Libby: 'I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected'

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 10:55 AM on January 23, 2007.

The trial of Scooter Libby is underway and it hasn't been short on fireworks.

So far, according to AP:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald described for jurors Tuesday a detailed Bush administration effort to beat back early criticism of the Iraq war and accused former White House aide "Scooter" Libby of covering up his role leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

A Libby/Cheney conversation was recalled by Libby's attorney:

"They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb," attorney Theodore Wells said, recalling a conversation between Libby and his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, as the leak investigation heated up in 2003. "I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected."

Libby is charged with lying to the prosecutor and his bills are being paid by interested Republicans via a dirty legal runaround, described by Murray Waas:

The guy who’s in charge of that fund, who’s raised a good part of it, is a former ambassador, key Republican Party, you know, fundraiser. So, instead -- you know, if President Nixon goes out, for example, and raises money under the table, that's illegal. But what’s done nowadays is that people like Scooter Libby are taken care of. He has like a high-paying job, where he makes more money than Amy Goodman or Murray Waas or probably 90% of listeners for not even showing up, and then he has $3 million for his defense fund.

So, essentially, a president or vice president like Cheney can say, “Stick with us. We'll get you the best lawyers. You could be acquitted at trial. If you're not acquitted at trial, you have another bite at the apple, because then we'll have you pardoned.” And so, they really take care of these guys. We saw this in Iran-Contra, the same type of thing, where the first President Bush just pardoned most of the key defendants on Christmas Eve before he left office.

Tagged as: rove, cheney, libby, plame, wilson

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.