Tuesday, January 23, 2007

"MR. LIBBY DID NOT LEAK...RICHARD ARMITAGE DID."   [Byron York]

Attorney Ted Wells has finished the first part of his opening argument in the Libby case, and the court is now on a lunch break.  Wells repeated again and again that Libby believed he was being set up by Karl Rove and the White House for the blame over the "16 words" controversy and the revealing of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity.  

Wells also covered the issue of Mrs. Wilson's status at the CIA.  "As I stand here, I can't tell you whether she was or whether she wasn't," Wells said, referring to the question of her covert status.  "Judge Walton has decided it's irrelevant, so we're not going to get into it…There will be newspaper articles that suggest she was, but that's just background, because the way you get the facts is on the witness stand.  No one is to assume that she was classified, no one is to assume that she was covert.  That issue has been put out of bounds by Judge Walton, and we accept his ruling."

Wells stressed that Libby did not know Mrs. Wilson's status and didn't leak to Robert Novak.  "Libby had no knowledge that Valerie Wilson's job status was classified," Wells said.  "No witness will say that they told Scooter Libby before July 14 that Mrs. Wilson had a classified or a covert job."  

"Mr. Libby did not leak to Robert Novak," Wells continued.  "Richard Armitage did….As the prosecutor said on his opening, there is no dispute that Mr. Libby was not — not — the source for Robert Novak.  The source for Robert Novak was Richard Armitage, who worked at the State Department." Wells said that Libby was mad that "people were implying that he was involved in something that he was not."

Finally, Wells challenged one Fitzgerald charge by saying it concerns conversations that occurred after Novak's column was written.  "One of the things you will learn is that although everyone talks about the Novak article being published on July 14, and that's when Mrs. Wilson's identity was made public, you will learn from the evidence that the business records show Mr. Novak had completed the article by July 11," Wells said.  "He sent it to a company whose job was to send the article out to various newsrooms and media outlets…You will learn that the records show that the Novak article is actually sent to over 85 newspapers on the 11th, so this so-called secret that Mrs. Wilson worked at the CIA, it is on July 11 that the information is in approximately 85 newsrooms…including the Washington Post…Mr. Libby, you'll learn, has been charged with conversations on the 12th — conversations that are after Mr. Novak has written his story and it's sitting in the newsrooms."

01/23 01:03 PMShare