The Supreme Court decided today not to consider a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration members of illegally disclosing the identity of then-CIA agent Valerie Plame.
We previously reported that the Justice Department filed a brief with the high court in response to a petition earlier this year to revive the case against former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and former Bush aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Assistant Attorney General Tony West and Justice Department attorneys Mark B. Stern and Charles W. Scarborough wrote the brief.
The justices did not comment on the rejection, according to Bloomberg.
The U.S. District Court in D.C. threw out Plame’s lawsuit against the Bush administration members in June 2007. In August 2008, U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. upheld the lower court’s decision.
We reported last week that this wasn’t the first time the Obama Justice Department intervened in a Plame-related case to protect the Bush administration. DOJ attorney Jeffrey Smith told U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan Friday that Cheney’s 2004 interview with special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald should remain secret. Fitzgerald was probing how Plame’s cover was blown. Libby ultimately was convicted of obstruction of justice in the matter, but no one was charged with illegally revealing Plame’s identity.
Smith said future administration officials’ would be less willing to cooperate voluntarily with investigations, and that officials might not cooperate with future requests fearing ”that it’s going to get on ‘The Daily Show’.”
“Says who?” Sullivan said.
The liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued for the release of the interview. CREW attorney David Sobel called the Obama administration’s defense of Cheney “disappointing.”
“The argument would apply to a murder in the White House, selling drugs in the White House, bribery in the White House,” Sobel said, according to Politico. “We would be carving out the White House … for special treatment.”
