The Justice Department has reportedly come out in opposition to the request for appeal in the lawsuit Wilson v. Libby, et al.  The case was brought by Valerie Plame Wilson and former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV against four Bush administration officials for the public disclosure of Plame's role as a CIA operative.

In building the case for the invasion of Iraq, President Bush cited evidence that Saddam Hussein had attempted to obtain yellowcake uranium from Africa, which the dictator intended to use in the development of nuclear weapons.  The CIA and the State Department sent Joe Wilson, acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq and later ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe under President George H.W. Bush, to Niger in 2002 to verify the intelligence that Iraq had attempted to purchase this uranium.  Wilson alerted both the CIA and the State Department that the conclusion had been based on forged documents and was false.  He became a vocal critic of the Bush administration and its case for going to war.  Shortly thereafter, it was leaked by administration officials that his wife was a covert CIA operative.

The Wilsons sued former Vice President Dick Cheney; Karl Rove, once White House Deputy Chief of Staff and head of the Office of Political Affairs; former Chief of Staff to the Vice President Scooter Libby; and Richard Armitage, formerly Deputy Secretary of State, for damages under the First and Fifth Amendments and a common-law tort claim for the public disclosure of private facts.  The District Court and the Court of Appeals both dismissed the case, finding monetary damages to be an inappropriate remedy for constitutional claims, and that the Court lacked jurisdiction because administrative remedies under the Federal Tort Claims Act were not exhausted.  There have been no criminal charges as a result of the leak.  Libby was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for obstructing justice and making false statements to a grand jury investigating this case; however, this sentence was commuted by President Bush.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) responded to this decision: "It is surprising that the first time the Obama administration has been required to take a public position on this matter, the administration is so closely aligning itself with the Bush administration's views."  CREW also complained that "the government had moved to have the case dismissed before the Wilsons had the opportunity to uncover the details of how Ms. Wilson's covert identity was revealed."

Regardless of the legal merits of the case, the Obama administration's decision to openly oppose this appeal is disappointing.  It is unconscionable that there has been no accountability in a case where power was so clearly abused in a blatant effort to punish someone who brought the truth to light.  This highlights the need for a closer investigation of the abuses of executive power that transpired over the last eight years.