WASHINGTON — Former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense in his perjury trial relies on his contention that he was made a scapegoat to protect White House political strategist Karl Rove from charges of leaking the name of a CIA officer.
But that assertion was dealt a blow Thursday, when jurors were shown videotapes from 2003 of White House spokesman Scott McClellan telling reporters that Libby was not the source of the leak.
"There's no evidence of an effort to throw him under the bus," prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald told U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, arguing -- in the absence of the jury -- that the tapes should be played.
Libby is accused of lying to investigators probing whether government officials illegally disclosed the identity of CIA arms-proliferation specialist Valerie Plame in the summer of 2003, soon after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence in Iraq.
His lawyers have told the jury that Libby, who was then chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, feared he was being made a scapegoat to shield Rove, one of President Bush's most trusted advisors, from legal problems.
But that argument, Fitzgerald told Walton on Thursday, was undercut by the fact that McClellan told reporters that Libby wasn't involved in the leak. Over the objections of Libby's lawyers, Walton allowed the prosecution to play brief excerpts of the tapes.
McClellan ardently defended the White House during a series of briefings in early October 2003. At the time, the Justice Department was just beginning a criminal investigation into the leak, and questions were swirling about the possible involvement of administration insiders. McClellan initially told reporters that Rove had engaged in no misconduct, but the spokesman declined to be drawn into a discussion of the possible roles of others.
Libby, his lawyers have said, saw that initial reluctance as a sign that unnamed officials were conspiring to have him take the fall so Rove would emerge unscathed. Libby complained to Cheney, the lawyers have said, and a few days later McClellan changed his message, exonerating Libby and a third White House official as well as Rove.
"I spoke with those individuals ... and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," McClellan told reporters Oct. 10. When asked what "this" was, he replied: "The leaking of classified information."
