The public case against Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, built by federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, is that his lying to government investigators put both national security and the rule of law at risk.

The arguments helped win over a jury that convicted Libby on four of five counts of perjury, false statements, and obstructing justice, and a federal judge, Reggie Walton, yesterday sentenced Libby to two and a half years in prison and a $250,000 fine. But yesterday also saw the release by the court of hundreds of pages of letters from some of the nation’s top national security and law enforcement officials asking the judge for leniency in sentencing Libby, a sign that if Mr. Fitzgerald won over the jury and judge, there are elements of the Washington establishment who sympathize with Libby.

The prominent names among those submitting letters asking for leniency for Libby read like a who’s who of America’s foreign policy and defense establishment.

“I know Mr. Libby to be a patriot, a dedicated public servant, a strong family man, and a tireless, honorable, selfless human being,” wrote the defense secretary for the first six years of President Bush’s administration, Donald Rumsfeld. He made no reference to Libby’s trial or the broader controversy over the outing of a CIA officer, Valerie Plame. However, Mr. Rumsfeld urged Judge Walton to give careful consideration to the former White House aide’s “outstanding record.”

A former secretary of state and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, said Libby had served ably as his informal liaison to the Bush administration. “I was deeply impressed by his dedication, seriousness, patriotism and essential decency. He is a man of strong views, some of which I do not share,” Mr. Kissinger wrote. “I would never have associated the actions for which he was convicted with his character. Nor do I believe they will ever be repeated.”

A former Republican congressman who chairs the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, praised Libby’s work in 1998 as legal counsel to a House committee that investigated China’s intelligence and technology gathering efforts. “I know him to be an individual of integrity who has consistently devoted his energies to helping others,” Mr. Cox wrote.

The highest-ranking current official to weigh in on Libby’s behalf was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace. He called Libby a “selfless” official who always sought out “the right way to proceed—both legally and morally.”

Absent from the sheaf of nearly 200 letters was any entreaty from Vice President Cheney, who was Libby’s boss from 2001 to 2005. The vice president issued a statement yesterday expressing dismay about the outcome of the case and concern for Libby and his family.

The vast majority of those who contacted Judge Walton urged leniency for Libby, but a dozen or more letters asked the judge to mete out severe punishment. “Mr. Libby’s crimes are no less egregious than the very similar crimes of traitors Robert Hansen or Aldrich Ames. It is only through sheer luck that no one was killed in this matter (that we know of),” J. Raymond Niblock wrote.

“I believe there is too much corruption at top levels in this country,” a Libby critic, Charles Pluckhahn, wrote. “This sort of decadence and dry rot sets a bad example, and if left unchecked it will take us in the direction of Rome’s decline.”

Those who wrote on Libby’s behalf included former Defense Department officials, such as Douglas Feith and Richard Perle; a former ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton; a former senator, Alan Simpson of Wyoming, and a State Department counselor, Eliot Cohen.

Several appointees of President Clinton also backed Libby, including a World Bank president, James Wolfensohn; a director of central intelligence, R. James Woolsey, and a Middle East envoy, Dennis Ross. Libby also got a vote of confidence from a famous Israeli official and Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky. A literary critic at the New Republic, Leon Wieseltier, offered praise, as did a former aide to Mr. Cheney, Mary Matalin, and the Democratic strategist who is her husband, James Carville.

Lawyers for Libby had cautioned his supporters not to quarrel with the jury’s verdict or the prosecution, but some writers clearly bridled at those restraints. “Knowing Scooter as I do, I believe him to be a man incapable of acting with criminal intent,” a civil justice reform and religious liberty advocate, Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute. The institute employed Libby after he left the White House until his conviction in March.

Mr. Horowitz also warned darkly about the wider consequences of jail time for Libby. “As the Bork case led inexorably to the Clinton impeachment, so can the case before the Court profoundly criminalize and poison the country’s political process with calls for retribution on the part of many who will never believe—never—that Scooter merits criminal punishment or, God forbid, incarceration.”

Some letters may not have been perfectly calibrated to appeal to Judge Walton, who had a hardscrabble upbringing as the son of a Pennsylvania steelworker-turned –janitor. A former Libby aide’s fiancé, Michael Rubenstein, opened his missive by identifying himself as “a wealth manager specializing in multi-generational family wealth transfer in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.” To clarify, he added, “My clients include some of the wealthiest families in the nation.”

Citing privacy concerns, Libby’s defense team opposed the public release of the letters submitted in connection with the sentencing. Judge Walton concluded that the letters should be made public with redactions to remove the names of children, street addresses, and other personal details.

A couple of writers, including the president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, pointed out an unnoticed irony in the case. Years ago, Libby gave free legal counsel to the State Department official who triggered the leak probe by disclosing Ms. Plame’s CIA connection, Richard Armitage.