How Libby got tangled up in his own web

[struggle4progress]

Federal indictment paints picture of I. Lewis Libby as a man who was determined to discredit vocal critic of adminstration on Iraq

BY CRAIG GORDON
WASHINGTON BUREAU

October 30, 2005


WASHINGTON -- <snip>

<President George W. Bush> bantered with reporters about the baseball playoffs and a state dinner the night before <in October 2003>. When talk turned to the investigation, then just two weeks old, Bush sounded doubtful that whoever revealed Valerie Plame's identity would ever be found. "In all due respect to your profession," Bush told the journalists, "you do a very good job of protecting the leakers." <snip>

But the reporters did talk, under pressure from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and they told a different story from Libby's, according to the account of the case provided by Fitzgerald's indictment.

Libby said it was a reporter who first told him about Plame. But reporters said Libby was the one who told them, and Fitzgerald alleges Libby had already known her identity for a month. <snip>

The indictment also suggests Libby was angry with the CIA because he believed the agency was making critical comments about Cheney's office in an attempt to distance itself from the flawed prewar intelligence. <snip>

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