I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (first name generally given as Irv, Irve or Irving; born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. He became known as a high-ranking staff person to be indicted by a grand jury on charges related to an intelligence investigation. He was convicted but later granted clemency by Republican president George W. Bush and fully pardoned by Republican president Donald Trump.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson."Indictment" in United States of America vs. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby", United States Department of Justice, October 28, 2005; accessed December 10, 2007. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan convicted in 1990 in the Iran–Contra affair.See also: Associated Press, "A History of Indictments involving White House Staff", USA Today, October 26, 2007; accessed July 6, 2007.
After Libby's failed appeal and a high-pressure lobbying campaign for Libby's full pardon by Vice President Cheney, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence of 31 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact.Edwin Chen, "Bush Commutes Libby's Prison Term in CIA Leak Case (Update 2)", Bloomberg.com, July 2, 2007, accessed July 2, 2007. As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby's license to practice law was suspended in 2007, for a period of at least five years. He gained reinstatement in 2016. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Personal history
Background and education Libby was born to an affluent Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Irving Lewis Leibovitz, was an investment banker who changed his family's original surname from Leibovitz to Libby.
Libby graduated from the Eaglebrook School, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a junior boarding school, in 1965. The family lived in the Washington, D.C. region, Miami, Florida, and Connecticut prior to Libby's graduation from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1968.
He and his elder brother, Hank, a tax lawyer (now retired) were the first in the family to graduate from college. Libby attended Yale University in New Haven, graduating magna cum laude in 1972. He joined the Skull and Bones secret society in his senior year at Yale. As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction. He served as vice president of the Yale College Democrats and later campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for governor of Massachusetts." According to Mirkinson: "Two particular Yale courses helped guide Libby's future endeavors. One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview with author James Mann, Libby said Wolfowitz was one of his favorite professors, and their professional relationship did not end with the class." Wolfowitz became a significant mentor in his later professional life. The biography currently lists only "Senior Adviser"; cf. "I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby", Right Web (International Relations Center), last updated March 21, 2007; accessed July 1, 2007: "As of mid-March 2007 ... Libby's bio page was no longer available on the (Hudson Institute) website, and his name was not included on the organization's list of scholars."]
In 1975, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Libby received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Columbia Law School., archived biography at the Libby Legal Defense Trust, n.d., accessed July 16, 2007, and April 12, 2008 (now-obsolete information such as D.C. Bar membership needs updating).
Marriage and family Libby is married to Harriet Grant, whom he met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s, while he was a partner and she an associate in the law firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin: When he and Harriet became serious,' Dickstein partner Kenneth Simon wrote, 'she chose to leave the firm rather than maintain the awkward situation of an associate dating a partner. Libby and Grant married in the early 1990s, have a son and a daughter, and live in McLean, Virginia.
Name Libby has been secretive about his full name. He was prosecuted as I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby". National Public Radio's Day to Day reported that the 1972 Yale Banner (the yearbook of Yale) gave his name as Irve Lewis Libby Jr.; it is unclear if Irve is his given name, or if it is short for Irving, as it was for his father. CBS, the BBC, and The New York Timess John Tierney have all used this spelling of his first name. The Timess Eric Schmitt spelled it Irv, though he cited a phone interview with Libby's brother, and did not clarify if he had asked for a spelling.
At times, including in the Yale Banner, and as documented in a federal directory cited by Ron Kampeas and others, Libby has used the suffix Jr. after his name. At other times, however, as listed in his federal indictment and United States v. Libby, which give his alias as Scooter Libby, there is no Jr. after Libby's name. The Columbia Alumni Association online directory lists him as I. Lewis Libby, with a first name of "I." and birth first name of "Irve".
Libby has also been secretive about the origin of his nickname Scooter. The New York Timess Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter! In a February 2002 interview on Larry King Live, King asked Libby specifically, "Where did 'Scooter' come from?"; Libby replied: "Oh, it goes way back to when I was a kid. Some people ask me if ... [crosstalk] ... as you did earlier, if it's related to Phil Rizzuto [nicknamed 'The Scooter']. I had the range but not the arm."
