Neal Statement on Libby Indictment

NEAL STATEMENT ON LIBBY INDICTMENT
Vice-President's Chief-of-Staff charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to a grand jury

WASHINGTON - Congressman Richard E. Neal (D-Springfield) released the following statement today after U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the Chief-of-Staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, has been indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to a grand jury.

"A federal grand jury today indicted one of the most senior members of the Bush administration for making false and misleading statements. To put today's developments into perspective, this is the first indictment of a sitting White House official in 130 years.

These are serious charges with grave national security implications. Not only was a covert CIA agent's identity exposed, but there is growing evidence that the Bush administration was engaged in a campaign to silence and undermine critics of the Iraq war.

Today's criminal charges also raise important questions about the credibility of the White House and the case that was made to justify the invasion of Iraq.

The Vice-President's office, and Mr. Libby in particular, played a central role in making the case to Congress and the public to go to war. We now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq was not an imminent threat, and that much of the pre-war intelligence was flawed.

As a critic of the Iraq war from the beginning, I think it is imperative that this important investigation continue. The American people deserve to know why we went to war in Iraq."

http://www.house.gov/neal/news/news58.html