[Mb-civic] Disclosures Are Called Unrelated To Plame Case - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Disclosures Are Called Unrelated To Plame Case
Libby's Lawyer Rebuts Special Prosecutor's Filing

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 8, 2006; A01

The revelation of former White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 
involvement in authorized disclosures of sensitive intelligence 
information does not undermine Libby's contention that he innocently 
forgot about conversations he may have had with reporters regarding 
covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, Libby's attorney said yesterday.

The lawyer, William Jeffress, was responding to allegations by Special 
Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in a court filing Wednesday that President 
Bush authorized Libby to disclose classified intelligence information on 
Iraq to a reporter. That was done, Fitzgerald alleged, because an angry 
White House was seeking to discredit Plame's husband, former ambassador 
Joseph C. Wilson IV, who claimed in a July 2003 newspaper article that 
the administration had deliberately distorted intelligence about Iraq.

Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted last 
October on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly 
lying to a grand jury and investigators about his conversations with 
reporters that mentioned Plame's name. Jeffress argued that the 
information in Fitzgerald's filing is irrelevant to Libby's defense: 
that he forgot about those conversations as he dealt with crucial 
national security issues.

Jeffress said Fitzgerald's revelation about Libby's disclosure of 
information from a CIA National Intelligence Estimate "is a complete 
sidelight" to his accusation that Libby deliberately lied. "It's got 
nothing to do with Wilson's wife," Jeffress said in a brief interview, 
adding that Libby continues to expect to be exonerated at trial.

Fitzgerald said in Wednesday's court papers that Libby secretly divulged 
sensitive information to reporters drawn from the previously classified 
NIE about Iraq -- and that Cheney told him Bush had declassified the 
information and authorized the effort.

Fitzgerald's filing was meant specifically to undermine Libby's claim 
that the issue of the CIA's employment of Plame was of "peripheral" 
interest to Libby at the time. He said in the filing that leaks 
regarding Plame were meant to embarrass Wilson by suggesting his wife 
had organized a CIA-sponsored trip by Wilson to probe Iraq's alleged 
purchase of nuclear material -- in short, to suggest his trip resulted 
from nepotism.

Fitzgerald argued, in essence, that the White House effort to rebut 
Wilson's criticism was so intense, and so preoccupying, that Libby could 
not have forgotten what he said about Plame. Fitzgerald also noted that 
Plame's employment was specifically raised as a relevant matter by 
Cheney, who had directed Libby to disclose information from the NIE.

Lawyers who have been closely following the case offered contrasting 
views of the impact Fitzgerald's allegations would have on Libby's defense.

Republican lawyer and former federal prosecutor Joseph E. diGenova said 
"it is not material in any way to what he charged, which is perjury." 
But Richard A. Sauber, a lawyer who represents Time magazine's Matthew 
Cooper, one of the reporters who wrote about Plame after talking to 
Libby, said "the whole thing undercuts Libby's defense that he was too 
busy on other things" to recall the Plame matter.

"You cannot say that it is unimportant and something you forgot" when 
the president and vice president were directly involved in a related 
issue, Sauber said.

The filing also posed challenges yesterday for White House spokesman 
Scott McClellan, who struggled to reconcile conflicting statements he 
made about whether and when the government had declassified the 
sensitive intelligence information at issue.

According to Fitzgerald, Libby testified before a grand jury that 
President Bush and Cheney authorized the release of that information 
shortly before Libby's meeting with New York Times reporter Judith 
Miller on July 8, 2003. The information was drawn from the October 2002 
National Intelligence Estimate prepared by the CIA about Iraq's interest 
in weapons of mass destruction.

But 10 days later, McClellan told reporters at the White House that the 
estimate had been "officially declassified today" -- July 18, 2003 -- 
making no mention of the earlier declassification that Libby described 
in his sworn testimony. If that statement was correct, reporters pointed 
out, then the material was still classified at the time Libby disclosed it.

McClellan yesterday declined to give a detailed explanation for the 
contradiction, explaining that the White House never comments on pending 
investigations. But he also tried to clarify his 2003 remarks to 
reporters, stating that what he meant on July 18 of that year when he 
said the material had been declassified that day was that it was 
"officially released" that day.

"I think that's what I was referring to at the time," he said.

McClellan said he would not comment directly on the report that Bush 
declassified intelligence data to rebut a war critic, but he insisted 
the president has the constitutional right to do so. He also said the 
White House draws a distinction between leaking classified information 
that jeopardizes U.S. sources, methods and lives and disclosing 
sensitive information "when it is in the public interest."

One former administration official, who spoke on the condition of 
anonymity because he was discussing political strategy, said rebutting 
Wilson and other critics was an obsession of Cheney, Libby and many 
others then inside the Bush White House. Other officials said there were 
frequent discussions about declassifying information to buttress the 
Bush argument for war. In several cases, this resulted in release of 
such information, but only after it went through the usual 
declassification process.

The declassification divulged by Fitzgerald was unusual, the prosecutor 
said. Libby testified that he understood that only three officials -- 
Bush, Cheney and Libby -- knew about it. No one outside the White House 
was consulted.

Libby also leaked information from the National Intelligence Estimate to 
Bob Woodward of The Washington Post prior to the date that the White 
House said it was officially declassified. In sworn testimony, Woodward 
told Fitzgerald that on June 27, 2003 -- 11 days before the Libby-Miller 
conversation -- Libby told him about the CIA estimate and an Iraqi 
effort to obtain "yellowcake" uranium in Africa, according to a 
statement Woodward released on Nov. 14, 2005.

In an interview, Woodward said his notes, which were not released 
publicly but were shown to Fitzgerald, included Libby using the word 
"vigorous" to describe the Iraqi effort. Libby used similar language 
when he provided the NIE information Bush declassified to Miller at 
their July 8, 2003, meeting, according to Fitzgerald's filing.

The precise status of the information at the time Libby provided it to 
Woodward is unclear because of conflicting accounts of the 
declassification process provided by Libby and McClellan. Fitzgerald's 
court filing does not provide the date when Bush and Cheney -- who have 
both been interviewed by the special prosecutor -- said they authorized 
Libby's disclosures.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040700190.html?nav=hcmodule
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