The Apprentice
Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002. After Libby's indictment in the Plame affair grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint).Lewis Libby, The Apprentice (St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1996; rpt. New York: St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books, 2002; rpt. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2005); (10) and (13); (10) and (13)Julian Borger, "Indicted Libby's Publishers Plan 25,000 Reprint of 'steamy' Novel", The Guardian, November 11, 2005; accessed February 23, 2007.Associated Press, "Publisher to Reissue I. Lewis Libby's Novel", USA Today, November 9, 2005; accessed July 3, 2007. The Apprentice has been described as "a thriller ... that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape."
Law career After earning his J.D. from Columbia in 1975, Libby joined the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP. He was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on October 27, 1976,"I. Lewis Libby" (Attorney ID No.: 23330)", The Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (public search facility), accessed June 5, 2007.Emma Schwartz, "Scooter Libby's Law License Loses Its Wheels", Legal Times, April 6, 2007; accessed July 5, 2007.Richard S. Curtiss, "Neocon Corner: I. Lewis ('Scooter') Libby: The Nexus of Washington's Neocon Network", Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 2004: 18–20, accessed March 4, 2007. and to the bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on May 19, 1978.D.C. Bar – Find a Member search facility. Libby is listed in the general "name" search (erroneously) as "I L Lewis Libby Jr." and in hyperlinked documents as "I. Lewis Libby Jr." Since 2007 he has been identified as "disbarred" and no longer a "member" of the D.C. Bar.The D.C. Bar revised its "Professional Rules of Conduct" on February 1, 2007, according to its "Bar News" section of its website; accessed June 5, 2007. On April 3, 2007, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals filed an "Order" ("In the Matter of I. Lewis Libby Jr. ... Bar Registration No. 950758"), suspending Libby "immediately from the practice of law in the District of Columbia pending resolution of this matter [in United States v. Libby]", which the Office of Bar Counsel (D.C. Bar) received on April 4, 2007, directing it to "inform the Court if the matter is resolved without the necessity of further court action." In that order, "the Board directed the Bar Counsel to file a brief addressing whether [Libby's] crimes inherently involve moral turpitude." In its brief, filed on April 24, 2007, entitled "Statement of Bar Counsel", the D.C. Bar stated that his crimes amounted to "moral turpitude" and recommended to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility that Libby "be disbarred pursuant to D.C. Code § 11-2503(a)", which reads (in pertinent part): "When a member of the bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals is convicted of an offense involving moral turpitude ... the court shall, pending final determination of an appeal from the conviction, suspend the member of the bar from practice ... If a final judgment of conviction is certified to the court, the name of the member of the bar so convicted shall be struck from the roll of the members of the bar and such person shall thereafter cease to be a member." Pursuant to the policy on "Moral Turpitude" contained therein, it is also noted (n. 4) that Libby's "disbarment should be deemed to commence, for reinstatement purposes, on April 11, 2007, the date that [he] filed an affidavit in compliance with D.C. Bar R. XI, § 14(g)." The brief lists Libby's admission to practice law in that jurisdiction as May 19, 1978. At that time Libby's lawyers filed notification of his intention to appeal his conviction within ten days after his sentencing with the D.C. Bar, an appeal that he subsequently decided to drop (Cf. Apuzzo's account of December 10, 2007, op cit)
Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981. In 1985, returning to private practice, he joined the firm then known as Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin (now Dickstein Shapiro LLP), becoming a partner in 1986 and working there until 1989, when he left to work in the U.S. Defense Department, again under his former Yale professor Paul Wolfowitz, until January 1993."Leonard Garment and Four Other Mudge Rose Lawyers Join Washington, D.C. Office of Decert Price & Rhoads", PR Newswire, November 20, 1995, Financial News, accessed via LexisNexis on July 16, 2007.