Obama 2007 Flashback: How Is It Scooter Libby Isn't Behind Bars?

 The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the CIA’s top officer in Kabul was revealed by the White House on Saturday to news organizations during President Obama’s surprise visit with U.S. troops. According to the Post, the White House saw the error and issued a revised list and did not include the person who had been named in the initial release as the “Chief of Station” in Kabul, a designation used by the CIA for its highest-ranking spy in a country.

The Post notes that the names of at least three CIA station chiefs in
Pakistan have been revealed in recent years. In one particular case, a
CIA officer was a target of death threats after his cover was blown,
forcing the CIA to rush him out of the country.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick
Cheney, was snagged in a CIA officer identity leak controversy during the George W. Bush administration years.

President Obama was particularly critical of what he considered to be a light sentence given to Libby after President George W. Bush’s commuted Libby’s sentence. Libby was
was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for obstructing justice
in a federal probe relating to the leak  of DC based CIA desk officer
Valerie Plame’s name to columnist Robert Novak.

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage eventually admitted  he was the source who first revealed the identity of Plame to Novak back in 2003. President Bush
commuted Libby’s sentence, calling it excessive. 

“How is it Scooter Libby isn’t behind bars and we’ve got a young man in jail right now sentenced to 10 years for something that isn’t even a felony?” presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama
said on  August 5, 2007 during remarks at an awards banquet for the Atlanta-based
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights organization
founded by Martin Luther King Jr., the Associated Press reported at the time.

The young man Obama was referring to was then 21-year-old Genarlow Wilson. Wilson was convicted of aggravated child molestation after videotape showed him having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl. Wilson was 17 at the time. According to the AP, the  judge overturned the 10 year sentence.