CIA leaked info case 'complex'
13/04/2006 07:48  - (SA)  

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Libby lawyers subpoena Times Web search names CIA workers Cheney 'authorised CIA leak' 'CIA did illegal things in EU'

Toni Locy

Washington - Lawyers for a former top White House aide have accused a prosecutor of trying to "have it both ways" by playing up President George W Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney's role in leaking intelligence on Iraq to reporters but refusing to turn over evidence in the case.

In a court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for I Lewis "Scooter" Libby said the criminal case stemming from the leak of a CIA officer's identity is much broader and no longer deals solely with Cheney's former chief of staff, as Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald contends.

Last week, Fitzgerald revealed that Bush cleared the way for Cheney to authorise Libby to counter administration critics on Iraq by leaking previously classified intelligence information to reporters.

Libby, 55, was charged last October with lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned and when he subsequently told reporters about CIA officer Valerie Plame. He faces trial in January 2007 on five counts of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice.

Does not only involve Libby

Plame's identity as a CIA operative was published in July 2003 by columnist Robert Novak after her husband, former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of twisting intelligence about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium yellowcake in Niger to justify going to war. The year before, the CIA had sent Wilson to Niger to determine the accuracy of the uranium reports.

Libby's lawyers said in Wednesday's filing that Fitzgerald, with his revelations about Bush and Cheney, set off "an avalanche of media interest" that shows "that this case is factually complex and that the government's notion that it involves only Mr Libby and (the office of the vice-president) is a fairy tale."

Fitzgerald and Libby's lawyers are fighting over a defence request for a wide assortment of documents that may be at the White House, State Department and the CIA. Libby's lawyers said Fitzgerald has collected hundreds of thousands of documents but given the defence only about six boxes, or 14 000 pages of records.

- AP

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