Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.
Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
Beyond what was stated in the court paper, say people with firsthand knowledge of the matter, Libby also indicated what he will offer as a broad defense during his upcoming criminal trial: that Vice President Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials had earlier encouraged and authorized him to share classified information with journalists to build public support for going to war. Later, after the war began in 2003, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war.
Libby testified to the grand jury that he had been authorized to share parts of the NIE with journalists in the summer of 2003 as part of an effort to rebut charges then being made by former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson that the Bush administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make a public case for war.
But besides sharing details of the NIE with reporters during the effort to rebut Wilson, Libby is also accused of telling journalists that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, had worked for the CIA. Libby and other Bush administration officials believed that if Plame played a role in the selection of her husband for the Niger mission, that fact might discredit him.
A federal grand jury indicted Libby on October 28, 2005, on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice, alleging that he concealed his role in leaking information about Plame to the media. He resigned his positions as chief of staff and national security adviser to Cheney the same day. Libby has never claimed that Cheney encouraged him to disclose information about Plame to the media.
In a January 23 letter, related to discovery issues for Libby's upcoming trial, Fitzgerald wrote to Libby's attorneys: "Mr. Libby testified in the grand jury that he had contact with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate ("NIE") Â… in the course of his interaction with reporters in June and July 2003.Â… We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."
Although it is not known if Cheney had told the special prosecutor that he had authorized Libby to leak classified information to reporters, Dan Richman, a professor of law at Fordham University and a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, said, "One certainly would not expect Libby, as part of his defense, to claim some sort of clear authorization from Cheney where none existed, because that would clearly risk the government's calling Cheney to rebut that claim."
The public correspondence does not mention the identities of the "superiors" who authorized the leaking of the classified information, but people with firsthand knowledge of the matter identified one of them as Cheney. Libby also testified that he worked closely with then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in deciding what information to leak to the press to build public support for the war, and later, postwar, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence.
The one thing that has really bothered me about this Valerie Plame scandal, is not that someone divulged the identity of a covert CIA operative, but rather why this knowledge was leaked, and who benefited from this leak?. We know the reason why this knowledge was leaked--basically to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson, who was then criticizing the Bush administration for making false claims that Iraq was aquiring uranium from Niger, and that the entire White House argument that Iraq was building nuclear weapons was completely bogus. Iraq did not have any nuclear weapons. The Bush administration's entire claim for invading Iraq was based on false information, and yet the administration continued to press for its claim to invade Iraq.
But now we come to who benefited from this Valerie Plame outing? Obviously someone told Bob Novak, and Matt Cooper, Valerie Plame's name. And that someone had to have gotten something positive from this leak. We know that once that Valerie Plame's name was leaked, Joe Wilson had no credibility with his arguments against the Bush administration. In the short run, the winner was the Bush administration in stifling criticisms against invading Iraq, and continuing with its subsequent war and occupation of Iraq. But who would go about in revealing a covert CIA agent--especially considering the serious charges, and punishments for this crime? It has always struck me that such a revelation couldn't be the work of a lone, vindictive, individual. What would such a single individual have to gain from such a crime? Another question I had was the indictment of Scooter Libby for obstruction of justice by Patrick Fitzgerald. Libby certainly discussed Valerie Plame with New York Time's Judith Miller. What strikes me here is that Libby probably would probably not reveal Plame's identity to Miller, without some type of authorization, from his boss Dick Cheney. And if Miller had been the one to broach the subject to Libby, would it have not been prudent on Libby's part to first talk to Cheney on this matter, before responding to Miller? What I'm trying to say here is that Libby's a bureaucrat--granted he may be a conservative ideologue. But I can't see Libby going on a vendetta by himself in smearing Joe Wilson for the benefit of the White House. If he's going to do something like that, especially if he knew that Plame worked at the CIA, he is going to want an okay from his superiors--in this case Dick Cheney. And now that Libby is apparently designated as the fall guy for this fiasco, I'm wondering if Libby is expecting assurances from even higher-up White House officials for fighting in this trial, which could send Libby to prison if convicted.
Perhaps Libby is expecting a presidential pardon in 2008?
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