http://villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/002021.php<snip>
I. Lewis Libby, as assistant to the president, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney and assistant to the vice president for National Security Affairs, was indisputably one of the most powerful officials in the administration. By all accounts, he is a savvy, experienced and careful lawyer who sweated the details and was prudently risk-averse and wily in the ways of dealing with the media.
He has now resigned in disgrace and is charged with the crimes of obstructing justice by lying to the FBI and the grand jury. Prosecutor Fitzgerald has charged him with these crimes for allegedly falsely testifying that he learned of a CIA agent’s identity from reporters rather than from the vice president and other senior administration officials.
If Libby lied, why would he? The prosecutor unknowingly answered that question at his press conference. He said
if the reporters testified when they were issued subpoenas in August 2004, “we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005.”
October 2004 was a mere month before the presidential election on Nov. 2, 2004. Amazingly, in all the timelines of the leak investigations, there is no mention of the presidential election in November 2004 or that the basis for the war in Iraq was a key issue in that election.
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