June 6, 2007: Legal Analysts: Cheney’s Public Support for Libby ‘Troubling’

Legal analysts call Vice President Dick Cheney’s publicly expressed desire for convicted felon Lewis Libby (see March 6, 2007) to be freed “unusual” and “troubling.” They note that while Cheney and President Bush are friends and former colleages of Libby, they are also officials sworn to uphold the law and run the branch of government that prosecuted Libby. “It’s a disappointment whenever a person who occupies a high office and takes an oath doesn’t respond to a demonstrated serious criminal event in a serious governmental way,” says former Iran-Contra prosecutor John Barrett. “It’s an adversary process and I understand the personal dimension, but the United States is the side of the case that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are on. Those are their jobs.” Attorney Lance Cole, who worked with Democrats on the Senate Whitewater Committee, says, “Libby’s lies derailed the investigation, and Cheney’s role has never been fully explained; the comments of the president and especially the vice president are troubling in this context” (see May 25, 2007). Presidential scholar Stanley Kutler, author of The Wars of Watergate, a famous book on the Watergate scandal, says Cheney’s statement is unusual in a historical content. “I know of no time in Watergate where someone who was convicted got the warm embrace of those in power,” Kutler says. He calls allegations that Libby’s political activity was unfairly criminalized “spurious.” [Associated Press, 6/6/2007]