A federal judge Thursday ordered Lewis “Scooter” Libby to report to prison within weeks to begin serving a 30-month sentence for lying to federal investigators about his role in disclosing a covert CIA officer’s identity to the media. In ruling that Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff must begin his prison term, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton rejected defense attorneys’ request to allow Libby to remain free on bond while they appeal his conviction.
At the conclusion of a two-hour hearing Thursday, Walton, who presided over Libby’s trial, said he disagreed with defense attorneys’ contention that Libby’s trial had generated a series of close legal questions and judicial rulings that might well be reversed by higher courts.
Libby’s lawyers said they plan to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to issue an emergency order delaying the sentence.
When he imposed sentence last week, Walton told Libby that the evidence of his guilt had been “overwhelming” and warned that Libby was unlikely to win a reversal of his conviction in appellate courts.
For that reason, Walton said during the sentencing, he was not inclined to release Libby on bond during his appeal, a process that could last until the end of President Bush’s term in office in 2008.
