Fleischer: Libby talked of CIA officer during lunch
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
10:39 AM PST, January 29, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Testifying at the perjury and obstruction trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said today that Libby told him that the wife of an administration war critic worked at the CIA during a lunch in the White House mess one day after the critic went public with his concerns.
Fleischer recounted for the 12-person jury how he had initially refused to speak with a grand jury about the case in 2004. The government introduced a court filing showing that he been given a grant of immunity so long as he told the truth.
Fleischer's testimony is key because the government is trying to prove that Libby knew about former CIA operative Valerie Plame earlier than he told investigators and a grand jury.
Plame's husband, former envoy Joseph C. Wilson IV, wrote an op-ed article in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, in which he accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence.
The next day, Libby and Fleischer had a previously scheduled lunch, which Fleischer said was called to mark the fact that he was about to leave the White House. He said the men discussed his plans for working in the private sector and a shared interest in the Miami Dolphins football team.
The subject then turned to the then raging controversy over Wilson and allegations that the vice president's office had been involved in sending Wilson to Africa to assess claims that Iraq was seeking nuclear weapons material in Niger — claims that Wilson alleged proved that the administration was misleading the public about the march to war. Fleischer was then being asked by the press for reaction to the article.
Over lunch, Libby "reiterated that the vice president did not send Ambassador Wilson to Niger, which I had heard previously from his staff," Fleischer said. "He then went on to continue to say that Ambassador Wilson was sent by his wife, and that his wife works at the CIA," Fleischer said.
He added that he recalled that Libby told him she worked in the agency's arms proliferation division and that Libby mentioned her by name.
Fleischer said he had no reason to believe that Plame was an undercover operative and said that the conversation was not preceded by the normal warnings when he is about to be briefed on classified information.
Fleischer described Libby's tone as "very matter of fact," but he also indicated that the information was not widely known and was "hush, hush," and that it was being offered to him on "the q.t."
The information "was news to me" and was "the first time I had ever heard it," Fleischer said.
Also this morning, a former spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney, Cathie Martin, concluded her testimony.
Testifying last week, Martin described how Cheney and Libby were involved in directing strategy to rebut Wilson, including the allegation that Cheney had authorized and knew about his African fact-finding trip.
Under questioning by the defense, Martin said that she was never told by Cheney or Libby to make an issue of Wilson's wife's employment at the CIA in building the rebuttal case.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald showed that Martin may have been kept in the dark on a number of moves that Libby was taking without her knowledge. These included discussing the case with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on several occasions.
rick.schmitt@latimes.com |
