From the AP:

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame is trying to resurrect a lawsuit against those in the Bush administration she says illegally disclosed her identity.

A federal judge dismissed Plame's lawsuit last year, saying there was no basis to bring a case. Plame's lawyers asked a federal appeals court Friday to send the case back before the judge and force him to consider its merits....

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case, saying the law requires Plame's complaints be raised under the Privacy Act. Plame's attorneys say that law is insufficient. They asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to send the case back to Bates for reconsideration.

Details about the suit here, which was originally filed way back in July of 2006.

Who says that Scooter Libby is going unpunished?

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was disbarred from practicing law in the nation's capital on Thursday.

I Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted to lying to a grand jury and investigators last year.

The former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney was convicted last year of lying to a grand jury and federal agents probing the leak of the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson.

"When a member of the Bar is convicted of an offense involving moral turpitude, disbarment is mandatory," the District of Columbia Court of Appeals wrote in its opinion, which is posted on its Web site.

It's all part of the president's "measured" approach to Libby's commutation. Sure, Libby won't have to serve that 30 month jail sentence. But the remaining punishments (the bother of reporting to a probation officer, the inconvenience of disbarment, that $250,000 fine) are "harsh."

The president's commutation saved Scooter Libby from the terrible excess of a 30-month jail sentence. But it looks like Libby has resigned himself to accepting the injustice of the fine, probation, and felony conviction that will remain with him always. Breaking from the AP:

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is dropping his appeal in the CIA leak case, his attorney said Monday....

"We remain firmly convinced of Mr. Libby's innocence," attorney Theodore Wells said. "However, the realities were, that after five years of government service by Mr. Libby and several years of defending against this case, the burden on Mr. Libby and his young family of continuing to pursue his complete vindication are too great to ask them to bear."

Update: Back in July, after the president's commutation, then-spokesman Tony Snow refused to discuss the Valerie Plame leak at all because Libby's case was still on appeal. After Libby's appeals were exhausted, he said, "we'll deal with it." Well, no time like the present!

Excerpts from that press briefing are below.

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Just off the wires is that the judge overseeing Valerie Plame's suit against the White House has dismissed the case:

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments. Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove and former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

In his first public remarks since President Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison term, Judge Reggie Walton said he was "perplexed" by the president's belief that Walton's sentence was "excessive."

Walton, a Bush appointee to the D.C. district court, wrote yesterday in a court filing that while he doesn't question Bush's constitutional authority to commute prison sentences, Libby's 30-month sentence was "consistent with the bottom end of the applicable sentencing range as properly calculated under the United States Sentencing Guidelines." Underscoring his displeasure with the commutation -- which calls his professionalism into question -- Walton referenced Alberto Gonzales's June 1 statement that sentencing guidelines should be considered "a minimum for judges, not merely a suggestion." By ordering the commutation, Walton wrote, Bush has "has effectively rewritten the statutory scheme" for sentencing "on an ad hoc basis." Perhaps appropriately for a Bush appointee, Walton is basically explaining that judicial restraint compelled him to follow the sentencing guidelines -- and that 30 months in jail is rather merciful, considering what the guidelines require.

Libby will have to report to the federal Probation Office with "all requisite haste." If he doesn't, he might actually spend a night in jail.

You can read Walton's statement here.

You don't hear many Democrats calling on Bush to grant Scooter Libby a full pardon. But today at the House Judiciary Committee's hearing on the president's commutation power, Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) made an interesting case for it.

Davis' rationale? Since the commutation allows Libby continued appeals to contest his conviction, he would assert his Fifth Amendment rights in the event that Congress calls him to testify about the Plame leak.

"If a pardon had been granted this committee could have immunized him and brought him here," Davis said.

In this video, Davis runs his point by sentencing expert Prof. Douglas A. Berman of the Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.

On the same day President Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence, Vietnam veteran Victor Rita reported for the start of his 33-month term.

The two cases are strikingly similar: both defendants were convicted of perjury and obstruction, both had a history of public service and both were sentenced to similar prison terms. Rita appealed his sentence to the Supreme Court, where he lost. Libby, of course, didn't spend a day behind bars.

Rita's attorney, Tom Cochran, a public defender from North Carolina, testified before a House Judiciary Committee hearing today on the president's commutation power. Here, he lays out the similarities between his client's case and Libby's:

Later in the hearing Cochran explained that his complaint is not that Bush commuted Libby's sentence.

"It's an issue of fairness," he said.

