In Libby's case, it's credibility at issue
WASHINGTON — Former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense in his perjury trial rests largely on the claim that he was too busy with pressing affairs of state to recall minor events such as conversations with reporters about an obscure CIA employee.
But after nine government witnesses testified in federal court here over the last two weeks, a question is emerging: Given all the time and attention the White House devoted in 2003 to CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, how credible is Libby's claim of forgetfulness?
Libby, 56, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, is charged with obstructing a federal investigation into how the identity of Plame became public in the summer of 2003.
Wilson's public criticism of the reasons for the Iraq war spawned what the trial has shown to be a concerted effort by Cheney's office to discredit him. Prosecutors allege that as the administration pushed back, Plame became caught in the crossfire and was exposed.
Libby's lead lawyer, Theodore V. Wells Jr., has painted a defense in broad strokes, portraying Libby as a senior official immersed in life-and-death national security issues who may have been the scapegoat in a White House cover-up.
Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, by contrast, has been methodically building a narrowly focused case that in large part is being made through the testimony of past and present Bush administration insiders.
That has resulted in a rare glimpse into how the White House mobilizes against critics, including an account of how, contrary to claims it made at the time, Cheney's public relations machinery was operating full-throttle to rebut the questions Wilson was raising about Iraq's supposed nuclear weapons capabilities.
Experts said the fact that Cheney's office was attaching such importance to the issue would suggest it was the sort of thing not easily forgotten.
The government case "turns on showing that the need to link Wilson to the CIA was a high priority for Libby and the kind of thing that he would not forget about and that he would not want to be candid to investigators about," said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor and a professor at Fordham law school. "The government has been making a strong case for that."
