Court Dubious on Libby's Document Request

[cal04]

Records on Wilson Trip Irrelevant, Judge Says

A federal judge dealt a setback to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense in the CIA leak case yesterday, telling the former vice presidential aide's attorneys that he is likely to deny their request for a vast trove of government
documents. At a hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton did not formally deny Libby's request for all records related to a 2002 trip by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger. But he said the material is not directly relevant to the case and could only distract the jury.

"I'm just not going to let this case turn into a judicial resolution of the legitimacy of the war or the accuracy of the president's State of the Union address," Walton said. Walton's reference was to the "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, in which he cited British intelligence reports that Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger for use in developing nuclear weapons.

Wilson, a former diplomat in Niger, was sent to the African nation on a fact-finding trip by the CIA in 2002. After no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, he charged publicly that he had returned from Niger with evidence contradicting the Bush administration's belief that Iraq had sought to buy uranium there but that he was ignored.

Libby is charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to federal investigators during special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's probe of an alleged effort by the White House to disclose the identity of Wilson's wife, undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame, to discredit Wilson's claims

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/05/AR2006050501379.html

[babylonsister]

1. Libby's losing his legs to stand on!

:toast: