WSJ (Sat): Plame Leak Grew Out of a "Highly Organized Admin Effort"

[kpete]

Prosecutor: Plame Leak Grew Out of a “Highly Organized Administration Effort”...

Libby Prosecutor
Outlines Effort
At High Levels

Fitzgerald Aims to Show
An Organized Plan Led
To Leak of CIA Agent's Name
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO
April 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The special prosecutor trying the case against former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis Libby will try to show that the leaking of a CIA agent's name grew out of a highly organized administration effort that commanded high-level attention, a court filing this week shows.

Pretrial filings by Mr. Libby's defense team indicate they intend to argue that any misstatements made in Mr. Libby's testimony to investigators and a grand jury were innocent mistakes because of his focus on more pressing national-security issues. They are seeking a wide array of classified and sensitive information they say is necessary for trial, including secret daily intelligence briefings given to the president.

This week's filing by Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, was intended to convince the judge to deny the defense's latest request for information. In doing so, the prosecutor also attacked Mr. Libby's bad-memory defense by introducing new information about the attention -- including by President Bush -- placed on responding to Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador and critic of the Iraq war.

............
"Mr. Libby's defense, as we understand it, is that because of his 24-7 national-security responsibilities, he just forgot his conversations with reporters," says Scott Fredericksen, a Washington defense attorney and former prosecutor. "And what Mr. Fitzgerald is telling the judge here is that Mr. Libby was expressly authorized to go have these conversations with reporters by the vice president and authorized to release classified information by the president. That is a unique situation and not very forgettable."

more at:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114443407090120247-e9XMcD7TTAyKnsZ5CRdxjcZIA_E_20060507.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

[Quakerfriend]

1. Excellent. I'm sure that Scooter's detailed diary is quite

helpful, lol!

[kpete]

2. Another good article - From Knight Ridder

Libby testimony shows a White House pattern of intelligence leaks
By Warren P. Strobel and Ron Hutcheson
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The revelation that President Bush authorized former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to divulge classified information about Iraq fits a pattern of selective leaks of secret intelligence to further the administration's political agenda.

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/14291979.htm