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Cheney told top aide of CIA officer: report
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff first learned about the CIA officer at the center of a leak investigation in a conversation with Cheney weeks before her identity became public in July 2003, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Notes of the conversation between chief of staff Lewis Libby and Cheney on June 12, 2003, put a spotlight on the vice president's possible role in the leak. The account also appears to run counter to Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he first learned about the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, from reporters.
Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor investigating the leak of Plame's identity, is said by lawyers involved in the case to be considering bringing charges against Libby for making false statements and possibly obstruction of justice.
Another possible target for indictment is Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser. Fitzgerald's announcement is expected later this week.
Plame's identity was leaked to the media after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence on Iraq. Wilson based the criticism in part on a CIA-sponsored mission he made to Africa in 2002 to check out an intelligence report that Iraq sought uranium from Niger.
Cheney's office had sought more information about the uranium deal, prompting the CIA to dispatch Wilson.
Eager to distance the vice president from Wilson's mission and findings, Cheney's office began looking into Wilson's background in May or June of 2003, after details of his mission began to appear in the press but well before he came out publicly in July 2003 with his criticisms, people close to the investigation said.
Libby's notes indicate that Cheney got his information about Plame from George Tenet, who was then the CIA director, according to the Times, which attributed its report to lawyers involved in the case.
According to the Times, the notes do not show that Cheney knew the name of Wilson's wife. But they do show that Cheney did know and told Libby that she was employed by the CIA and that she may have helped arrange her husband's trip.
Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Randall Samborn, Fitzgerald's spokesman, declined to comment.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride would only say, "We're cooperating fully, as the president and the vice president directed us."
A former intelligence official close to Tenet said the former CIA director has not been in touch with Fitzgerald's staff for over 15 months and was not asked to testify before the grand jury.
"Mr. Tenet does not wish to make any comments regarding an ongoing investigation," the former intelligence official said.
Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor investigating the leak of Plame's identity, is said by lawyers involved in the case to be considering bringing charges against Libby for making false statements and possibly obstruction of justice.
Another possible target for indictment is Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser. Fitzgerald's announcement is expected later this week.
Plame's identity was leaked to the media after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence on Iraq. Wilson based the criticism in part on a CIA-sponsored mission he made to Africa in 2002 to check out an intelligence report that Iraq sought uranium from Niger.
Cheney's office had sought more information about the uranium deal, prompting the CIA to dispatch Wilson.
Eager to distance the vice president from Wilson's mission and findings, Cheney's office began looking into Wilson's background in May or June of 2003, after details of his mission began to appear in the press but well before he came out publicly in July 2003 with his criticisms, people close to the investigation said.
Libby's notes indicate that Cheney got his information about Plame from George Tenet, who was then the CIA director, according to the Times, which attributed its report to lawyers involved in the case.
According to the Times, the notes do not show that Cheney knew the name of Wilson's wife. But they do show that Cheney did know and told Libby that she was employed by the CIA and that she may have helped arrange her husband's trip.
Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Randall Samborn, Fitzgerald's spokesman, declined to comment.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride would only say, "We're cooperating fully, as the president and the vice president directed us."
A former intelligence official close to Tenet said the former CIA director has not been in touch with Fitzgerald's staff for over 15 months and was not asked to testify before the grand jury.
"Mr. Tenet does not wish to make any comments regarding an ongoing investigation," the former intelligence official said.
For more information:
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle....
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Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.
The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, 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 they showed that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.
Mr. Libby's notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson's 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 Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. 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 Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, would not comment on Mr. Libby's legal status. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, declined to comment on the case.
Mr. Fitzgerald is expected to decide whether to bring charges in the case by Friday, when the term of the grand jury expires. Mr. 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 publicly known whether other officials also face indictment.
The notes help explain the legal difficulties facing Mr. Libby. Lawyers in the case said Mr. Libby testified to the grand jury that he had first heard from journalists that Ms. Wilson may have had a role in dispatching her husband on a C.I.A.-sponsored mission to Africa in 2002 in search of evidence that Iraq had acquired nuclear material there for its weapons program.
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