In October 2005,[2] Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

[15][16] As Yale Daily News reporter Jack Mirkinson observes, "Even though he would eventually become a prominent Republican, Libby's political beginnings would not have pointed in that direction.

One of these was a creative writing course, which started Libby on a 20-year mission to complete a novel ... [later published as] The Apprentice ... [and] a political science class with professor and future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

The New York Times's Eric Schmitt, citing the aforementioned interview with Libby's brother, wrote that "His nickname 'Scooter' derives from the day [his] father watched him crawling in his crib and joked, 'He's a Scooter!

"[27] Libby's only novel, The Apprentice, about a group of travelers stranded in northern Japan in the winter of 1903, during a smallpox epidemic in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War, was first published in a hardback edition by Graywolf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996, and reprinted as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books in 2002.

After Libby's indictment in the Plame affair grand jury investigation in 2005, St. Martin's Press reissued The Apprentice as a mass market paperback (Griffin imprint).

[34][35] Libby practiced law at Schnader for six years before joining the U.S. State Department policy planning staff, at the invitation of his former Yale professor, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1981.

[40] Jackson Hogan, Libby's roommate at Yale University, told U.S. News & World Report's Kenneth T. Walsh, "'He is intensely partisan ... in that if he is your counsel, he'll embrace your case and try to figure a way out of whatever noose you are ensnared in.

'"[4] According to a House Committee on Government Reform report, however, "The arguments made by Garment, [William Bradford] Reynolds and Libby [in their testimony] focused on the claim that the SDNY was criminalizing what should have been a civil tax case.

[45] In 1981, after working as a lawyer in the Philadelphia firm Schnader LLP, Libby accepted the invitation of his former Yale University political science professor and mentor Paul Wolfowitz to join the U.S. State Department's policy planning staff.

[38] In 1985 he received the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service from the United States Department of Defense, and he resigned from government to enter private legal practice at Dickstein, Shapiro, and Morin.

[19] While he was still a managing partner of Dechert Price & Rhoads, he was a signatory to the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (a document dated June 3, 1997).

"[19][47] Libby was active in the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee of the Pentagon when it was chaired by Richard Perle during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2001–2003).

[33] At various points in his career, Libby has also held positions with the American Bar Association, been on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation's Center for Russia and Eurasia, and been a legal adviser to the United States House of Representatives, as well as served as a consultant for the defense contractor Northrop Grumman.

In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement.

Headed by former Senator Joe Lieberman and former governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington, D.C., for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs.

[64] For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003, two weeks before Wilson's New York Times op-ed was published.

[64] In her account published in the Times on October 16, 2005, based on her notes, Miller reports: ... in an interview with me on June 23 [2003], Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA.

A parade of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists testified, including Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Judith Miller and David E. Sanger of The New York Times.

[78] Speaking to the media outside the courtroom after the verdict, Fitzgerald said that "The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length ... [and] was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner ...

He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general.

"[86] The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal.

It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the court on behalf of a criminal defendant.

"[93]Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages.

[103] U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.

It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.

[116][117][118] The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.

[89][129] On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation.

[131] Investor's Business Daily questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ...

[133] In April 2015, also writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.