|
Banned
|
The video report from MSNbc, linked here, if the allegations reported can be proven by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, certainly explain why Libby's trial had to be pushed out past the Nov., 2006 mid-term election. Libby is accused of destroying evidence that implicates Cheney in obstruction of the Plame leak investigation, and Fitzgerald told the jury that he can prove that Cheney was the first person to inform Libby that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/23/cheney-libby-trial/
In his opening statement, Libby's lawyer tells the jury that the white house:
Quote:
Libby Repeatedly Lied to Conceal CIA Leak, Prosecutor Says
By Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 23, 2007; 1:12 PM
A special prosecutor this morning accused Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff of concocting an elaborate series of lies for federal investigators to conceal that he and Cheney had been actively trying to discredit a powerful critic of the administration's Iraq war policy.
In his opening statement on the first day of trial for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald said Libby first tried to put off agents investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity by saying that reporters had told him about her role. Later, the prosecutor said, Cheney's top aide falsely claimed to have suffered an innocent memory lapse when the probe continued and fellow administration officials and reporters repeatedly contradicted his account.
Fitzgerald framed the criminal charges facing Libby against the backdrop of the summer of 2003, when the Bush administration was under fire for the new war in Iraq and the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that the President claimed made Iraq such a serious threat.
Libby, 56, is accused of five felony counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of the leak investigation, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He is not charged with the disclosure of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity to the media, but Fitzgerald said Libby's lies made it impossible to determine his intentions when he was discussing Plame with reporters.
"How could we reach a point where the chief of staff for the vice president was repeatedly lying to federal investigators?" Fitzgerald rhetorically asked the jurors. "That's what this case is all about."
Fitzgerald said Libby became Cheney's point man in talking to the press and White House to rebut Plame's husband, a former ambassador who publicly raised doubts about President Bush's statements on Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Plame's undercover status was revealed in the political crossfire between the administration, particularly the vice president's office, and the war critic, Joseph C. Wilson IV.
Fitzgerald contended that Libby claimed he learned Plame's identity from NBC's Tim Russert in July 2003, though he actually learned it from Cheney and several other administration officials a month earlier. He told investigators he passed along this information as second-hand gossip to two other reporters, but the two reporters have said Libby provided or confirmed the information for them.
Fitzgerald said Libby's subsequent claims of memory lapses to a grand jury in spring 2004 are implausible. He noted that Libby told the grand jury he felt he was learning the information as if it were new when he heard it from Russert on July 10, and had forgotten he heard it first from Cheney and other officials weeks earlier.
But Fitzgerald said Libby was providing that same information to the White House press secretary and New York Times reporters July 7 and 8.
"You can't learn something startling on Thursday that you're giving out Monday and Tuesday of the same week," Fitzgerald said.
Libby's defense attorneys have said the conversations with reporters were so brief and unimportant that Libby didn't focus on them or remember them in detail, and that his attention to pressing national security threats clouded his memory.
As he began his opening statement, Theodore Wells, one of Libby's attorneys, said the case has been exaggerated, and that no witness will say that Libby intentionally lied.
"He gave his best good-faith recollection," Wells said. "Any misstatements by Libby were innocent mistakes."
Wells said Libby complained to Cheney in 2003 that he was being made a "sacrificial lamb" as the White House tried to protect a more valuable aide to Bush, Karl Rove, who was also then facing allegations that he had leaked Plame's identity.
"They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb," Wells said, recalling the conversation between Libby and Cheney. "I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected."
Wells said Libby was unfairly caught up in a probe that took on a life of its own, and a criminal leak was never found. Cheney was properly concerned when Wilson falsely implied that Cheney should have known about Wilson's conclusion that Iraq was not trying to purchase nuclear weapons material.
Libby, he said, was appropriately deputized by a furious Cheney to set the record straight.
"Was he mad?" Wells asked. "You doggone betcha."
Earlier, Fitzgerald said Libby obviously had a very serious job, but rebutting Wilson's stinging criticism was also a priority for him.
"The Wilson controversy was sufficiently important that he made time to deal with the press," Fitzgerald said. "He made time to deal with the Wilson controversy day after day after day."
Before Fitzgerald spoke, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton gave the jurors preliminary instructions about the three kinds of criminal charges that Libby faces and how to determine whether he is guilty.
He also gave jurors some practical advice: Listen closely, get lots of sleep so they won't doze off in court and carefully watch the expressions and demeanor of witnesses to gauge their credibility.
|
Last edited by host; 01-23-2007 at 11:32 AM..
|