Judge Won't Delay Libby Prison Term

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby began making prison arrangements Thursday after a federal judge refused to delay the former White House aide's 2 ½-year sentence in the CIA leak case.

Despite the promise of an emergency appeal, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney met with probation officials to arrange for his surrender sometime in the next few weeks.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton was never persuaded that Libby deserved to have his sentence delayed. The judge cited the "overwhelming" evidence that Libby lied to investigators and obstructed Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's inquiry into the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity.

"Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report," Walton said as Libby sat stoically and his wife wiped tears from her eyes.

Libby's appellate lawyer, Lawrence Robbins, focused his argument on whether there are close questions in this case which warrant appellate review, reports CBS News Justice Department producer Deirdre Hester. His argument focused primarily on the legitimacy of Fitzgerald's appointment as special prosecutor.

Walton's remarks signaled he was not sold on the defense's arguments, Hester says. He especially discounted the support Libby got last week from 12 constitutional law professors.

Libby, the highest-ranking White House official to be sent to prison since the Iran-Contra affair, will soon receive a federal inmate number and a notice from the Bureau of Prisons telling him where and when to show up.

The judge's ruling ups the pressure on President Bush to decide if he'll grant an early pardon to Libby, CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports. The last time Mr. Bush was asked about it, last week in Germany, he said the appeals process was under way and it wouldn't be appropriate for him to discuss it. But that's when it was thought Libby would not be jailed before an appeal was heard.

"Scooter Libby still has the right to appeal, and therefore the president will continue not to intervene in the judicial process," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Thursday. "The president feels terribly for Scooter, his wife and their young children, and all that they're going through."

Libby thanked federal marshals but did not take questions from reporters as he left the courthouse with his wife and lawyers. Fitzgerald also left without commenting.

The month-long trial offered a rare glimpse into the White House in the early days of the Iraq war, when the Bush administration was on the defensive after invading U.S. forces failed to turn up any weapons of mass destruction, the ostensible reason Bush and Cheney touted for the invasion.

Trial testimony showed Cheney was eager to beat back criticism of prewar intelligence, which said Iraq had such weapons and was seeking more of them. One of the most outspoken critics of that intelligence in mid-2003 was former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Amid a flurry of news coverage of that criticism, Bush administration officials leaked to reporters that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked as an undercover analyst for CIA. That disclosure in a syndicated newspaper column touched off a leak investigation that brought senior White House officials, including Bush and Cheney, in for questioning.

Libby was convicted of lying about how he learned Plame's identity and whom he told. His lawyers argued Thursday that he had a good chance of persuading an appeals court that, when senior Justice Department officials recused themselves from the leak investigation, they gave Fitzgerald unconstitutional and unchecked authority.

Walton never accepted Libby's argument. He said the alternative was to put someone with White House ties in charge of an investigation into the highest levels of the Bush administration.

"If that's going to be how we have to operate, our system is going to be in serious trouble with the average Joe on the street who thinks the system is unfair already," Walton said.

Libby's newly formed appellate team will seek an emergency order delaying the sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is not sitting right now, however, and attorneys worried about how fast the request would be heard by a special panel of the court.

The appeals court has several conservative jurists, but that doesn't mean Libby will get a free pass. Walton, for example, is a Republican judge and Bush appointee who handed down the stiff sentence despite more than 150 letters from military commanders and diplomats calling for leniency.