Here are the witnesses who are scheduled to testify this Wednesday for the House Judiciary Committee's hearing on Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence:

Ambassador Joseph Wilson

Roger Adams, US Department of Justice Pardon Attorney

Douglas A. Berman, William B. Saxbe Designated Professor of Law, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University

Tom Cochran, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Middle District of North Carolina (Attorney for Vincent Rita, Rita v. US)

David Rifkin, partner, Baker & Hostetler LLP, former Justice Department official during the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations

Says Conyers:

"Congress must now look into presidential authority to grant clemency, and how such power may be abused. Taken to its extreme, and possibly in the case of the Libby clemency, the use of such authority could completely circumvent the law enforcement process and prevent credible efforts to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch."

All parties agreed today that Scooter Libby should, in fact, serve two years of probation, most likely paving the way for the judge to conclude the same.

Judge Reggie Walton had asked Libby's lawyer and Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to weigh in on the special predicament created by the president's commutation of Libby's sentence last week: Bush had eliminated the jail time, but left in place the two-year period of supervised release that was to follow incarceration.

In his motion today, Fitzgerald argued that Libby's probation should have started July 2nd, the date of the commutation. Fitzgerald also pointed out in passing that Libby's sentence, which Bush judged "excessive," had been on the "the low-end of the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range." In addition to Libby's 30 months in prison and two years of probation, Libby was hit with a $250,000 fine, which he paid last week.

Libby's lawyers echoed the White House line, made official in a letter from counsel Fred Fielding earlier today, that the president's commutation should rule over any discrepancies with the sentencing statute.

You can read Fitzgerald's argument here. It's not clear when Judge Walton will make his final decision.

The White House hasn't been in much of a waiving mood lately, but it's worth a shot.

In a letter today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) asked President Bush to waive executive privilege for any aides who might testify before the committee this Wednesday about Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence. As Conyers notes, "When President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich stirred its own controversy back in 2001, former President Clinton took the forthright step of waiving Executive Privilege and permitting some of his closest aides to testify about the facts of the matter." Conyers wants the same deal for his hearing this Wednesday.

The full letter is below.

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Last week, the judge presiding over Scooter Libby's case said he was confused: the president's commutation of Libby's sentence had eliminated the jail time, but left in place the two-year period of supervised release that was to follow incarceration. By law, supervised release follows a prison sentence .It wasn't immediately clear how to deal with that, so the judge asked the two parties to weigh in on how they thought this should be resolved. There have been whispers that Libby might not even have to serve his two years of probation as a result of the discrepancy.

Today, White House counsel Fred Fielding wrote Patrick Fitzgerald in an effort to clear this up. When the president said "supervised release," he meant it, no matter if that clashes with the law. The president's commutation power would "unmistakably govern," Fielding wrote. You can read the letter here.

That wasn't so painful, was it?

For those curious readers who wonder whether Scooter Libby's friends kicked in to help here too, the chairman of the Libby Legal Defense Trust told The Washington Post it's not coming from them.

Sometimes it's just too easy. From this afternoon's White House press briefing:

Q Scott, is Scooter Libby getting more than equal justice under the law? Is he getting special treatment?

MR. STANZEL: Well, I guess I don't know what you mean by "equal justice under the law." But this is a unique case, there's no doubt about that. And we have said that there are a lot of people on all sides of this issue who've made good points. The President took a very measured approach to it. He believed that the jury verdict should be respected and -- but he did feel that the sentence was excessive, in terms of jail time. But this is a unique case, and there's no doubt about that.

More below....

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From this morning's press gaggle:

REPORTER: Tony, why do you ... in your op-ed today you brought up the Clinton pardons, as well. Do two wrongs make a right? Is that the idea, like if Clinton did wrong ...

SNOW: Well, this is ... no, this is not a wrong, but I think what is interesting is perhaps it was just because he was on his way out, but while there was a small flurry, there was not much investigation of it. Now you've got President Clinton and Senator Clinton out complaining about this, which, I got to tell you, I don't know what our Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it.

To refresh your memory on Hillary Clinton's remarks:

"I believe that presidential pardon authority is available to any president, and almost all presidents have exercised it.... This (the Libby decision) was clearly an effort to protect the White House. ... There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."

The rest of the gaggle is posted below.

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It turns out that a president can't make the unprecedented move of commuting a former aide's prison sentence without some consequences.

