I Lewis Libby

Former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby faces the prospect of becoming the first high-level White House official to go to prison since the Nixon administration, after a federal judge sentenced him Tuesday to serve 2 1/2 years for perjury and obstruction of justice. Though numerous public officials have been investigated, charged and even convicted in the three decades since Watergate, they almost always have avoided prison by appeal, plea bargain or pardon.

President Bush wiped away the prison sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on Monday, calling it an "excessive" punishment for a "first-time offender with years of exceptional public service." On the day that Libby's last bid to stay out of prison was rejected by an appeals court, Bush said he had decided to act -- not by pardoning Libby of his crime, but by commuting his 30-month sentence.

The verdict in the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial was more than a judgment against one of the Bush administration's most senior aides: It was also seen as an indictment of the White House political operation he helped design and direct. And it undermined the administration's credibility at a time when the president is trying to build support for his Iraq war policy in the face of increasingly outspoken opposition from Democrats and deepening skepticism among voters.

Experts in national security law say a decision by President Bush to authorize the leak of classified information to a reporter probably would not be illegal. But if Bush did so -- as a former top White House aide has testified he did -- there could be significant damage to the credibility of a president who has repeatedly and publicly expressed his abhorrence of leaks.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney whose sentence for lying and obstructing justice in the CIA leak case was commuted by President Bush last summer, has dropped his legal appeal.

The guilty verdicts Tuesday against former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby made him the first high-level White House official convicted of a crime since the Iran-Contra scandal 20 years ago, and marked the latest fallout from the administration's handling of the run-up to the war in Iraq. Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was found guilty by a jury on four of five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice and faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.

By his own account, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was a very busy man on July 10, 2003. That day, according to his calendar, he had a senior staff meeting; an intelligence briefing with his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney; a CIA briefing; and lunch with Cheney and then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

Jury selection in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby turned into an assessment of the credibility of the Bush administration Tuesday, with lawyers for the former White House aide asking potential jurors how they feel about the war in Iraq and whether they think present and former administration officials who may be called to testify can be believed.

Seven critics of the Bush administration and the Iraq war were approved as potential jurors in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby after they said they could set those feelings aside. But two members of the jury pool were dismissed when they said their strong opposition to the administration might color their deliberations in the CIA leak trial.

The prosecutor took a more aggressive stance and jury selection slowed so much Thursday in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby that the judge postponed opening statements until Tuesday. Libby, a former aide to President Bush and chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is charged with perjury and obstruction of the investigation into the disclosure in 2003 of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Her husband, ex-ambassador Joseph C.

It is being described as a full-court, all-out campaign, waged in the last days of the Bush administration by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, to get President Bush to grant a full pardon to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The effort failed, but the snub by the Texas Lone Ranger has left Cheney furious. The New York Daily News quoted a Cheney associate as saying that Cheney "tried to make it happen right up until the very end," pressing his case in many conversations, both in person and on the phone.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney whose sentence for lying and obstructing justice in the CIA leak case was commuted by President Bush last summer, has dropped his legal appeal.

There were questions about Segway scooters, Scooter the Muppet and a child's toy scooter. But Patrick J. Fitzgerald drolly dodged questions about the one scooter everyone was curious about during his guest appearance on National Public Radio's quiz show "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!"

In an unusual expression of frustration, the judge who sentenced former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to 30 months in jail, only to see the sentence commuted by President Bush, said he was "perplexed" by the act of clemency. In his first public comments on the matter, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton took issue with Bush's statement that the prison sentence ordered for Libby last month was "excessive."

The White House exchanged volleys Thursday with President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), over the question of executive clemency, with each side accusing the other of unpardonable acts. Twice on Thursday the White House challenged criticism that the Clintons had directed at President Bush's commutation Monday of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence.

In commuting the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, President Bush said that the former vice presidential aide had suffered enough and that the 30-month prison term ordered up by a federal judge was "excessive." But records show that the Justice Department under the Bush administration frequently has sought sentences that are as long, or longer, in cases similar to Libby's.

With his decision to keep I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from going to prison, President Bush has provoked a firestorm of controversy but avoided what might have been even more damaging to his presidency: defections of Republican loyalists who are among the last to support the beleaguered White House. Libby's fate had become a cause celebre among conservative GOP activists, even as the public overwhelmingly opposed a presidential pardon.

President Bush wiped away the prison sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on Monday, calling it an "excessive" punishment for a "first-time offender with years of exceptional public service." On the day that Libby's last bid to stay out of prison was rejected by an appeals court, Bush said he had decided to act -- not by pardoning Libby of his crime, but by commuting his 30-month sentence.

For years he was known as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and assistant to President Bush. On Wednesday, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby became federal inmate No. 28301-016. Libby, who was convicted in March of lying and obstructing an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity, has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. The assignment of an inmate number by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons represents another step on the road to prison.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby moved a step closer to a prison cell Thursday when a federal judge refused to delay his sentence while he appeals his conviction on perjury and obstruction charges in the CIA leak case. Lawyers for the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney said they would file emergency papers in the hope of overturning the ruling by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton that denied bail for Libby.