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Bush is bushed with Libby/Noe indictments, Miers’ withdrawal, and 2,000-plus deaths in Iraq
Last week was a rough semana for U.S. President George W. Bush!
• Vice presidential adviser I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr. was indicted Friday on charges of obstruction of justice, making a false statement, and perjury in the “CIA leak case.” Libby promptly resigns his posts. Karl Rove, President Bush’s closest adviser, escaped indictment thus far but remained under investigation, his legal status a looming political problem for the Bush White House. The indictments stem from a two-year investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald into whether Rove, Libby or any other administration officials knowingly revealed the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame or lied about their involvement to investigators. The complete Libby indictment can be found here.
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• Tom Noe, a coin dealer already embroiled in an Ohio state government Coingate scandal, was charged in a federal indictment Thursday in Toledo, Ohio, with illegally funneling $45,400 to the President Bush’s 2004 re-election bid through two dozen, conduit friends and associates, in Noe’s attempt to skirt a $2,000 limit on individual contributions to Bush.
• Bush’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court—Harriet Miers—withdraws last Thursday from consideration to this post, to the cheers of conservatives. Bush, eager to put this bruising Texan brawl behind him, nominated on Monday proven conservative Samuel Alito of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Alito is known in some circles as “Scalito” because his judicial philosophy invites comparisons to arch-conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
• The AP reported the 2,000th military casualty in Iraq. Not counting the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed since the Bush-ordered invasion of Iraq in 2003, as of October 31, 2005, 2,022 soldiers have been killed.
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