On Capitol Hill, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) has already called for hearing next Wednesday at noon titled "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials." According to a committee aide, the hearing will have an eye to the future as much as the past. President Bush thinks jail time is "excessive" for an administration official convicted of lying to protect higher administration officials. In his statement announcing the hearing, Conyers worried about such a precedent: "Taken to its extreme, the use of such authority could completely circumvent the law enforcement process and prevent credible efforts to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch." The aide told me that potential witnesses for the hearing include legal scholars, pardon experts, and administration officials.

That's not all. The president's order has created some confusion for Judge Reggie B. Walton, the Bush appointee who was responsible for that "excessive" 30 month sentence. Walton's scratching his head over Bush's move to remove the incarceration portion of the sentence while retaining the two-year period of supervised release which was to follow Libby's jail time, something not technically possible. He's asked both sides to weigh in on what should be done.

But the biggest impact is likely to come on the broader legal front. As The Los Angeles Times showed yesterday, Libby's prison sentence was not "excessive" by legal standards, but such a statement by the president is sure to be embraced by defense lawyers all around the country (experts have already dubbed such an argument "The Libby Motion"). They're also sure to mention Bush's assertion that Libby's sentence as it stands after the commutation ($250,000 fine and two years probation) is "harsh." Meanwhile, the Times reports, "Federal prosecutors said Tuesday the action would make it harder for them to persuade judges to deliver appropriate sentences." This from an administration that's continually and inflexibly pushed for truly harsh penalties. The New York Sun reports that the first such invocation of Bush's order might come from an alleged Hamas operative convicted of obstruction charges.

Yesterday Don Siegelman's lawyers weighed in on the parallels between their client's case and Scooter Libby's. Vietnam and Gulf War veteran, Victor Rita's case is another with interesting similarities.

Last month the Supreme Court heard Rita's appeal for a lighter sentence after being convicted of perjury and giving false statements. At the time, the Bush Administration wrote a friend of the court brief in support of upholding the sentence.

Rita's lawyers argued that the 33-month sentence he received was unreasonable, much like the conclusion President Bush drew in the case of Scooter Libby. Libby, like Rita, was also convicted of perjury and lying and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Both men were working for the government when the committed their crimes and both maintained their innocence even after conviction. One significant difference between the two cases is that Rita had previously been convicted of a similar crime.

In Rita's case, the Supreme Court upheld his sentence finding the sentence reasonable.

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DL) flagged Bush's apparent change of heart on what constitutes a reasonable sentence:

The questions we should all be asking ourselves today are: Why is the President flip-flopping? Why does Scooter Libby get special treatment?"

From the AP:

President Bush knew what he was getting in 2001 when he made Reggie B. Walton one of his first picks for a seat on the federal bench: a tough-on-crime judge with a reputation for handing down stiff sentences....

...attorneys noted some irony in Bush's decision to override Walton.

"The party who appointed him is now unhappy with what he appointed him to do," said Scott L. Fredericksen, a defense attorney who served as a prosecutor under every president since Ronald Reagan.

Also noteworthy, defense attorneys said, was seeing the White House urge leniency just weeks after the Bush administration announced a tough new crime bill that would bar judges from going easy on criminals. They would be free to impose longer sentences, but not shorter ones.

OK, here's the last you'll hear from this morning's press conference. As we noted earlier, Tony Snow cited a respect for the jury's decision as one of the driving considerations for the commutation, but he also strove to cast the president decision as in line with with the probation office, which makes sentencing recommendations to the judge. In Scooter Libby's case, the probation office recommended 15-21 months imprisonment and cited some possible grounds upon which the judge might reduce that sentence. The judge disagreed with the probation office and sided with the prosecutor's arguments that a 30-36 month sentence was more appropriate, ultimately deciding on 30. (Unfortunately, the probation office's actual recommendation is not public.)

But to hear Snow tell it, the probation office had recommended no jail time for Libby.

Snow: ...He does respect what the judge says, but he also respects what… if you took a look at the trial record at what the parole commission [he means the probation office] recommended, that what the parole commission recommended was highly consistent with what the president thought was an appropriate punishment here.

Q: Well, no they talk about 16, 16 plus months.

Snow: Now, that is there’s a range.. what what you’re taking a look….this gets very complicated….

You have obstruction of justice and then you have mitigating factors that bumps it down – and the bump down gets you, according again to the parole commission, to an area where it would be appropriate, would be within acceptable guidelines to have such things as home detention or probation.

Libby's lawyers, of course, argued for such a "bump down" (or "downward departure" in the legal lingo). So what Snow is really saying is that the president agreed with Libby's lawyers interpretation of the probation office's recommendations. Which is no surprise at all.

