Defense Trust Hails Libby As ‘Loyal Soldier In The War On Terror’

National Journal’s Hotline reports that a recent fundraising letter issued by Scooter Libby’s Legal Defense Trust includes the following quote from former Cheney aide Mary Matalin:

This loyal soldier in the War on Terror doesn’t have to go at it alone.

Scooter Libby knowingly exposed the cover of a CIA operative. He did it to exact political revenge on Joseph Wilson, who had revealed that intelligence was “twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.” The damage from the leak was serious enough to warrant a CIA investigation. Arthur Brown, a CIA division chief who retired in 1995, described Libby’s action as the “moral equivalent to exposing forward deployed military units.”

Libby is no “soldier,” let alone a “loyal soldier.” A different label for him was offered by President George H. W. Bush: “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.”