Defense won’t call Libby, Cheney to testify

WASHINGTON – The lawyer for Lewis “Scooter” Libby said Tuesday that he would rest his defense of the former White House aide without calling Libby, or his former boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, to testify.

The lawyer, Theodore Wells, told a judge that he had advised Libby on Tuesday not to take the stand in the perjury trial, and that Libby had followed his advice.

Wells said he had also told Cheney’s lawyer that he did not intend to call the vice president, who was scheduled to testify Thursday.

Wells said he planned to finish presenting evidence in the case as soon as today.

The decision to call neither Libby nor Cheney means an abrupt end to the trial.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said he expected closing arguments by the lawyers in the case to be next Tuesday, after which the case would go to the jury.

Earlier Tuesday, a one-time aide to Libby said Libby periodically demonstrated “an awful memory” and would forget the source of briefings he received on important policy issues.

Testifying for the defense at Libby’s perjury trial, John Hannah also said Libby was actively dealing with a broad range of national security issues throughout the time that the government alleges that Libby and others were focused on an administration war critic and his wife.

Hannah, who succeeded Libby as Cheney’s top national security aide in 2005, is among a series of witnesses that Libby’s lawyers are calling in an attempt to show that Libby was concerned with more important matters than CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Libby is charged with lying to investigators probing how the identity of Plame, an arms-proliferation analyst, became public in July 2003. His lawyers contend that weighty affairs of state might have fogged his memory in answering questions about discussions he had with journalists about Wilson’s wife.

Hannah testified that Libby was immersed in a host of life-and-death issues from the war in Iraq to the nuclear threat posed by Iran to potential terror attacks on the U.S.

He also said that Libby, at times, had a famously bad memory.

“On certain things, Scooter just had an awful memory,” he said.

The testimony could buttress the defense’s view that Libby did not intentionally lie to investigators and a grand jury.

Libby was the only person charged in the wake of a three-year federal investigation of Plame’s outing.

Wilson accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence, in a July 6, 2003, op-ed piece in the New York Times. Eight days later, Plame’s name and job were revealed in a column by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

The trial has revealed that Libby and Cheney were focused on Wilson and discrediting him and some of the claims he had made, which they viewed as unfair or erroneous. Several administration officials acknowledged in testimony Monday that they spoke with reporters about Wilson’s wife in June and July 2003.

Hannah and others who worked with Libby are essentially being offered as surrogates to discuss Libby’s workload.

Hannah is expected to be followed by CIA employees who provided Libby and Cheney with morning intelligence briefings.