A special US prosecutor has asked for former top White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, convicted in a politically-charged CIA leak case, to be jailed for up to three years.
Patrick Fitzgerald made the request on Friday, less than two weeks before Libby is due to be sentenced for his role in a presumed act of political vendetta that illegally ended the career of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame, wife of retired US diplomat Joseph Wilson.
"He has expressed no remorse, no acceptance of responsibility and no recognition that there is anything he should have done differently," Fitzgerald wrote in his sentencing memorandum in a federal court in Washington.
He pointed out that in the course of a four-year investigation that was launched in October 2003, after Plame's name was leaked to the press in connection with an Iraq war debate, "Libby lied about nearly everything that mattered."
Given these circumstances, the prosecutor said the former chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney should be sentenced to between 30 months and 37 months in prison.
The request marks another chapter in a long political scandal that tarnished the reputation of the administration of President George W. Bush and cast another shadow on its argument that the invasion of Iraq was necessary because the country was amassing an illicit arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
Plame's name was first disclosed in July 2003 by conservative columnist Robert Novak following her husband's mission to Niger the previous year, during which the former US ambassador tried to verify reports that Iraq was secretly trying to purchase uranium ore there.
After failing to find any evidence of that, Wilson published an article in the New York Times, in which he accused the Bush administration of "exaggerating the Iraqi threat" in order to justify the war.
His assessment undercut an assertion made by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese