Libby won’t argue Bush ordered leak of agent’s name

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An indicted former White House aide
does not contend that President George W. Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney ordered him to leak the name of a CIA
officer whose husband criticized the administration’s Iraq
policies, the aide’s lawyers said.

A court filing by Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s defense team
argues that CIA officer Valerie Plame was not foremost on the
minds of Bush administration officials as they sought to rebut
charges by her husband, Joseph Wilson, that they manipulated
intelligence to make a case for invading Iraq.

“Mr. Libby plans to demonstrate that the indictment is
wrong when it suggests that he and other government officials
viewed Ms. Wilson’s role in sending her husband to Africa as
important,” said the filing late Wednesday night.

Wilson investigated for the CIA an administration claim
that Iraq had tried to buy uranium, a potential nuclear-weapons
ingredient, in Africa, and he later wrote that the charges
could not be substantiated.

Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, is charged with
lying to investigators as they sought to determine whether
Bush-administration officials broke the law by disclosing
Plame’s identity.

Prosecutors said in court filing last week that Bush and
Cheney ordered Libby to share a classified report with
journalists to rebut Wilson’s charges against the
administration.

Bush has acknowledged declassifying the information,
prompting charges of hypocrisy from Democrats who say he has
denounced some leaks while encouraging others.

In the court filing, Libby’s lawyers said they did not
intend to argue that he was ordered to reveal Plame’s identity.

“Consistent with his grand jury testimony, Mr. Libby does
not contend that he was instructed to make any disclosures
concerning Ms. Wilson by President Bush, Vice President Cheney,
or anyone else,” the filing said, using Plame’s married name.

Libby’s trial is scheduled for January 2007.

Libby’s lawyers said they would call senior Bush adviser
Karl Rove, who remains under investigation in the leak case, to
testify. Prosecutors had previously said they no longer
intended to call Rove.

Libby’s lawyers have pushed prosecutors to share a wide
range of documents they have collected during the
investigation, including top-secret intelligence reports.

In Wednesday’s filing, they argued for material from the
State Department and the CIA in order to portray the debate
taking place over intelligence on Iraq.

“This bureaucratic infighting provides necessary context
for the testimony of witnesses from different government
agencies,” the filing said.