From: "Rich Gauszka" 


http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0406061libby1.html

PRIL 6--A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal
grand jury that President George W. Bush authorized him to leak information
from a classified intelligence report to a New York Times reporter. Details
of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's testimony were included in a court
filing made yesterday by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is
prosecuting Libby for perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false
statements in connection with the probe into the leaking of CIA agent
Valerie Plame's identity. According to Fitzgerald's filing, an excerpt of
which you'll find below, Libby, 55, testified in 2003 that he provided
reporter Judith Miller with information from a classified National
Intelligence Estimate after being told by Cheney that Bush
"specifically had authorized" him to "disclose certain
information in the NIE." Libby also testified that Cheney specifically
directed him to speak to other reporters about information in the
classified NIE (which addressed Iraq's purported weapons of mass
destruction programs) as well as a cable authored by Plame's husband,
former ambassador Joseph Wilson. The leaking of the classified material was
apparently done in an effort to counter claims made by Wilson regarding the
White House's justification for invading Iraq. The Fitzgerald filing also
notes that Libby told grand jurors that he conferred with David Addington,
Cheney's counsel, about the leak directive and that Addington told him
"that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document
amounted to a declassification of the document." While both Bush and
Cheney have been interviewed by Fitzgerald, it is unknown whether they
confirmed or disputed Libby's assertion that he was authorized to disclose
findings in classified reports. Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff,
resigned his White House post last October following his indictment on five
felony counts. (7 pages)

Plamegate aficionados: Click here for PDF of entire 39-page Fitzgerald filing

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