Dick Cheney To Testify In CIA Leak Trial

Reuters
December 19, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney will be called to testify as a defense witness at the trial of his former top aide who is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case, a defense lawyer said on Tuesday. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, is accused of lying to investigators as they sought to find out who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003 after her diplomat husband accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case for invading Iraq.

"We're calling the vice president," defense lawyer Theodore Wells said at a hearing ahead of the trial, which is scheduled to start on January 16. Wells disclosed the defense plan after special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald told U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton that the prosecution did not intend to call Cheney.

"We've cooperated fully in this matter and we'll continue to do so," said Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president, declining further comment on the proceedings. Cheney would be the most eagerly anticipated witness of the trial, which is expected to last up to six weeks with testimony likely from a number of other current or former top administration officials. Both Cheney and President George W. Bush were interviewed by prosecutors as part of the investigation by Fitzgerald into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's identity to the news media. In May, Fitzgerald said in court papers that Cheney could be called to testify because his hand-written notes appeared on a July 6, 2003, article written by Plame's husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, that accused the administration of twisting intelligence before the war in Iraq.

Fitzgerald gave no explanation at the hearing of why he had decided not to call Cheney as a prosecution witness. According to the indictment, Libby learned from Cheney himself on June 12, 2003, that Wilson's wife worked in the counterproliferation division of the CIA. Libby has pleaded not guilty to the five counts that accuse him of obstructing justice, perjury and lying. His main defense is that he was so busy in Cheney's office working on important national security issues that he simply did not remember all details of his conversations with reporters about Plame.