Ex-Aide for Darth Vader hurts Libby case

Testimony by Former Cheney Aide Hurts Libby - New York Times January 25, 2007 Testimony by Former Cheney Aide Hurts Libby By NEIL A. LEWIS WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 – Vice President Dick Cheney’s spokeswoman told a jury today that she informed Mr. Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr. , that a prominent war critic’s wife worked for the C.I.A. days before Mr. Libby contended he learned it from a reporter. Cathie Martin, who was Mr. Cheney’s chief spokeswoman, was the fourth witness for the prosecution in the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Mr. Libby, who is charged with lying during an investigation to determine who leaked the name of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. Unlike the previous three witnesses who worked at the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department, Ms. Martin provided an insider’s perspective, one from within the Office of the Vice President. Her testimony under questioning from a federal prosecutor was damaging to Mr. Libby. She testified that both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were intensely interested in Ms. Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had been sent on a mission to Africa by the C.I.A. to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger for his nuclear weapons program. Ms. Martin’s testimony was damaging for Mr. Libby in two respects. She bolstered the prosecution’s assertion that Mr. Libby was fully aware of Ms. Wilson’s identity from a number of administration officials, and did not first learn about her from reporters, as he claims. Perhaps more important, she testified as a former close colleague of Mr. Libby’s, and demonstrated her familiarity with him by repeatedly referring to him by his nickname, “Scooter.” Ms. Martin, who still works at the White House but no longer for Mr. Cheney, described how Mr. Libby had telephoned a senior C.I.A. official in her presence and asked about the Wilson trip. She said she was then put on the phone with Bill Harlow, the C.I.A.’s spokesman, who told her that Mr. Wilson went to Africa on behalf of the agency and that his wife worked there. Some days later, she testified, she told Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the agency. Mr. Libby is facing five felony counts that he lied when he told a grand jury and F.B.I. agents that he learned of Ms. Wilson’s identity from reporters. Her identity was first disclosed in a column by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003, just days after her husband had written a commentary in The New York Times asserting that the Bush administration had distorted intelligence to bolster the case for invading Iraq. Theodore V. Wells Jr., Mr. Libby’s chief lawyer, in his cross-examination of Ms. Martin, had her acknowledge that she had not listened fully to a telephone conversation with Matthew Cooper, then of Time Magazine, on July 12. It was in that conversation that Mr. Libby is charged with having told Mr. Cooper about Ms. Wilson.