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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Ex-official says Libby revealed agent’s identity


Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer leaves the U.S.  Courthouse in Washington on Monday. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Amy Goldstein and Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post

WASHINGTON – Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer testified Monday that Lewis “Scooter” Libby divulged Valerie Plame’s identity to him in July 2003, three days before Libby has told investigators he first learned of the undercover CIA officer.

Fleischer’s narrative of Libby’s disclosures over a lunch table in a White House dining room made President Bush’s former spokesman the most important prosecution witness to date in the week-old perjury trial of Vice President Dick Cheney’s one-time chief of staff.

Though a series of government officials already have told the jury that Libby eagerly sought information about a prominent critic of the Iraq war, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, Fleischer was the first witness to say Libby then passed on what he learned: that Wilson’s wife was a CIA officer who had sent him on a trip to Africa. Wilson’s mission there was to explore reports, ultimately proven false, that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material in Niger.

Fleischer, testifying under an immunity agreement with the prosecution, also made clear that Libby had told him Wilson’s wife held a position in the CIA’s counterproliferation division, where most employees work in a covert capacity.

Fleischer said he believes Libby mentioned Plame’s name, although he told the jury he could not be sure.

The unusual spectacle of a president’s top spokesman testifying in open court widened the rare view the trial is providing the jury – and the public – of the inner workings of a White House that has guarded its privacy.

Libby is charged with lying to FBI agents and a grand jury as well as obstructing justice in a federal investigation of who revealed Plame’s name to journalists, including columnist Robert Novak, who first published it July 14. He is not charged with the leak itself, which administration critics have contended was designed to discredit Wilson’s argument that the White House was twisting his findings as it justified the invasion of Iraq.

Libby has pleaded not guilty to all five felony counts. He told investigators he learned about Plame’s identity during a telephone call July 10, 2003, with NBC’s Washington bureau chief, Tim Russert. He and his lawyers contend he did not remember the conversations he had with reporters about Plame amid his national security work.