Libby's lawyer: 'It's got nothing to do with Wilson's wife'...(WaPo)

[kpete]

Libby's lawyer: 'It's got nothing to do with Wilson's wife'...

Disclosures Are Called Unrelated To Plame Case
Libby's Lawyer Rebuts Special Prosecutor's Filing

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 8, 2006; A01

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Jeffress said Fitzgerald's revelation about Libby's disclosure of information from a CIA National Intelligence Estimate "is a complete sidelight" to his accusation that Libby deliberately lied. "It's got nothing to do with Wilson's wife," Jeffress said in a brief interview, adding that Libby continues to expect to be exonerated at trial.

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"You cannot say that it is unimportant and something you forgot" when the president and vice president were directly involved in a related issue, Sauber said.

The filing also posed challenges yesterday for White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who struggled to reconcile conflicting statements he made about whether and when the government had declassified the sensitive intelligence information at issue.

According to Fitzgerald, Libby testified before a grand jury that President Bush and Cheney authorized the release of that information shortly before Libby's meeting with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003. The information was drawn from the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate prepared by the CIA about Iraq's interest in weapons of mass destruction.

But 10 days later, McClellan told reporters at the White House that the estimate had been "officially declassified today" -- July 18, 2003 -- making no mention of the earlier declassification that Libby described in his sworn testimony. If that statement was correct, reporters pointed out, then the material was still classified at the time Libby disclosed it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040700190_pf.html
via:http://www.rawstory.com/