Update: Bush also cited the probation office's recommendation in his statement on the commutation: "In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation."

Update: Here's the AP's straightforward take on this:

"To hear Snow tell it, Walton ignored the recommendation of probation officials and sentenced Libby to prison. That isn't what happened. Probation officers recommended Libby serve 15-21 months. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald recommended more than 30 months. Libby's attorneys asked for probation.

Walton accepted Fitzgerald's interpretation of the law, which said Libby should be sentenced more harshly because of the seriousness of the investigation he obstructed."

Here's the meat of Tony Snow's presentation of Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's sentence to one without jail time. Snow was eager to portray the decision as a "principled" one -- "the president does not look upon this as granting a favor to anyone."

"You need to respect the jury system," Snow said, and "it is important to make clear our faith in what really is a pillar of the American justice system, which is everybody’s right to be tried before a jury of our peers.” What about that other pillar of our justice system, the judiciary? Well, not so much.

More from his comments:

The key considerations were... let’s figure out what we think is appropriate, what he thinks is appropriate in terms of punishment and let’s also do it in a way that does not do violence, but in fact shows respect to a system of justice... not going in and overthrowing the hard work and the verdict of a duly constituted jury. That, to me, demonstrates just the opposite of political consideration....

Why consult the Justice Department when President Bush and his aides in the White House know all they need to know about Scooter Libby's case?

That's the position Tony Snow took in today's press conference, explaining the administration's decision not to consult the Justice Department's pardon attorney or the prosecutor on the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, which is the normal process for such cases. Usually that consultation happens in order to refresh memories about the case, Snow said -- but here, "it's not like people's memories are fuzzy about the details or the circumstances."

As we pointed out at TPM yesterday, the president's decision was a departure from the normal circumstances or process for a commutation in more ways than one.

From this morning's press briefing:

In explaining why he wasn't "closing the door" on the idea that Scooter Libby might be pardoned in the future, Snow said that the president had done what he thought was "appropriate," but that he didn't want to "read the president's mind" about what might happen in the future.

More from the briefing soon.

Yesterday, the president played his part. The injustice of Scooter Libby serving one day of jail time for lying to investigators and a grand jury in order to shield the vice president has been averted.

But don't forget that for the past several months, other prominent elements of the Washington establishment have been playing their parts, too. The Scooter Libby Defense Trust has collected close to $5 million, and its many moneyed donors rejoiced at the news, reports The Washington Post:

Former ambassador to Italy and developer Mel Sembler was returning from a fundraiser, and his chartered flight had just touched down in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"I got off the airplane and picked up my telephone and turned it back on again and found about 12 phone messages," said Sembler, the chairman of the Libby Legal Defense Trust. "I was most pleased with my president."

Richard Carlson, former ambassador to the Seychelles, was standing near his wife when he heard the news from an Associated Press reporter.

"My wife burst into tears," Carlson said.

But, sadly, the hard work the trust's patrons have had to endure (all because of the unquenchable bloodlust of a certain prosecutor) is not over. $5 million is not enough, apparently. Their man is still burdened with a conviction, two years probation, a $250,000 fine (which will not be covered by the fund, Sembler tells the Post), and only Libby's lawyers can save him now. And his lawyers must be paid. So their quest continues.

Who are these champions of justice? A roll call:

The advisory committee of Libby's trust is made up of developers, investors, publishers, think-tankers. There's former senator Fred Thompson, the "Law & Order" star and Republican presidential aspirant -- who even held a fundraiser for Libby at his McLean home, according to Carlson....

There are former Cabinet-level officials, including Ed Meese, Jack Kemp and Spencer Abraham. There is conservative thinker Bill Bennett and political philosopher Francis Fukuyama. There's Ron Silver, of "West Wing" fame. There's Mary Matalin, a former Cheney adviser, and Nina Rosenwald, chairwoman of the Middle East Media Research Institute. There is Steve Forbes, who knows a thing or two about writing checks.

Posted just now on CNN, from Lea Anne McBride, spokeswoman from Vice President Cheney:

"Scooter has dedicated much of his life to public service at the State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House. In each of these assignments he has served the nation tirelessly and with great distinction. I have always considered him to be a man of the highest intellect, judgment and personal integrity -- a man fully committed to protecting the vital security interests of the United States and its citizens. Scooter is also a friend, and on a personal level Lynne and I remain deeply saddened by this tragedy and its effect on his wife, Harriet, and their young children. The defense has indicated it plans to appeal the conviction in the case. Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."