No surprise here:
The Supreme Court announced Monday it will not give further consideration to a lawsuit brought by a fired CIA agent and her husband against high ranking Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The decision is a victory for Cheney and his former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. They and nine unnamed co-defendants were sued by Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband Joseph after her CIA cover was leaked to reporters.
Last month, Solicitor General Elena Kagan wrote a brief urging the Court to deny certiorari to the Wilsons. In her argument, Kagan explains “Congress has enacted a carefully calibrated set of judicial remedies for violations of the Privacy Act [of 1974] and its implementing regulations.”
In fact, Congress calibrated those judicial remedies so carefully that they barred Federal employees from being deemed liable for damages when they disclose personal information about a colleague; only the agency is liable.
In other words, codified in our federal law is a provision that protects individuals—Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Richard Armitage and Scooter Libby—from accountability when they violate that same law.
