Yep, the righties will do ANYTHING, illegal or not, to get rid of
people not goose-stepping to the party!

Libby notes say Cheney told him of CIA officer
Lawyers say aide's grand jury testimony in leak probe differs from what
he wrote
David Johnston, Richard W. Stevenson, Douglas Jehl, New York Times

Tuesday, October 25, 2005


Printable Version
Email This Article




Washington -- Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief
of staff, first learned about the CIA officer at the heart of the leak
investigation in a conversation with Cheney weeks before her identity
became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Libby and
Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Libby's testimony to a
federal grand jury that he initially learned about the CIA officer,
Valerie Plame, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Libby during the conversation, for the first time
place Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn
about Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, who was questioning the
administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program
to justify the war.

Lawyers involved in the case, who described the notes to the New York
Times, said the notes showed that Cheney knew that Plame worked at the
CIA more than a month before her identity was made public and her
undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert Novak
on July 14, 2003.

Libby's notes indicate that Cheney got his information about Plame from
George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to
questions from the vice president about her husband. But the notes
contain no suggestion that either Cheney or Libby knew at the time of
her undercover status or that her identity was classified. Disclosing a
covert agent's identity can be a crime, but only if the person who
discloses it knows the agent's undercover status.

It would not be illegal for either Cheney or Libby, both of whom
presumably are cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to
discuss a CIA officer or her link to a critic of the administration.
But any effort by Libby to steer investigators away from his
conversation with Cheney could be considered by Patrick Fitzgerald, the
special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the
inquiry.

White House officials did not respond to requests for comment, and
Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, would not comment on Libby's legal status.


Fitzgerald is expected to decide whether to bring charges in the case
by Friday, when the grand jury term expires. Libby and Karl Rove,
President Bush's senior adviser, both face the possibility of
indictment, lawyers involved in the case have said. It is not known
whether other officials also face indictment.

The notes help explain the legal difficulties facing Libby. Lawyers in
the case said Libby testified to the grand jury that he had first heard
from journalists that Plame might have had a role in dispatching her
husband on a CIA-sponsored mission to Africa in 2002 in search of
evidence that Iraq had acquired nuclear material there for its weapons
program.

The notes, now in Fitzgerald's possession, also indicate that Libby
first heard about Plame from Cheney. That apparent discrepancy in his
testimony suggests why prosecutors are weighing false-statement charges
against him in what they interpret as an effort by Libby to protect
Cheney from scrutiny, the lawyers said.

It is not clear why Libby would have suggested to the grand jury that
he might have learned about Plame from journalists if he was aware that
Fitzgerald had obtained the notes of the conversation with Cheney, or
might do so. At the beginning of the investigation, President Bush had
pledged the White House's full cooperation and had instructed aides to
provide Fitzgerald with any information he sought.

The notes do not show that Cheney knew the name of Wilson's wife. But
they show that Cheney did know, and told Libby, that she was employed
by the Central Intelligence Agency and that she may have helped arrange
her husband's trip. Some lawyers in the case have said Fitzgerald may
face obstacles in bringing a false statement charge against Libby. They
said it could be difficult to prove that he intentionally sought to
mislead the grand jury.

Lawyers involved in the case said they had no indication that
Fitzgerald was considering charging Cheney with wrongdoing. Cheney was
interviewed under oath by Fitzgerald last year. It is not known what
the vice president told him about the conversation with Libby or when
Fitzgerald first learned of it.

But the evidence of Cheney's direct involvement in the effort to learn
more about Wilson is sure to intensify the political pressure on the
White House in a week of high anxiety among Republicans about the
potential for the case to deal a sharp blow to Bush's presidency.

Tenet was not available for comment Monday night. But another former
senior intelligence official said Tenet had been interviewed by the
special prosecutor and his staff in early 2004 but never appeared
before the grand jury. Tenet has not talked since then to the
prosecutors, the former official said.

The former official said he strongly doubted that the White House
learned about Valerie Plame from Tenet.

On June 12, 2003, the day of the conversation between Cheney and Libby,
the Washington Post published a front page story reporting that the CIA
had sent a retired American diplomat to Niger in February 2002 to
investigate claims that Iraq had been seeking to buy uranium there.

The story did not name the diplomat, who turned out to be Wilson, but
it reported that his mission had not corroborated a claim about Iraq's
pursuit of nuclear material that the White House had subsequently used
in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. An earlier anonymous
reference to Wilson and his mission to Africa had appeared in a column
by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times on May 6, 2003. Wilson went
public with his conclusion that the White House had "twisted" the
intelligence about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear material on July 6, 2003,
in an op-ed article in the New York Times.

The notes written by Libby will be a key piece of evidence in a false
statement case against him if Fitzgerald decides to pursue it,
according to lawyers in the case. It also explains why Fitzgerald waged
a long legal battle to obtain the testimony of reporters who were known
to have talked with Libby.

The reporters involved have said they did not provide Libby with
details about Wilson and his wife. Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, in
his account of a deposition on the subject, wrote that he asked Libby
whether he had heard that Plame had a role in sending her husband to
Africa. According to Cooper, Libby did not use Plame's name but
replied, "Yeah, I've heard that, too."

In her testimony to the grand jury, Judith Miller, a reporter for the
New York Times, said Libby sought from the start of her three
conversations with him to "insulate his boss from Mr. Wilson's
charges."

Fitzgerald asked questions about Cheney, Miller said. "He asked, for
example, if Mr. Libby ever indicated whether Mr. Cheney had approved of
his interviews with me or was aware of them. The answer was no."

Fitzgerald is also known to have interviewed three other journalists
who spoke with Libby during June and July 2003. They were Walter Pincus
and Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post and Tim Russert of NBC News.

Pincus and Kessler have said that Libby did not discuss Wilson's wife
in their conversations during that period. Russert, in a statement, has
declined to say exactly what he discussed with Libby but said he first
learned the identity of Wilson's wife in the column by Novak, which
appeared on July 14, 2003