Truthout: A Battle Over "Powerful Evidence" at Libby Trial

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A Battle Over "Powerful Evidence" at Libby Trial
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Monday 05 February 2007

As Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald gets ready to wrap up the government's perjury and obstruction of justice case against former vice presidential staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, he is fighting to introduce two "powerful" pieces of evidence he says will help convince the jury that Libby deliberately lied to federal investigators about how and when he discovered the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and whether he leaked the information to reporters.

Fitzgerald wants the jury to see two articles from the Washington Post, dated October 4 and 12, 2003, which his investigators obtained from Libby's personal files. The articles in question, written by Washington Post reporters Walter Pincus and Mike Allen, are damaging to Libby's defense, Fitzgerald said, because they contain specific passages that Libby underlined stating the damage that resulted from Plame's identity becoming public in addition to the possibility that whoever was responsible for the leak may have violated a federal law.

Fitzgerald has argued that the articles with the underlined passages prove Libby feared he was responsible for the damage to national security the leak caused and therefore concocted a story about learning Plame's identity and work with the CIA from Tim Russert, host of "Meet the Press," in order to save his job.

Plame's name was revealed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003, - eight days after her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify war with Iraq. .....(more)

The rest of the article is at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020507J.shtml