In this Friday, March 16, 2007, file photo, former CIA analyst Valerie Plame listens to opening statements on Capitol Hill during the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. A federal judge on Thursday, July 19, 2007, dismissed Plame's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration in the CIA leak scandal. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
ANOTHER 'GREAT MOMENT' for the Bush Administration. Outing a CIA agent is not only legal and pardoning a liar essential but 'the power brokers' have never been more obvious.
WASHINGTON -- A federal judge in Washington is tossing out a lawsuit filed by former CIA (click here) operative Valerie Plame against members of the Bush administration in the CIA leak scandal.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds, and said he wouldn't express an opinion on the constitutional arguments.
Plame accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to leak her identity. She said it violated her privacy rights, and that it was an illegal act of retribution for her husband's criticism of the administration.
Her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a prominent critic of the administration's justifications for the war in Iraq.
Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff, was convicted of obstructing the investigation into the leak. He was fined and sentenced to two and a-half years in prison, but the prison sentence was commuted by President George W. Bush.
Plame's attorneys had said the lawsuit would be an uphill battle. Public officials are normally immune from such lawsuits filed in connection with their jobs.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds, and said he wouldn't express an opinion on the constitutional arguments.
Plame accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to leak her identity. She said it violated her privacy rights, and that it was an illegal act of retribution for her husband's criticism of the administration.
Her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a prominent critic of the administration's justifications for the war in Iraq.
Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff, was convicted of obstructing the investigation into the leak. He was fined and sentenced to two and a-half years in prison, but the prison sentence was commuted by President George W. Bush.
Plame's attorneys had said the lawsuit would be an uphill battle. Public officials are normally immune from such lawsuits filed in connection with their jobs.
