(Apparently, the following story is big news to everyone except the Washington press corps, who skipped their chance to ask Scott McClellan about it in the press briefing today...)
Murray Waas of the National Journal and others are reporting that Scooter Libby has testified at his obstruction of justie trial that President Bush authorized the leak of classified information on Iraq that ultimately led to the disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity. More:
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to the court papers. Libby was said to have testified that such presidential authorization to disclose classified information was "unique in his recollection," the court papers further said.
Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that Bush, by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, had in effect declassified the information. Legal experts disagree on whether the president has the authority to declassify information on his own.
The White House had no immediate reaction to the court filing.
Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war.
In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack," a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war.
Bush and Cheney authorized the release of the information regarding the NIE in the summer of 2003, according to court documents, as part of a damage-control effort undertaken only days after former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged in an op-ed in The New York Times that claims by Bush that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger were most likely a hoax.
According to the court papers, "At some point after the publication of the July 6 Op Ed by Mr. Wilson, Vice President Cheney, [Libby's] immediate supervisor, expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."
Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA officer at the time, and Cheney, Libby, and other Bush administration officials believed that Wilson's allegations could be discredited if it could be shown that Plame had suggested that her husband be sent on the CIA-sponsored mission to Niger.
Two days after Wilson's op-ed, Libby met with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and not only disclosed portions of the NIE, but also Plame's CIA employment and potential role in her husband's trip.
Regarding that meeting, Libby "testified that he was specifically authorized in advance... to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller" because Vice President Cheney believed it to be "very important" to do so, the court papers filed Wednesday said. The New York Sun reported the court filing on its Web site early Thursday. ...
Read the whole thing. Long but worth it.
According to CNN's version, the documents released today don't specifically show Bush authorized the leak of Plame's identity, but:
... But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.
So where does this go next? Scooter has now blamed Colin Powell, Dick Armitage, reporters like Tim Russert and Matt Cooper, Vice President Cheney and his own faulty memory for the leak. Now having dragged in the president, he's got no higher to clime on the blame ladder. Libby appears to be flailing. Very interesting to see where this goes next.
Update: Steve Clemons of The Washington Note credits the NY Sun's Josh Gerstein with actually being the first to break this story. Here's the link to his article. Writes Gerstein:
A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.
The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr. Bush violated any law or rule. However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter.
What is important to recognize now, however, is that our secrecy-obsessed President got cavalier with state secrets and sent his staff to pump cherry-picked material into the nation's biggest and most respected news operations.
I have not read the statute carefully about whether the President has the automatic ability, in his person, to declassify material and authorize its release. That needs to be looked into.
In the Plame case, Bush said that he would fire anyone involved with leaking national security information. I can hear Jon Stewart asking the key question tonight, "So President Bush, do you plan to fire yourself?"
This thing is all over the place by now. Reuters, Bloomberg, etc. etc. etc. picking up the story. TV still to come.
Update: ThinkProgress also has the scoop on Scooter Libby's apparent entreaties to Scott McClellan to put out some press spin that would exonerate him. The plea came in the form of a handwritten note, since turned over to the grand jury, that apparently was the basis for McClellan's now-infamous statement during the Octover 10, 2003 press WH briefing that he had spoken to "the individuals" (Karl Rove, Libby and Iran Contra alum Eliott Abrams) and that they had assured him "they were not involved in" the Plame leak.
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
