
. Perhaps these events were the metaphorical “roots” that connected the aspen trees in Libby’s letter to Miller. Libby must have known her testimony would help convict him. If so, urging her to testify so she could leave prison was a decent thing for Libby to do, something also in keeping with his character. But there’s no escaping that he was the cause of her confinement.
Fitzgerald had never wanted a press showdown, but the case ended up being disastrous for the press, both in its immediate consequences and in the case law that emerged. Journalists will no doubt continue to debate the merits of the
Time
’s resistance and other organizations’ cooperation with Fitzgerald. But with benefit of hindsight, Judy Miller should never have gone to jail. She and the press lost resoundingly in the court of public opinion. It seems safe to say the press won’t get a shield law on the terms it wants from Congress. The legal opinion of even the judge most favorable to the press made clear that courts will never give journalists the absolute privilege from testifying they want, no matter what they promise their sources. News organizations have already reacted by limiting confidentiality agreements. Despite some of the dire warnings from absolutists in the press, leaks have continued apace, including masses of confidential documents on the war in Afghanistan. But who knows how many stories have gone unpublished? The magnitude of the effect on news gathering remains to be seen and may prove impossible to measure, but it has to have had a chilling effect. For that, reporters and the public that relies on them for information have Scooter Libby to thank.
Given the secrecy of the CIA’s covert operations, it’s impossible to assess what damage the leak of Plame’s identity inflicted on the CIA, current or former covert agents, or any ongoing operations. The CIA has declined to discuss any repercussions. Still, a dozen CIA agents wrote a letter to Bush urging him not to pardon Libby, arguing that he had committed an irreparable breach of security.
Libby’s conviction was also a further blow to the already weakened credibility of the Bush administration and further undermined public confidence in government. It’s true, as both Fitzgerald and Wells argued, that the evidence in the case sheds no light on the merits of the Iraq War. It doesn’t explain the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. It doesn’t prove there was a coordinated effort to “smear” Joe Wilson directed by the vice president or other high-ranking officials. It didn’t even explain who really sent Joe Wilson to Africa or why his conclusions were ignored. But the charges against Libby did show a dispiriting willingness to lie–repeatedly and under oath–at the highest levels of the government. If Libby lied about Plame, who else in the White House lied, and about what?
Armitage’s and Rove’s behavior, whether criminal or not, does not inspire any confidence. The bar for service at the highest levels of government should not be so low that it excludes only those who commit crimes that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Bush should have fired Rove as soon as his role in the leaks became clear, not to mention that Rove lied to the president, if Bush’s memory of their conversation is correct. Bush’s failure to do so after saying he’d fire anyone involved in the leak exposed rank hypocrisy at the highest level, a disregard for truth hardly overcome by his refusal to pardon Libby. Armitage at least had the decency to submit his resignation. Colin Powell should have accepted it immediately.
In light of this sorry spectacle, could anyone be blamed for being cynical about the integrity of government officials? The loss in public confidence is incalculable.
Perhaps no one made this point more forcefully than former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who had publicly exonerated both Rove and Libby. In his 2008 memoir,
What Happened
, he acknowledged that in doing so,
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in doing so: Rove, Libby, Vice President Cheney, Andrew Card, and the president himself. . . . Top White House officials who knew the truth . . . allowed me to repeat a lie.
The goal was to prevent political embarrassment that might hurt the president and weaken his bid for re-election in November 2004. The motive was understandable, but the behavior was wrong–and ultimately self-defeating. And, in retrospect, it was all too characteristic of an administration that, too often, chose in defining moments to employ obfuscation and secrecy rather than honesty and candor.